RANSVESTIA

en by him. So there is greater probability of success in repairing the sit- uation at hand than in starting all over again. So she makes a scene, forbids you to dress now or in the future, sulks, refuses sex for a time and in general gives you a hard time. And you accept it of necessity but with profound disappointment and regret because after all you love the silly creature. And this becomes the beginning of a 10 or 20 year impass com- plete with disappointment on her part and frustration on yours. And why does it have to be? Why can't she see the activity as the simple thing it is, after all she wears pants, etc, etc.? You and I both know all the logical arguments by heart.

The problem is that she is not liberated. What she is not liberated from is the stereotype of man and woman that she was brought up with. You were her man, you were to be the strong, aggressive, dependable, decisive (etc.) one. She was to look up to you as being all the things that she, a woman, was not and could not be. And now look at her ideal shattered. Her strong man, her hero, her defender, most parrticularly her symbol of her own fulfillment as a woman turns up wanting to wear petticoats and lipstick. He, in effect, is no better than a woman - one of those predatory creatures that she had had to compete with all her life, to get a man and prove that she was as good a woman as any of them. You have to realize that women don't really have as close, trusting, co- operative relationships with other women as men have with men. So when you put on a dress you not only stop being her pride and joy, her symbol of accomplishment and fulfillment of her femininity, but in effect you join that band of harpies that she has been in competition with all her adult life. A real double bind.

As a man you attack problems with logic and you attack this one the same way with all sorts of persuasion, explanation, inducements, prom- ises, literature, examples, etc., etc. The only trouble is that being brought up a man you have been robbed of your emotional intuitional tech- niques for dealing with situations and your recognition of situations which call for that kind of technique. Your wife, on the other hand, in being brought up as a girl wasn't so much robbed of logical, rational techniques as she was deprived of the opportunities to discover, de- velop and perfect them while being encouraged and rewarded for being emotional and “feminine”. Thus she has a "typically masculine rational" tional approach while you are taking a "typically masculine rational" approach and the two just have no common meeting ground. When you are both exhausted and realize that you have made essentially zero pro- gress with each other, you both withdraw to lick your wounds; to shed

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