Word: trait
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Jayne Anne Phillips' wondering, musing first novel raises such questions without ever explicitly stating them, in a way that suggests another fine family por trait, last year's During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase. In a man ner that seems simple and straightforward, though its workings are intricate enough, the author sketches the histories of four people in Bellington, a town she places in West Virginia. They are Mitch Hampson, born in 1910, a soldier, heavy-equipment operator, scrambling business man; his wife Jean, born in the mid-'20s, deeper and more...
...sexual differences, but it is the male hormone, testosterone, that makes the man, with his drive and macho behavior. The ambitious female politician or leader can come about only by an inborn androgyny, produced by a high level of that male hormone with its attendant aggressiveness. This male trait, admittedly not a very attractive one, is the single aptitude womanly women just do not have, and this is agreed to by both male and female scientists...
Truman's loyalty to his people, good and bad, was unwavering, and so was theirs toward him. They would have died for him. Still would. Truman probably got the trait from his Army days, the greatest experience in his young life. He stood like a captain of artillery all his life. He walked 120 drill steps a minute until he no longer could...
Even in this period of greater peace within herself, MacLaine says, the one constant in her life is change: "My strongest personality trait is the way I keep unsettling my life when most other people are settling down." Romance is sacrificed to her fervor for growth: "I have mostly used relationships to learn, and when that process is over, so is the relationship." Friends and especially lovers can find her exhausting because she peppers them with endless questions, shifts moods in a matter of seconds and demands that everyone keeps up with her. She admits, "My biggest goal right...
Brownmiller correctly points out that "the singlemindedness with which a man may pursue his non-reproductive goals is foreign not only to the female procreational ability, it is alien to the feminine values and emotional traits that women are expected to show." But implicit in this statement is the value judgment that such singlemindedness is a good trait. The author ends her book with a chapter titled "Ambition." Why not end it with a chapter titled "Compassion"? Perhaps comparisons of men and women should begin with a questioning of male-dictated criteria of evaluation...