Transvestia

respect of a wild creature, along with the comfort of a domestic one, depend on the use of charm, beauty, a lorge (but no unlimited!) capacity for being petted, playfulness, neatness and carefully rationed bursts of usefulness. In women, this way of life is called femininity and, sometimes, felineness!

A few other traits of character would help to make life endurable in an environment where you could be used as a punching-bag at any moment and for no good reason at all. The ability to forgive minor imjuries, willingness to accomplish one's ends only by indirect means, the patience to out-wait the dom- inant species, wisdom to avoid celebrating victories too conspicuously- these are all vital tools in this world of the second-biggest. (Whoever chose the name and policies for the Avis Rent-A-Car System to undermine the overly-masculine Hertz must have been a keen student of feminine-feline psychology!)

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Could a man adapt himself to this way of life? Margaret Mead had demonstrated, in her classic study SEX AND TEMPERAMENT, that in at least one Pacific Island tribe this has taken place naturally. the colorful attributes we associate with women showed up in the Tcambuli men: elaborate hair-do, gossip, pretty clothes, petty bickering and frivolity. The women, in their plain clothes, calmly ran the fishing industry and kept all the money. high surface emotionality we find in our women (and cats) went along with the shift; it may well be that the "second sex" MUST develop this relief valve for their tensions and frustrations. The only mental health problems Dr. Mead noted were in the men who rebelled against this (to us) reversal of roles. is evident that freedom from responsibility and authority has as far-reaching consequences to the personality as does the assumption of these "blessings."

The above discussion appears to have demonstrated that femininity is a way of life a response that can be called forth in ANY group of adaptable creatures