I’ve read ReadyMade magazine plenty of times before. I’ve flipped through its pages of advice, how-to manuals, profiles of crafty people—both male and female—around the world doing innovative things with clothes, old appliances, defunct electronics, home decor, wardrobes, etc. From turning light bulbs into salt and pepper shakers, to constructing your own drive-in movie theatre, to making artwork out of seeds in your backyard—the magazine is geared toward anyone of any gender with a creative zeal.

 

So why, then, when I walked into the nearest bookstore a couple weeks ago to catch up on my magazine reading did I instinctually head to the women’s interest section to find ReadyMade? It was automatic. Crafts = feminine hobby = women’s interest. After spending an embarassing amount of time scanning and rescanning the women’s interest section, shamefully oblivious to my feminist faux pas, I finally found ReadyMade among the arts and culture magazines. More than appropriate, I’d say.

 

Perhaps I immediately made that connection because the Women’s Interest publications are the first ones Barnes & Noble visitors see upon entering the magazine section. The current events rack is physically first in the order of presentation, but it’s tucked away around the floating promotional stands, out of immediate view. After all, an open expanse of corn fields isn’t quite as stimulating as the air-brushed face of some well-groomed star. It just doesn’t draw the crowds. (It’s not just because he has all but clinched the nomination or is the most exciting candidate this country has seen in years that Barack Obama’s face has found itself on the cover of practically every major publication in recent months, from TIME to Rolling Stone.)

 

I suppose this strategic magazine placement could be because women read more magazines than men. Is that even true? Maybe it’s just that women are more public about such reading habits, are encouraged by the slew of wedding, diet, fashion and gossip publications that overflow from every magazine stand in every (non-independent) bookstore, coaxing them to indulge in these interests. But where do such interests come from? Are they instinctual, or merely the product of social construction? It’s the same old question: which way does the causation arrow really point?

 

I admit that as much as I support the razing of silly, societal barriers like those pertaining to gender, I often bow down to propriety and stop short of acting on my theories. It’s just my style. My high-school self would cringe at phrasing it this way, but I’m more the cheerleader than the jock when it comes to such societal fuckery. For instance, in my slightly salacious recounting of eating a really good steak a couple of weeks ago, I hardly gave any thought to what gender I should make the steak. Big hunk of meat = masculine. It just made sense. Well, I’ve been living in West Hollywood for the past two months, so it makes less sense now than ever before. Nevertheless, that’s where my mind “naturally” goes. The opportunity to make the steak female was but a fleeting and unimposing thought when I was composing my little review. It wasn’t until I laid down in bed later that night that I gave proper consideration to what I had done. Or I suppose more importantly, what I hadn’t done.

 

NPR aired a short synopsis of Simone de Beauvoir’s career and personal life last week, focusing specifically on her seminal work, The Second Sex. It’s a text which I added to my long list of “Must Reads” quite some time ago, and which I’ve heard plenty of things about, but never have worked through myself. (Probably because I’ve spending too much time in that magazine section lately – how girly of me, though I assure you I stay away from the gossip and wedding sections.) But 2008 marks the centenary of de Beauvoir’s birth, which is the occasion for NPR’s segment. And I’m listening closely, ready to be re-wired, and to do some re-wiring of my own.