In too many cases, it's still easier to be a man than a woman among men.

Katherine Gotthardt
www.luxuriouschoices.net

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Andrea Wilder <andreawilder at comcast.net>
wrote:


> For everyone who wondered about the immutability of gender

> roles...NYTimes, June 25, front page--google it.

>

> Women took on oath of virginity and became men--"I was totally free

> as a man because no one knew  I was a woman....I could go wherever I

> wanted to and no one would dare swear at me because I could beat them

> up. I was only with men.  I don't know how to do women's talk.  I am

> never scared."

>

> This is powerful stuff.

>

> "But I never wanted to marry.  Some in my family tried to get me  to

> change my clothes and wear dresses, but when they saw I had become a

> man they left me alone."

>

> The men killed each other in blood feuds, so when the senior man in a

> family died, the possibility for a woman to become a man and take

> over a senior role opened up.

>

> Honestly, this makes our moves toward  gender differences look....I

> don't know..."Taking an oath to become a sworn virgin should not ,

> sociologists say. be equated with homosexuality, long taboo in rural

> Albania,  Nor do women have sex-change operations."

>

> Andrea

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