About thirty years ago, James Morris, a six-foot-something, adventure-loving
writer and reporter who traveled the world climbing mountains and crossing
deserts, had a sex-change operation and became Jan Morris, who, in her book
"Connundrum" reported feeling helpless and incompetant in areas (like
changing tires) in which "he" had always been most able. She wrote about
her delight in flirting, blushing, and other stereotypical "female"
behaviors, and about how much she enjoyed having doors held for her, etc.
It seemed to me that Morris's ideas of what it meant to be a woman were
superficial, much more about appearances than reality.
This took place in England in the late sixties. Sex roles seemed more
immutable then than they do today. Come to think about it, I don't hear
much about sex-change operations lately. Are they out of style? Made
unnecessary by our relaxing of gender roles? Or just so common that no one
notices?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:40 PDT