[HN Gopher] An Omnivorous Biped That Wears Breeches
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       An Omnivorous Biped That Wears Breeches
        
       Author : samclemens
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2021-03-01 16:53 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
        
       | Jtsummers wrote:
       | > But how charming, after all, when men grow dainty and women
       | daring! Today _might_ and tomorrow _will_ bring such miracles to
       | pass. Definitions are losing something of their definiteness. Sex
       | is a technicality for the consideration of pathology and
       | physiology; the psychologist is after the individual. It is no
       | longer a question of are you a _Man_? or are you a _Woman_?--the
       | answer is, I am an _Individual_. "I am what I am and so will I
       | be," as the old lines go. There are men who wear their hair long;
       | there are women who wear their hair short; and yet there are
       | those who still say, "A man's a man for a' that!" Trousers, and
       | other things, I hold to be mere arbitrary symbols of sex which I,
       | for one, think obsolete. [emphasis in original]
       | 
       | It only took another few decades for this idea to become more
       | commonplace.
        
       | kibwen wrote:
       | Might want to add (1915) to the title. I have no real interest in
       | the specific topic being presented, but it's always fascinating
       | to see writings from other eras that present first-person
       | perspectives on social customs and subjective opinions on
       | relatively minor things; it aids in humanizing the people of the
       | past.
        
         | Jtsummers wrote:
         | If you liked this, I've found Lapham's Quarterly to almost
         | always be an interesting read. He collects writings from across
         | the millennia and presents them around some central theme
         | ("Democracy", "Pandemic", "Money"). Some are just little
         | fictional stories that relate, others are deeper discussions.
         | But since it draws from across so many periods it does as you
         | suggest, humanizing the people of the past.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-03 23:03 UTC)