How do people determine each other's gender without observing their physical appearances? Do people distinguish each other's interests in certain activities? Are males more heavily into sports than females? Can a male adore taking care of plants as much as a female? The answers to these questions may seem obvious to some. But there is no solid line between masculinity and femininity. Some may say that these questions do not have a correct answer and they can be either gender. These people think differently; they think androgynously. According to The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language,androgynous? means being neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine, as in dress, appearance, or behavior. In Noel Perrin's essay,The Androgynous Man,? he describes his experiences as a teenage boy observing what exactly makes him a man and how some of his characteristics correlate to those of females.
In Perrin's essay, he flashed back into time when he was 16 years of age. He was on his way to from New York to a camp in Colorado to be an assistant horse wrangler. During his train ride he was skimming through a magazine and came across a little quiz that is supposed to measure levels of masculinity and femininity in a person. After taking the quiz, he was shocked to find that he scored extremely low in being masculine. This disturbed him for a very long time, so he started to analyze the quiz. He was glad to learn that the quiz did not have enough criteria to determine his masculinity. According to the quiz's correct answers, the masculine answers were more 'man-made? while the feminine side was morenatural.? Perrin then explains the large group of men and women who are androgynous. According to him, the so-called real masculine men are attracted to physical power. He says that because these men are oftenwonderful people,? it becomes a trend to be like the other.
