“Rag and Bone”

Author: Priya Sharma, reviewed by Peter Lao.

The battle of genders, sexes, man and woman, male and female, this story follows “Tom” who threw her gender identity away in order to live as a free citizen because women were generally considered inferior and oppressed in this story. It’s an ongoing theme that women in this story were essentially regarded as rags and bones, this is clearly evident when Tom and her father(who is actually her mother) lived out their days as a “free men” in order to be accepted in society.

It’s a notion that women, being regarded as rags and bones, generally meant that women were basically inferior to their male counterparts, and were shunned down if they showed any superior or equal quality towards them, like Tom’s mother showing she can do better than men when working in a factory. Though it wasn’t revealed until the end that Tom was a woman, ideally, courage, effort, and integrity, were things that I’ve notice in Tom that really showed me that gender obviously have no effect in these qualities in a human being. This is evident during the events when Tom threw away her gender identity in order to rescue Sally and Lolly from the liverpool. It really idealizes and pushes out the fact that the only difference in quality and characterictics among female and male are their genitals.

It also represents some real-world situations where women were seen as less. It’s great to see that without revealing Tom’s gender identity until the very end, people will see her characteristics of what makes her, and not the surfaces that defines her because of her gender.