Mademoiselle

            In "Mademoiselle" I believe that the main character was not struggling with a gender crisis. I believe his struggle was against society and the way people like him were treated for being different. In this story it shows just how quick society is to judge someone on appearance. I believe that he continued to dress as a woman to show these people how masculine he really was and to show them how incorrect they were for judging him.
             In general, people tend to judge masculinity but acting tough and not showing weakness. We tend to think that men are the stronger gender and should never show any signs of femininity. Cross-dressing is one of the biggest things that people notice when judging how masculine someone is. In most people's eyes, wearing a dress or walking like a woman is a sign of being a woman or a homosexual. And people are afraid of anyone different from themselves and tend to discriminate against anyone who falls into that category.
             In this story, it showed that people judged you as being masculine or feminine solely on your appearance. It also showed how people have a hard time adjusting to change. A good example of this would be when Mademoiselle decided to finally dress as a man and take a walk down the street. All his life, he was known for being the man that looked like a woman. Society had already judged him based on the way he chose to represent himself. When they finally saw him as a normal person, they did not know how to respond. They were threatened by the fact that now Mademoiselle was just like them. They did not know what to think. This just proved that he had been already characterized as a cross dresser the first day he showed up in drag.
             I believe that Mademoiselle was challenging society when he first started acting like a woman. It could have been his way of pointing out the major flaws of society. He wanted people to see that it really takes masculinity to do what he did.