I learned to cook and sew, took up cross stitch and satin stitch embroidery, learned to be a gentle, nurturing parent, read many women's novels and biographies and about women's history in general, took art classes and spent hours trying to paint floral still lifes. I watched my wife give birth and nursed her when she lost her health, and it, along with everything else, gave me some sense of how much a woman's life is defined by pain and self sacrifice and putting others first without getting full appreciation for her efforts, or political respect.
You would think, with all of that, I would be able to be grateful for my maleness and leave this longing for some ill-defined ideal of a feminine life alone, but somehow it just doesn't work that way.
