Patti Smith addresses gender but in a very subtle way. Living in an age where androgynous artists have become commonplace, it’s hard to remember that it was once a big deal to be more fluid with the way you identify yourself as male or female. The Horses album cover features her in a traditionally masculine outfit, no cleavage or exposed legs to belie her womanhood. With this very simple picture, she seems to be challenging visions of the female body, forcing attention up towards her eyes. Mapplethorpe cleverly employs the light and shadows so that we’re forced to look at Patti’s “portals into the soul” and examine her mind instead of her being

Furthermore, Just Kids also challenges gender. I found Patti’s thoughts on Robert’s sexual exploration to be especially interesting. Even though she herself failed to live up the traditional female ideal, Patti encounters great confusion when confronted by Robert’s homosexuality. He was rejecting such a huge part of his sex’s condition through his identity. Patti eventually comes to term with his lifestyle but I really appreciated her baring her inner turmoil for us. Through Robert’s story, she thoughtfully examines the link between gender and sexual orientation. It seems to me that by the book’s end, Patti, like Virginia Woolf before her, advocates for androgyny. Sexlessness allows the artist to be freed from the worries that come with not fulfilling certain expectations regarding gender. Without such turmoil, one can grow and mature as an artist, as we see Robert do.