I reckon is the style of Passenger Elevator

Posted by beranter on March 22nd, 2016

 The big item I reckon is the style of Passenger Elevator. I still write always with an argument, which might sound male — unless you met my mother, from whom I learned how to argue! But the arguing is less relentless now, more diffident, as arguments should be if you are interested in the actual truth and want to establish it together with your reader.

As a young man I was proud of crushing an opponent in my writing — as though on my high-school football team (of which, by the way, I was co-captain). Now I am trying to make common cause with the reader, and trying also to be truthfully gentle with the "opponents."

It came naturally — not as Rule No. 15 in How to Be a Woman. My joke, though, is that I can’t tell whether any improvement is because I became a woman (within the limits, alas, of biology and life history) … or because I finally grew up.

Elevator Company interesting that one of your fears as a transperson, at least early on, was of being "read." A question I often find myself asking as I read a piece of prose is, "What is this writer afraid of?" I think much writing — especially by academics — goes wrong due, simply, to fear. Much bad prose is the result of being afraid of not being or seeming smart enough, or not knowing enough.