The more I was treated as a woman, the more woman I became. A adapted willy-nilly. If I was assumed to be incompetent at reversing cars, or opening bottles, oddly incompetent I found myself becoming. If a case was thought too heavy for me, inexplicably I found it so myself.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on how societal expectations and treatment shape one's identity and abilities.
Jan Morris explores the impact of societal perceptions on individual identity, particularly through the lens of gender. She suggests that when treated in a certain way, individuals may unconsciously adapt to those expectations, limiting their potential. This quote highlights how external perceptions can significantly influence self-identity and capabilities, especially regarding traditional gender roles.
In practice
In a discussion on gender roles, this quote can emphasize the impact of societal expectations on personal identity.
The language itself, whether you speak it or not, whether you love it or hate it, is like some bewitchment or seduction from the past, drifting across the country down the centuries, subtly affecting the nations sensibilities even when its meaning is forgotten.
To me gender is not physical at all, but is altogether insubstantial. It is soul, perhaps, it is talent, it is taste, it is environment, it is how one feels, it is light and shade, it is inner music.
Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.
They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied, 'To be born a woman is to know- Although they do not talk of it at school - That we must labor to be beautiful.
Like it or not, women are always subject to criticism if they show too much feeling in public.
The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon them.
In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.
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