My Butch Career: A Memoir

by Esther Newton

During her difficult childhood, Esther Newton recalls that she “became an anti-girl, a girl refusenik, caught between genders,” and that her “child body was a strong and capable instrument stuffed into the word ‘girl.’” Later, in early adulthood, as she was on her way to becoming a trailblazing figure in gay and lesbian studies, she “had already chosen higher education over the strongest passion in my life, my love for women, because the two seemed incompatible.”

In My Butch Career Newton tells the compelling, disarming, and at times sexy story of her struggle to write, teach, and find love, all while coming to terms with her identity during a particularly intense time of homophobic persecution in the twentieth century.

Newton recounts a series of traumas and conflicts, from being molested as a child to her failed attempts to live a “normal,” straight life in high school and college. She discusses being denied tenure at Queens College—despite having written the foundational Mother Camp—and nearly again so at SUNY Purchase. With humor and grace, she describes the influence her father Saul's strong masculinity had on her, her introduction to middle-class gay life, and her love affairs—including one with a well-known abstract painter and another with a French academic she met on a spur of the moment trip to Mexico and with whom she traveled throughout France and Switzerland. By age forty, where Newton's narrative ends, she began to achieve personal and scholarly stability in the company of the first politicized generation of out lesbian and gay scholars with whom she helped create gender and sexuality studies.

Affecting and immediate, My Butch Career is a story of a gender outlaw in the making, an invaluable account of a beloved and influential figure in LGBT history, and a powerful reminder of only how recently it has been possible to be an openly queer academic.

Genres: Memoir, Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT, Lesbian, History, Biography

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 16, 2018

About the author

Esther Newton is currently Term Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, and Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Kempner Distinguished Professor at Purchase College, SUNY. She is the author of Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: Personal Essays, Public Ideas, published by Duke University Press, Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America, coauthor of Womenfriends: A Soap Opera, and coeditor of Amazon Expedition: A Lesbian Feminist Anthology.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a world where we now see gender role transgressions as crimes that can banish us from womanhood (how other many butches have heard that they need to “just transition already”?), stories like this are incredibly important for young lesbians and other gender non-conforming women.

[enoughtohold · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted so badly to like this... It had its moments, and it has value as a historical document and a depressingly rare butch narrative, so my rating reflects that. But it wasn't a very good reading experience. It felt extremely long and rather unfocused, and every so often she'd say something that struck such a sour note with me that I had to put the book down. I'm sad about it.

[Carol Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this memoir, Esther Newton, a pioneer in the field of LGBT studies, tells how she developed her butch identity. She prefers the words dyke and butch to lesbian. She also tells of the difficult time she had as an anthropology graduate student and professor because of her sexuality.

Newton had a complicated childhood. Her mother was unmarried when Esther was born, and it was a long time before Esther learned who her biological father was. The man who played the role of father in her life was a domineering but charming leftist (a former Communist) who was prominent in the field of psychology. He had three other wives after he left her mother. Esther is part Jewish and identifies as secular Jewish. She loved the Jewish, leftist aura of New York City, and was miserable when her mother moved to Palo Alto.

Newton went through years of anguish trying to work out her sexuality. Her adviser at the University of Chicago said she had to wear skirts to be accepted as serious anthropologist! But she unknowingly limited her career by choosing to write her dissertation on drag queens. Though that restricted her choices for employment, it led to her involvement in LGBT studies.

Newton also chronicles her involvement in the early Second Wave and gay movements, and a number of complicated love relationships. She strongly supports butch/femme identification.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an honor to catch a glimpse of this extraordinary, headstrong and even influential woman's experience in an era of much needed social change. As brave as it is enjoyable.

