The Lives of "Typical" Women
             In current society, women have middle-aged precocious ideas of how women should act. Physically, they aren't nearly as competent as men, nor do they enjoy the same values as men. Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," shows how men even must be athletic to be attractive to women. Francis Macomber is on safari with his wife, and instead of risking his life to kill a charging lion, he runs out of the way. This act was cowardly. "Macomber, standing by himself in the clearing where he had run, holding a loaded rifle, while two black men and a white man looked back at him in contempt." (3) He is seen as less of a man because unlike the two servants and the knowledgeable hunter he thought first safety: his safety. The short story "Boys and Girls," written by Alice Munroe, a young girl grows up following her father and doing his chores, while her mother begs her to become more ladylike. She is so different that anyone who sees her mocks her or tries to correct her. "My grandmother came to stay with us for a few weeks and I heard other things. 'Girls don't slam doors like that.' 'Girls keep their knees together when they sit down.'"(326)
             Amy Bloom contradicts these ideas by saying man is not confined to what he is given with anatomically and neither is woman. Both can change sexes, and live any way. "I was expecting to find psychologically disturbed, male-identified women. I did not meet those people."(4) The author expected outcasts and psychologically stunted people;2 she found fully integrated members of society, none with tenuous sanities. The human body does not confine us to selected things as we can change our bodies, so people are free to do whatever their hearts desire.
             Penny Marshall's, A League of Their Own, filmed in 1992, displays a group of women who go ...