Men and women
I watched a segment on a news magazine the other night about a woman who posed as a man for 18 months and wrote a book about her experience in the man's world. She was a lesbian who looked a lot like KD Lang to begin with so the transition wasn't as big as a stretch as one would think.
One of the first things she did was join a men's bowling team. Like this is the last bastion of masculinity that would unlock the door to the men's club.
There is something seriously fucked up about this approach to trying to understand the difference between what it is like to be a man and a woman. First dressing like the other gender and pretending to me them will not give you insight in what is like to be the other gender. You may find out how the other gender is treated but that will not let you into that "secret" world of men and women.
I don't think it exists.
What separates each of us is the life and experience we have compiled. Sure, gender is part of it, but just being a man doesn't make me understand all men. And I'm willing to bet that just being a woman doesn't make a woman privy to what makes women tick.
I don't claim to understand anyone. I'm just barely figuring out myself. I live with my wife. I talk to her and I listen to her. But I don't claim to really have any insights into that separate world we both live in. I think we are closer than most and can intuit certain things, but I believe fundamentally all people are mysteries to each other.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing.
I would never want anyone to read my mind. Could you imagine how we would recoil at the the secret thoughts people think? None of us could ever look each other in the eye if we really knew what we thought down in the recesses of our minds.
I don't believe, however, that men and women have to be in separate camps trying to figure out what each other are all about. That seems to polarize our differences rather than bridges them. Maybe I believe this because I am older and no longer driven by hormones that emphasized the difference between men and women. Or maybe it is because I've always had as many or more women friends than I had guy friends.
I do know that I have no desire to embrace my masculinity by beating a freakin drum while dancing around a fire. And I don't want to wear my testicles around my neck in a leather pouch as attonement for my gender's sins against humanity.
Can't we all just get along?
One of the first things she did was join a men's bowling team. Like this is the last bastion of masculinity that would unlock the door to the men's club.
There is something seriously fucked up about this approach to trying to understand the difference between what it is like to be a man and a woman. First dressing like the other gender and pretending to me them will not give you insight in what is like to be the other gender. You may find out how the other gender is treated but that will not let you into that "secret" world of men and women.
I don't think it exists.
What separates each of us is the life and experience we have compiled. Sure, gender is part of it, but just being a man doesn't make me understand all men. And I'm willing to bet that just being a woman doesn't make a woman privy to what makes women tick.
I don't claim to understand anyone. I'm just barely figuring out myself. I live with my wife. I talk to her and I listen to her. But I don't claim to really have any insights into that separate world we both live in. I think we are closer than most and can intuit certain things, but I believe fundamentally all people are mysteries to each other.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing.
I would never want anyone to read my mind. Could you imagine how we would recoil at the the secret thoughts people think? None of us could ever look each other in the eye if we really knew what we thought down in the recesses of our minds.
I don't believe, however, that men and women have to be in separate camps trying to figure out what each other are all about. That seems to polarize our differences rather than bridges them. Maybe I believe this because I am older and no longer driven by hormones that emphasized the difference between men and women. Or maybe it is because I've always had as many or more women friends than I had guy friends.
I do know that I have no desire to embrace my masculinity by beating a freakin drum while dancing around a fire. And I don't want to wear my testicles around my neck in a leather pouch as attonement for my gender's sins against humanity.
Can't we all just get along?
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