[YL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky and endearing, and a great reminder of how recent feminism(s) are as political/social projects. The chapter on her (Esther's) parisian affair and attempts at writing a novel were for me the most vivid. Perhaps if she had written the novel? Parts of the memoir seemed to refuse...recursive or plumbing introspection. Early on in the memoir, Esther reveals that in their twenties, she and her friend Shirley had identified as divergent personalities -- Shirley the punk,, and Esther the careerist. But by their 30s, Esther had become an out and out lesbian, and Shirley, the wife of a husband and the mother to a son. Seemingly the roles have switched. Yet, and I think the author knows this, there is something careerist about Esther's life going forward, and, I am just conjecturing, probably something rebellious in Shirleys deviations from what Judith Butler would call the matrix of heterosexuality. I would have liked to see this throw away remark explored more, and there are many such remarks in the book, where politics is understood to take precedence over personal difference...characteristics...etc. I understand this was part of the M.O. of second wave feminism, but I would've been interested if some moves could've been made past it!

Nonetheless, a rewarding read, one that I'll return to.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so excited to see this book published! Not only am I interested in the topic of butchness, but I have read some of the author’s books and studied anthropology in the same department. Thus I knew many of the personages that Newton references in her fascinating memoir. It was delicious fun to hear Newton’s take on the feminist times in which I came to adulthood. Her own history is deeply interesting, her childhood, her relationship to Judaism, her coming out. When this book was released, there was a panel discussion at UM on the topic of butchness and its relationship to academic careers. I asked the author why butches seem so despised in the LGBTQ community. Her answer: butches are women who confidently demand and accept the privileges/authority given only to white males in society. Since identity politics focus so heavily on victimhood, it is no wonder that Butches challenge that ideology and therefore become the target of a lot of anger. This book was deeply enjoyable for me — but not surprisingly written from a very academic point of view. Not for everybody.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ten pages into this book, and Newton says:

"Young people do not see being butch as 'transgressive,' but lesbians challenge the gender hierarchy just as much, or more, by staying women. I am opposed to pressure being put on masculine girls and women to 'go all the way' by transitioning."

Automatic DNF. I don't need to read further to discover that she probably also has some f*cked up ideas about trans women, if she has the gall to suggest that anyone is pressured to transition, considering the transphobic society we live in. Way to perpetuate oppression, so-called feminist.

[anarcho-lesbian]

Not going to rate this because it’s a memoir. However, it was very interesting to read about a butch lesbian anthropologist and the many, MANY ways we related to one another (and diverged from one another) throughout this book.

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think that Newton having a slight transphobia moment in the intro turns a lot of people off, but i do think that this is an incredibly important memoir. Mother Camp changed my life trajectory when i discovered it in undergrad and to get a fully picture through this memoir means so much to me.

[celia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reminds me of why I am not fond of memoirs as a genre.

[Maël · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘A gender outlaw in the making’

Author/activist Esther Newton is one of the more highly regarded pioneers of gay and lesbian studies. She has been a Term Professor of Women’s Studies at University of Michigan, Professor of Anthropology at Purchase College, State University of New York, and has published important books including MARGARET MEAD MADE ME GAY: PERSONAL ESSAYS, PUBLIC IDEAS, CHERRY GROVE, FIRE ISLAND: SIXTY YEARS IN AMERICA’S FIRST GAY AND LESBIAN TOWN, and MOTHER CAMP: FEMALE IMPERSONATORS.

In her Introduction Esther sets the tone of her memoir – ‘This is the story of how I came in to this world a “Commie Jew Bastard” – my grandfather’s slur – and became an anthropologist who helped create sexuality and gender studies. That is the career of my title. It also is the story of how I came to see myself as butch, a stigmatized identity quite at odds with the concept of a career. By “butch” I mean an identity as a woman but whose sense of self is deeply rooted in masculinity. This narrative centers on the first half o my life, from childhood to age forty. These were years when I suffered torments, as did most gay people of my generation. We were hated, hounded, arrested, and slandered without being able to answer back…’

Though the reader may feel from these comments that the book will be acerbic and ranting, nothing could be further from the truth. Esther is such a gifted writer that she is able to talk realistically about the trials of gender conflicts while keeping her narrative so rich in humor and tenderness that the overall impact of her book is one of uplifting moments that speak louder that anger.

