How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Well, this is weird. National Review is running an interview with economist Deirdre McCloskey, who has just released volume two of a six-volume account of the birth and flourishing of the bourgeoisie and its transformation of the modern world. The interview is worth reading for its own sake, but there's something particularly strange about it.
I hadn't heard of her before. I probably should have, but I simply had no idea who she was. Now, those of you who do know who she is will think I'm making this up, but I swear I'm not--I went into that completely unaware. But as I was reading, I was thinking, "This woman does not think like a woman. Who is she?"
I Googled her and discovered that in fact, she used to be Donald McCloskey.
I had absolutely no way of knowing that, and yet--I swear to you--it was my first, unprompted reaction, not on seeing her photo, but on reading about six paragraphs of her writing.
I don't know what tipped me off. Is it that only men, in their superb creativity and vanity--God bless them!--would ever conceive of writing a six-volume magnum opus explaining the birth and flourishing of the bourgeoisie and its subsequent transformation of the modern world? Or is it something else? Can you figure out from that interview how I knew that?
Anyway, once you're over the weirdness of that, here's a lovely essay she wrote about Milton Friedman. And there's lots of other interesting stuff on her website.
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Dec '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
A moment of discovery for Claire - how exhilarating!
Men think more mechanically (in general), while women tend more towards flowing emotion (in general). The rest is all details.
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Did you read it? I wouldn't characterize her thought in that interview as "machinelike" rather than "flowing and emotional." It's something else. But definitely something.
Jul '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
I think you mean his website.
All the surgery and supplements in the world doesn't change the biology or the biochemistry, as you have just pointed out.
In the immortal words of Austin Powers, "That's a man, baby!"
Edited on Dec 15, 2010 at 5:38amDec '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
I don't have the time to read these pieces like many others here seem to, Claire - I'm just generalizing from experience.
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Actually, Michael, hormonal supplementation very much changes the biology. That's beyond doubt.
May '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
My favorite Ricochet topic! A lot of people get images in their heads when reading something. I hear voices. Maybe should see a doctor for that.
May '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
I see what you mean, Clare.
Lines like this strike me as typically masculine thinking: "But, in fact, rhetoric and dignity are rather easily measured."
I tend toward Michael Tee's view. Gender is deeper than biology.
Jun '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
It's maybe the curtness and matter-of-factness of the writing--revealing the expectation that authority is something easily gained.
May '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
This is just a guess based upon a short perusal, but you may have been tipped off by the paucity of hedging moves. (Notice how many hedges I slipped into that sentence! Please don't out me.)
Edited on Dec 15, 2010 at 6:07amSep '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Her humor is a man's humor.
Nov '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
The style is definitely not "machinelike." I would describe it more as "punchy" and no-nonsense. McCloskey sounds like an erudite, intelligent, hardboiled detective explaining economics. The slightest hint of a hardboiled writing style will lend a distinctly "masculine" quality to any piece of prose.
Edited on Dec 15, 2010 at 6:09amMay '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Fwiw, I became more deeply engaged when I hit this part of the exchange:
"It's like measuring the acceleration of a falling stone in a non-vacuum. We know the acceleration in a vacuum. So anything slower than that is probably caused by air resistance. It may be hard to measure air resistance directly. But....etc."
Her analogy works well, but "It's like [insert hyper-logical analogy here, even if it doesn't quite fit]..." is exactly the sort of thing that causes my wife to tune me out (as she should in most cases).
Could this be it? Katievs is hitting on the same point, I think, in #7.
Edited on Dec 15, 2010 at 6:20amNov '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Fiction writers can easily disguise their gender simply by adopting the writing style appropriate to a given genre. Using pseudonyms, men successfully write romances and women successfully write westerns and mysteries. My own style is extremely feminine, but, in a pinch, I can shift into "hardboiled" and completely erase the feminine quality.
Writing non-fiction is a different kettle of fish, though. There is no "genre mask" to hide behind. So a writer's gender is far more likely to assert itself in the prose.
Sep '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
"If your personal checks circulated as currency, and the grocer was willing to give you tons of groceries in exchange for eventually depreciated Matt-dollars, wouldn’t you go for it? I would, and drink champagne."
It's not her rationality. It's her punchy-funny style that is more common to males. Hitchens has written about this.
Edited on Dec 15, 2010 at 6:42amMay '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Maybe it's directional. Men tend to measure, quantify, break-down, re-strunure, render useful and manipulable, etc. Women tend to intuit, humanize, spiritualize...
May '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
The other day my husband and I were driving along DC area highways. Lots of road construction going on, including bridges for roads over roads. I was looking not just at unfinished projects, but the machinery involved: the cranes built to lift huge segments of concrete onto piles, so that later massive numbers of cars can drive over them safely and smoothly.
I said to husband: "Men's minds are amazing."
That's how it struck me. Not that they are smarter than women, but that their intelligence is so different from ours.
Sep '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
This is a fascinating subject to me. I am more and more understanding that Gender is deeper than biology, as katievs said.
What ultimately convinced me was the John/Joan case where a young boy, born with ambiguous genitalia was turned into a girl as an infant. The results were horrendous.
I also read this very interesting book about a woman who spent a year posing as a man. It was quite informative on every aspect of this. Ultimately she started becoming psychologically disturbed as a result.
I can usually tell when a commenter is male or female.
However there are several female writers who it seems to me write in a male voice, if you will, and they are some of my favorite writers, Orianna Fallaci, Camile Paglia, and to prove it isn't an Italian thing, Ayn Rand, and little known Celia Green.
I'm male by the way in case any of you were wondering...
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
Lady Kurobara: Fiction writers can easily disguise their gender simply by adopting the writing style appropriate to a given genre. Using pseudonyms, men successfully write romances and women successfully write westerns and mysteries. My own style is extremely feminine, but, in a pinch, I can shift into "hardboiled" and completely erase the feminine quality.
Writing non-fiction is a different kettle of fish, though. There is no "genre mask" to hide behind. So a writer's gender is far more likely to assert itself in the prose. · Dec 15 at 6:22am
Game for you, Lady K. Want to change your user name and profile to something masculine and see how long it takes for us to figure out you're actually a chick? If ever?
Actually, that's probably a bad idea. I suspect new members who are really men would take poorly to having everyone guess that they're Lady K. in disguise.
Never mind.
May '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
I had no idea that the mystery genre was a male preserve, milady. Seems like women defined it. Requires intricate planning and plotting, but that's a sweeping generalization too far.
Perhaps you mean the action/thriller, um, stuff. [edited to not anger authors of action/thriller, um, stuff]
Sep '10
Re: How Did I Know From Her Prose that Deirdre McCloskey Used to Be a Man?
In Camille Paglia's awesome work, Sexual Personae, in the first 100 pages she lays out the whole thing for us. Women she posits are complete as they are. They need not seek out. The world effectively revolves around them. I won't try to boil this down in 200 words, but it opened my eyes, big time.