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So, Stryker, Sor Juana and de Beauvoir, all talk about this notion of the monster. Stryker implies that the monster, in a sense, is what she has been reduced to as her body is not conventional--no trans-body is. Sor Juana, as someone who breaks free from convention as an increadible brilliant and self-reliant thinker is labeled as “the monster”. The idea of the “monster” reminded me a lot of what Spivak said about the “male” and “female” as separate entities. (I’m stealing this from my paper) Spivak complicates these notions of the male and the female. In fact, she problematizes the creation of any such dichotomy because it can create a space in which one group is being defined by another group. This often results in the subjugation of this group under another because one becomes recognized as “the norm” and the one group becomes “the other”. The concept of the “other” is like the concept of the “monster”. I feel like Spivak and de Beauvoir really intersect on this idea because they are both complicating the idea of gender, in a sense.