We Learn Nothing: Essays and Cartoons (A Smart and Funny Essay Collection)

by Tim Kreider

I also can’t tell whether Jim’s old personality has changed or whether other people’s perceptions of him/her have. Some of my friends thought she was extremely competitive with me, which would probably have gone unremarked-upon between male friends, and is hardly unheard-of among artists of either gender. Some people—most of them female—found Jenny self-absorbed, talking incessantly about herself. I don’t recall anyone making this criticism of Jim, even though he was also very much a center-of-attention kind of guy, the sort who clowns and holds forth as a way of drowning out his fundamental discomfort with himself. I’m not certain whether Jenny finds herself more interesting and worth talking about since the sex change—it is, after all, a pretty un-one-uppable conversational topic—or if she’s just more at ease with herself. It’s also possible that people read the same personality traits s/he’s always had very differently now that she’s female. We expect men to be loud and funny and talk about themselves; we think of these guys as big personalities, boisterous and fun. It’s not always charming, but it’s also not unacceptable. When Jenny acts this way I think it seems, to other women, as if she’s cheating, getting to have it both ways. Girls are taught to listen, ask questions, and laugh at men’s jokes; a woman who makes herself the focus risks being seen as vain, obnoxious, needy, or insecure—as unattractive.

wow, very insightul into our biases