{"id":1489,"date":"2020-11-11T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T10:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websites.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/?p=1489"},"modified":"2020-11-10T16:44:07","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T16:44:07","slug":"honey-im-home-a-review-of-trixie-and-katyas-guide-to-modern-womanhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/2020\/11\/11\/honey-im-home-a-review-of-trixie-and-katyas-guide-to-modern-womanhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Honey, I\u2019m Home: A Review of Trixie and Katya\u2019s Guide to Modern Womanhood<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alli Armijo \/\/ Blog Writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes you you<\/em>? What is it that makes a woman a woman? If such existential questions as these keep you up at night, drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova have got just the book for you. Trixie and Katya\u2019s Guide to Modern Womanhood <\/em>touches on all prominent aspects of the \u201cfemale\u201d experience, dissecting what it means to be a woman in today\u2019s world. Modeled after an antiquated etiquette book Mattel read when she was younger, the book simultaneously mocks and embraces the concept of \u201cwomanhood.\u201d It is divided into three sections\u2014Beauty and Style, Homemaking, and Relationships\u2014using thinly veiled sarcasm to give the reader insight into how to be a woman and how to do so flawlessly. Who better to write a self-help book on womanhood than two drag queens who are self-proclaimed women?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the things I think is so interesting about this book is that two drag queens, arguably the paragon of beauty and makeup standards today, frame their advice in a way that says, \u201cyou better listen to us,\u201d in one ear, while whispering, \u201cwhy would you take what we have to say seriously?\u201d in the other. For instance, in \u201cPart 1: Beauty and Style,\u201d the two queens touch on everything from personal hygiene to drug and alcohol abuse, all while asking pressing questions such as whether stilettos or cutouts are the more provocative heel (stilettos, of course, but don\u2019t discount a good peep toe: everyone loves a shoe with cleavage). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their anecdotes are silly and hyperbolic but equally sage and intelligent. This concept\u2014radical sarcasm underlining a progressive idea of identity and its social construction\u2014is what drew me to the book. I am obsessed with how drag confronts social norms. Trixie and Katya use their platform to give qualified advice that is currently, at least in the eyes of a more traditional audience, unqualified. But who cares what they think? Let the drag queens speak!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left to right: Trixie Mattel and Katya<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In general, I am drawn to drag because it challenges and distorts so many antiquated cultural ideals that people still embrace today. I think that one of the main functions of drag, at least in a social context, is to both mock and exaggerate identity. Drag is inherently political in that sense: it confronts stereotypes of femininity with humor, indirectly pointing out how absurd and outdated perceptions of \u201cwhat it means to be a woman\u201d are. Trixie and Katya tell us that being a woman is not purely biological: it is emotional and spiritual, too. By offering advice through the form of an old-fashioned self-help book, Trixie and Katya frustrate the domestic culture surrounding femininity in a way that challenges the perception of women, especially as they were portrayed in the \u201950s and \u201960s. However, the book does not strictly focus on topics that mock domestic housewife culture: it touches on a little bit of everything, ranging from how to declutter your home to how to hook up and feel refreshed the next morning. I think the message here is that womanhood is not meant to be exclusive\u2014or maybe it is, just not in the traditional sense. I think Trixie and Katya are trying to say that anyone can be a woman: you just have to try hard, fail, and succeed. So basically, you are already on the path to womanhood! Now all you need is this self-help book, one of Trixie\u2019s \u201cspecial\u201d lemonades (don\u2019t worry, the recipe is included in the book, and <\/em>it was nominated for an award, so you know it\u2019s legit), and a good attitude. So get out there\u2014go be a woman!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alli Armijo \/\/ Blog Writer What makes you you? What is it that makes a woman a woman? If such existential questions as these keep you up at night, drag…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1621,"featured_media":1490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-generalinformation","category-opinion","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1509,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions\/1509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}