“What would happen if a fairy touched you with her magic wand and turned you into a man, and your man into a woman? Would you still be together?” she asked me. She is a friend of a friend and we were discussing gender issues over dinner last night. She has a Phd in gender studies. My MA was about modernism and gender, and I thought we had a few things in common. She had made that question in the past, while participating in a conference. “We wouldn’t. I don’t have a single girlfriend that resembles M in character” I said. “Which means, I don’t like women who resemble M. M’s friends do not resemble me either.”
She looked at me in disbelief. “What difference would it make? You’d still be people!” And with that, she stopped the conversation there, not being able to find anything in common with me anymore. Although, the fact that she listens to Deep Purple and doesn’t know who Radiohead are, while being only 30, was a point of no return to me too. I thought it was obvious we were not the same, males and females, or that we expect different things from men and women. I wouldn’t be with a man solely for the universal qualities of compassion and truth I look for in all people. I am sick of political correctness when it is stretched to ridiculous lengths.
July 14th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
I am now very curious about M’s character.
July 14th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
I wouldn’t like my wife’s traits in a man, I definately wou’dn’t not be terribly keen in a woman who carried had mine. There are too many little important things that are different, the way we listen, the way we organize our thoughts and respond to crisis. Whether or not it cultural is open to debate I guess, but the wiring is different.
July 14th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
I would have answered the question the same as you. That woman seems ridiculous in her non acceptance of views alternate of her own.
July 14th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
I totally agree with you. If the woman studies gender issues, she of all people should know that gender matters, we’re not just “people”, we are men and women.
Plus, her question doesn’t even make much sense to me because I could never be a man, I am who I am because I am a woman and I couldn’t be “transformed” into a man…
Thanks for this post, cause now I feel like standing up for everything I believe in and have an argument with everyone
July 14th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Male and female are different, yet there are strangely people around who think they are not so. How obvious does it have to be?
This is sort of related, but would you be able to tolerate a exact version of yourself as a mate? I think I might.
July 14th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Oh boy, you are so right. Political correctness appears to be everywhere and in everything! It’s a crying shame that common sense can’t prevail, and people just “lighten up”. Besides, as greg said, we’re wired differently.
July 14th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
just sayin
i am curious too. i have been trying to find out since 1992.
still, it’s not just men and women, it’s lovers and friends, no matter who they are. our lovers might also be our friends (not all the time) but there is something else there that sets them apart. it’s not gender it’s the relationship.
greg
i read newspapers in bed and play computer games. and M cries in films and sometimes in commercials too. it’s all relevant, cultural or not.
etchen
i knew she had a problem when she refused to add oil in the -shared- salad.
devil mood
it’s just that some people try too hard to be p.c and they go to the other end which is no p.c at all.
erikku
no erikku that would be hell for me!
a friend who spends so much time on the computer would be a real challenge.
michelle
so true. i support men-women-gay-straight people, everyone. but in supporting them i want them to be different and diverse and true, not what society expects of them. and if i am with a man, i don’t like to think he is a male version of me. the horror!
July 14th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
If I ever find a woman with the same traits as my husband I would certainly be befuddled and frightened… eeeeek! LOL! xoS
July 14th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
I get annoyed by the obsession (on the part of some people) with such topics. We are who we are, and let’s leave it at that! I can not even begin to wrap my brain around changing genders with my spouse; I think he is more female and I am more male sometimes anyway. So what does gender have to do with anything? Really….
July 14th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
she doesn’t know who Radiohead
are?
hmmmmmmmm
the average age of a radiohead
fan is 33 - according to Thom…
so there lies a flimsy excuse…
i don’t know ANY female that
has the traits of the man i love
whatsoever….
annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd
this started off so well -
she closed off an excellent
evening of debate.
July 14th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
How about thid for a reason?
Maybe The Wifey likes being a woman and I like being a man.
If we were switched we wouldn’t necessarily like being the opposite sex, and that would make us a different person.
She might as well ask “If you were suddenly in a relationship with a stranger would it last?”
I agree with you about P.C. these days. How come everyone has to always respect the lines p.c. draws, but p.c. is always looking to change everything.
Very unP.C.
July 14th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
i would not be able to put up with myself if the roles were reversed. i like being a woman. men are too complicated.
July 15th, 2006 at 1:25 am
This is obviously a case of the educated losing sight of the simple because their education gets in the way.
The educated thought the world was flat for years. They had written theories, scientific proof… but no one asked the poor uneducated fishermen who could see the mast come over the horizon before the hull ever did.
She has obviously forgotten there are basic difference between genders beyond the biological.
July 15th, 2006 at 10:10 am
We can’t even get along in our own genders, let alone switch!! ha! I am over the PC thing too!
July 15th, 2006 at 10:15 am
I think you like and fall in love with people, or are with them, because of their individual personalities, so if such “change” was to happen, you’d have to get to know each other all over again…and that might not be as easy….
July 15th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Well at least if my husband was a woman he couldn’t tinkle on the seat!
July 15th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
i’m 100% behind you on that one. fuck political correctness. fuck over-theorizing gender-erasers.
July 15th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Hi Chloe. I’ve been reading your blog for some time now, and although I know that’s ‘allowed’ in the online world I thought it would be appropriate to introduce myself. Anyway, I love your blog, and am looking forward to more recipes too. I’m living in Italy at the moment, so anything southern european style goes down a treat. Ciao, Amber
July 15th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
is this the same gal involved in water bottle incident?
July 15th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
As CiscoKid said, you would be then 2 completely different persons. Because you are as you are, due to your geens, your personality and what life made you being a girl and a woman.
If you apply this to M, who knows how he would be should he have been borned as a girl…
So hypothetical questions cannot get answered as simply as she did.
Anyhow, I would have made a very good Tarzan, what about you?
July 15th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
This is Interesting Chloe…
July 15th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Oh, yeah? If you don’t talk to yourself much, you could just MSN yourself.
July 15th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
I’ll stick to being a woman , even with all what we have to deal with monthly!
July 15th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
I think that we are programmed from a very early age to be attracted towards male and female values and characteristics. Things like the way we are bought up to the way in which the media feeds us information is logged and stored. We recognise behaviour in those we see as closest to resembling ourselves which is often our own gender. You have for a long time been attracted to M’s masculinity, and him to your femininity. Changing gender would mean you would lose that attraction you have learnt over many years… I think….
July 16th, 2006 at 4:36 am
Questions of such a hypathetical nature are utterly pointless and much beloved of the kind of condescending little twits who run ‘personal development’ courses (speaking from bitter experience). As for gender-based political corectness: the sad and confused overreaction to millennia of now-exhausted male domination. Your reaction was the sane one!
July 16th, 2006 at 10:15 am
What was the point of her opening a debate topic if she did not want to debate? Geeshhh…some people!
July 16th, 2006 at 11:44 am
SHE’S MY AGE AND DOESN’T KNOW WHO RADIOHEAD ARE?????? What rock has she been living under?! I’m such a music snob that I couldn’t take ANYTHING she says seriously. Especially all of this PC gender crap. Leave her to her funny little world of Deep Purple and gender-changing fairies…
July 16th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Oh, and I think it’s sweet that M cries during commercials and you play videogames.
July 16th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Very well written. When I think back over my partners, there are certainly a lot I wouldn’t have to be my male friends. I mean, I’m not sure I could seriously go to football or watch Radiohead knowing my friend was wearing a basque and suspenders. Oh, erm, that’s not quite the idea here is it?
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