Crossing Over

I'm waiting in an FBO. I do more waiting than flying. I've figured out which local newspaper carries the New York Times crossword puzzle, and so I ask if it's available. It's not, but they offer me another local paper. I have no idea which is the left wing or the right wing paper and have no wish to accidentally disparage one political side or the other, so I admit that I'm just looking for the NYT crossword puzzle. "Oh," offers the receptionist. "We have the New York Times." That will do nicely, and for more than just the crossword.

It carries a thoroughly fascinating article on an Armenian Albanian practice of women becoming cultural men. In societies with firmly ingrained gender roles, women cooked and cleaned and had babies while men owned property, worked at good jobs, had authority, and carried out vendettas on those who had wronged their families. This cultural segregation forces poverty on women who have lost their male protector, but Armenia Albania has a medieval custom that allows families that consist only of women to continue. A woman may take a vow of virginity and live her life as a man.

The fascinating thing is that in a society with such strict gender roles, the artificial ceremony of simply acting as a man, in dress and mannerisms, is enough for the woman to be accepted as one. It's as if male society has no objection to someone with a woman's biology owning property, carrying a weapon, or working in construction. The objection is instead to a woman who wants the best of both worlds. If you want to be a sexual woman, and a mother, you have only that role, but if you put aside that role entirely, you can have the other. I'm trying to look at my own society and see if men are more accepting of women in traditionally male roles if they do not have sex lives, babies, or wear feminine clothing. Maybe there's something more than tradition to the pilot uniform of slacks, shirt and tie.

You get the authority of the sex you act like? While I ponder it, I shift the computer on my lap, uncross my ankles and sit with my feet wide apart. The article was actually about the practice ending in Armenia Albania, because the modern world has come even there, and it is no longer necessary to deny being a woman in order to have authority. After a while I cross my ankles again. My knees are more comfortable that way.