Niklas' blog

Norah Vincent spends 18 months in her life dressing and acting a male. What she comes up with is enlightening, in a way as what happened when Something Awful fooled idiot-boys while playing World of Warcraft. From Vincent’s article, courtesy of The Guardian, where she is cross-dressed and locks eyes with a man:

It was astounding, the difference, the respect they showed me by not looking at me, by purposely not staring.

To look another male in the eye and hold his gaze is to invite conflict, either that or a homosexual encounter. To look away is to accept the status quo, to leave each man to his tiny sphere of influence, the small buffer of pride and poise that surrounds and keeps him. After the incident had blown over, I started thinking that if I had learned so much about the unspoken male codes after being in drag for only a few hours, couldn’t I observe much more about the social differences between the sexes if I passed as a man for a much longer period of time? I was determined to give the idea a try.

Very interesting article, a must-read for most men.

Speaking of interesting, Peter tipped me on a BBC radio show called “Start the Week“, where Andrew Marr, presenter of the show, moderates and speaks with four people about different things. This week, Christopher Wilk speaks of modernism during the first half of the 20th century, which turned out to be a much more interesting subject than I would have dreamed of. For instance, tuberculosis was running wild in Europe during the second World War and Wilk pointed to the fact that many people thought it was spread through things like improper hygiene and lack of light. Hence, modernistic architecture churned out swimming-pools, open areas and apartments in large buildings, made this commonplace and kitchens were fitted with modern, efficient things like iron-boards that would slide out from the side of a kitchen wall at a push. At the same time, people didn’t eat in the kitchen, which was treated as a sterile environment due to tuberculosis and the fright of attracting and spreading illness by eating food in the same place it was prepared.

During the same show, Maureen Dowd spoke about gender-issues. She is the only female columnist for The New York Times and has just published “Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide“, where she argues about what has really happened, a few decades after “the sexual revolution”. Where women then shouted for freedom and liberty, a lot of women of today want to be sex kittens, shouting for botox and wants to become sexual objects. I don’t entirely agree with Dowd, but this is, of course, a cultural and national issue. I remember her saying that the very year the Miss America Pageant started was the same year that the American Society of Plastic Surgeons was founded. Quite telling.

That’s just a very short re-hash of what went on in the latest show, so go get it and start listening. I’ve only heard two episodes, but they were so interesting I will definitely downloading a new episode every Monday.

If you still need inspiration, check this list, courtesy of The Sunday Times, that lists “12 books that changed the world”.