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OverviewWe have read the stories of those who have crossed lines of race and class and culture. But few have written of crossing-completely and entirely-the gender line. Crossing is the story of Deirdre McCloskey (formerly Donald), once a golden boy of conservative economics and a child of 1950s and 1960s privilege, and her dramatic and poignant journey to becoming a woman. McCloskey's account of her painstaking efforts to learn to be a woman unearth fundamental questions about gender and identity, and hatreds and anxieties, revealing surprising answers. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Deirdre N. McCloskeyPublisher: The University of Chicago Press Imprint: University of Chicago Press Dimensions: Width: 1.60cm , Height: 0.20cm , Length: 2.40cm Weight: 0.567kg ISBN: 9780226556680ISBN 10: 0226556689 Pages: 282 Publication Date: 10 November 1999 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Out of Print Availability: Out of stock  Table of ContentsPart 1: Doubt1. Boy to Man 2. Marriage 3. Internet, 1995 4. Professor Dressed 5. Clubs 6. In the Ladies' Room 7. Boldness 8. Epiphany 9. Losing Family 10. Academic Drag 11. A Day You Feel Pretty 12. Premarin 13. Sweet October Part 2: Struggle 14. Outed 15. Welcome 16. The Cuckoo's Nest 17.Hearing? 18. Then Why Are You Doing This? 19. Chicago 20. Changing 21. Sister's Last 22. Professional Girl Economist 23. Farewell Speech 24. Dutch Welcome 25. The Worst Days in February 26. Passing 27. Yes, Ma'am Part 3: Across 28. Vriendinnetjes 29. Women's World 30. To Make Up for God's Neglect 31. Merry May 32. Starting 33. Finishing 34. A Post-Menopausal Woman on Hormone Therapy 35. Facelift 36. This Is How We Live 37. Dutch Winter, 1996 38. Going Home 39. Costs 40. Iowa Drag 41. Professora Traveling 42. Second Voice 43. Makeup 44. Getting There 45. Differences 46. Christ's Mass 1997 ??ReviewsA testimony to her struggles and courage, Crossing invites the reader to enter Deirdre (formerly Donald) McCloskey's mind as she decides to become a woman after a lifetime as a man, husband, and father. A renowned professor of economics at the University of Iowa, Donald McCloskey had to fight tenaciously to realize his inner call to become a woman against such foes as his sister (who had him repeatedly committed against his will for psychiatric evaluations) and his marriage family (who, in the book's most heart-wrenching scenes, renounce their father and former husband). Mixed with this trauma, however, is McCloskey's blossoming sense of self and her discovery of a tree community of friends who love her for the woman she is, not the man she was. The cantankerous halls of academe provide the setting for many of the memoir's intriguing political debates: feminists argue that McCloskey is not a women and therefore should not join female faculty groups; conservative economists accept McCloskey's new self with libertarian nonchalance. Oddly enough, though, McCloskey's views of gender seem to become more strongly reified through her experiences. Men are combative; women nurturing. Men barter for gain; women give for comfort. One is left wondering how a woman brave enough to undergo the tribulations of losing a family and to face the possibility of professional contumely could have emerged from a man so self-parodically timid of his femininity that he could not bring himself to describe his car as dark blue, with cream trim. This Trojan horse of a memoir approaches under the guise of sexual equity yet closes with gender stereotypes still firmly entrenched. Crossing remains a tribute to the power of resisting society in order to realize personal fulfillment, but McCloskey would have done so with a more incisive voice if she did not seem to believe so strongly in the many gender stereotypes she attempts to undermine. (Kirkus Reviews) Although transexuality is now no longer a forbidden subject, this is perhaps the most detailed detail of one man's transformation into a woman that has been published since James Morris's account, some 30 years ago. McCloskey was a cross-dresser as a child, but married and had children before deciding that he must actually become a woman. The reaction of McCloskey's wife and family was one which makes for a central tragedy - yet also reveals his naivety and inability to understand his relatives' emotions any more than they could understand his. The book goes into considerable detail, not so much of the surgery involved, as of the other changes - how to walk, dress and adjust to a whole new system of male/female relationships. Unfortunately McCloskey, a distinguished economist and historian, is a rather pretentious writer, and the dull thud of his platitudes takes the edge of what might have been a classic, but is still a book that will be of great interest, especially to those men and women who find themselves in a similar situation. (Kirkus UK) Author InformationDeirdre N. McCloskey is University Professor of the Human Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She is the author of nine books, including The Vices of Economists and If You're So Smart, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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