As she offers in the Prologue, ‘Coming out stories have long been important to queer narratives, and so I invite you to see me as a freshman in college. In a dorm room in Mary Markley Hall at the University of Michigan in the spring of 1959. This first sexual encounter with a woman was bizarrely wonderful and so scary, If Betty Silver, as I’ll call her, had not existed, I would not have been able to make her up.’

With many photographs to illustrate her memoir Esther leads us through her life and the journey is a complete pleasure – tender, hilarious, sad, and affirming. This is another important work by a gifted and valuable giant in the world of gender studies. Highly recommended.

[Coepi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and wish it was more widely known and accessible (I was only able to read it through my university's subscription). It's very readable and interesting and gave me quite a lot of insight into lesbian history. Also, I had fun spotting references to anthropologists I know of (Sherry Ortner, David Schneider, etc) and hearing abut what they were like as people.

My one critique of My Butch Career would be that the ending feels a little abrupt - there's not a lot of tying up loose ends and so on, it just... stops. Still, I suppose that's sometimes how autobiography goes. It also wasn't nearly enough of a problem to undermine how much I liked this book overall and would heartily recommend it.

[Brig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words can not describe my love for this book. Esther Newton is a genius. She provides a new image of lesbian masculinity that resonates with a lot of the butch community. Butches can be academics and masculinity can be found in many different places, Newton talks us through her discovery of that in this memoir. Her descriptions of her childhood, her relationships, and her identity formation hit so close to home and provided me with a renewed sense of hope and pride in my butch identity. It's a valuable read for anyone. If you identify as butch or know someone who identifies as butch, it's a must read.

[ND · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read, powerful memoir, wish it went up to the present, and perhaps spent more time talking about what it means to be butch in the 21st century...she mentions things here and there, but not quite enough for me. It is interesting that she spends relatively little time delving into the nature of being butch as she describes eras and lovers, friends, intellectual projects, movements etc.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a tough finish. Esther Newton jumps around a lot in her timeline and it creates a disjointed storyline at times. It was a book I enjoyed but didn’t love, not one I’ll return to for a second read.

[Emma Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult but important read. I was worried it would be outdated, as the outset of the book chronicles her struggles with WASPish positionality, politics, and puritanical upbringing, ripe with painful-to-read internalized homophobia. It thankfully ended with Esther making significant personal and professional realizations that were a long time coming throughout her life (and to the reader’s detriment, were often drawn out with unhappy conclusions). I found much of her worldview was framed in personal experiences in Freudian psychoanalysis in which she is still obviously unsettled by deep, unresolved personal traumas. But to the reader, this makes her more human. Though an emotionally difficult read, I believe it’s an important work worth getting through. The insights in the second half of the book about her connections to the emerging field of queer studies at the time are well worth reading to understand academic lineages in this space.

[Mollie Murbach · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

This author had some incredibly harmful opinions about trans people and if I wasn't reading this for a class I probably would have DNF'd on page 6.

Overall she provided some interesting anecdotes about academia, feminism, and lesbianism but those bits were grossly outnumbered by instances of me going "yuck". For such a short book this has taken me forever to get through because I kept putting it down.

[marimocheeks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Esther Newton impressively manages to be transphobic, racist, and classist without realizing a thing. It's unfortunate to waste so many words on introspection - apparently far more than an editor and five beta readers would allow in the book itself - and fail to understand some fundamental truths about one's beliefs.

[Libera Voler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Letto dopo aver visto il documentario e a cavallo dell'incontro a Some Prefer Cake. Dovrebbe essere un must read per chiunque sia nelle scienze sociali e in particolare in antropologia. Finalmente una biografia orgogliosamente Butch che non faccia venire voglia fi morire. Un bel viaggio. Memorabile il suo scazzo con...

[Adrian Shanker · Rating 4 out of 5]

In My Butch Career, Newton takes us on a journey through lesbian identity and academic realities through multiple decades. It’s an important book for queer activists and academics to read.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really what I expected

[ira · Rating 3 out of 5]

gave me lots to research and think about but ultimately was kind of a slog to actually read

[C Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

No mention of the motorcycle

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Interesting read about an important person. That said the beginning was a little dense with words and the classism, though the author admitted it, was cringey.