[MR] Optical Character Recognition

["Ed Hopkins" <Ed.Hopkins@MCI.Com>]

Poster: "Ed Hopkins" <Ed.Hopkins@MCI.Com>

> > I will also note that the correct choice of clothing is generally all
> > that is needed to indicated culture of origin and status, while a
> > change of gender is somewhat more difficult to convey [...]
> 
> I would argue that this is only the case because all of us think we "know" 
> what kinds of indicators mark gender, and "know" them to a level of subtlety 
> that goes beyond conventions of dress.  But note that this may only be the 
> case because in our modern society, what would commonly be considered 
> "cross-dressing" is extremely common, especially for women.  Thus, in the 
> 1960s, many adults found that they had trouble distinguishing hippies by 
> gender, because they did not observe (then current) majority-culture dress 
> conventions.  Since that time, we have grown accustomed to looking beyond 
> the general clothing style for other gender indicators.  (For an example of 
> how this works, remember the scene in ... was it Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn? 
> . when a boy dressed as a girl was "caught out" by how he moved when 
> something was dropped in his lap.  But note also that cross-dressing was 
> rare enough at that point that the initial assumption was that a person 
> dressed as a girl had to =be= a girl.  On that logic, a person-in-persona 
> =should= automatically assume that someone dressed as a man is a man, unless 
> other indicators of gender are so obvious as to be unmistakable =to someone 
> not used to looking for them=)

Which brings us to the question of Little Red Ridinghood (hereinafter
referred to as PCR).  The wolf's cross-species disguise does not
cover such things as big wolf ears and big wolf teeth, yet it
only slowly dawns on PCR that it's not her grandmother.
* Has PCR ever met her grandma?
* Does she have some sort of brain damage, like
  The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat?

-- Alfredo

=======================================================================
List Archives, FAQ, FTP:  http://sca.wayfarer.org/merryrose/
            Submissions:  atlantia@atlantia.sca.org
        Admin. requests:  majordomo@atlantia.sca.org