Creation

What do renowned chefs, great programmers, model railroaders, famous artists and crossdressers all have in common? They are all overwhelmingly men. That is NOT to say that there aren't women in all those categories, but the bulk of the participants in all the above activities are men. Why is that? What is it the common denominator? I'm proposing that maybe it's creation.

Note that I did not say "creativity", but "creation". What I mean by that is the desire and the ability to make things that exist as independent entities. Chefs can create gastronomic masterpieces that provide not only fuel for our bodies, but also great taste for our enjoyment. Programmers can create a whole set of behaviors for inanimate machines. Model railroaders can create whole worlds in miniature. Artists can create visual masterpieces that dazzle our eyes and sometimes even our sense of touch. And crossdressers can create an entirely new person from an existing one.

So if the common denominator here is creation, why is it that men achieve so much more notoriety in its practice? Perhaps it's because women already have the ultimate power to create: the power to create actual life. The instinct to create is hardwired into the biology of every living thing as the drive to reproduce and propagate the species. Humans are the first creatures to not only be aware enough to realize that half of a species, the male, doesn't create life but only assists in conception, but also to try to do something about it.

Women, or generically, females, bring new life into the world. In essence, they create the world by giving birth to all the things in it. Men are forever one step behind in that regard. The best that they can do to satisfy their innate desire to create life is to create a pale imitation of it. Women don't need to create things because they can create life.

It's no accident that Victor Frankenstein was a man. Victoria Frankenstein would have just had a baby.

On another note (but related to creation), if this is published as scheduled, it will come out the day after my birthday. I turned 51 on June 20, and it was basically a non-traumatic non-event for me. I'm not sure I ever expected to stick around this long, but now that I have it seems totally unremarkable. I guess I should chalk that up to the fact that perspectives change as you move along. But I digress .

I've wondered for a long time why women make so much more fuss over birthdays than men do. However, in the process of writing this, it suddenly became clear to me why that is. It might be obvious to others, but I just figured out that there is only one reason for this, but it's interpreted differently by men than by women. Men don't make a big deal about birthdays because birthdays only serve to emphasize the birth process that they can't participate in. Women DO make a big deal about birthdays for the same reason: because they serve to emphasize the birth process.