As a child, it seemed humiliating to squat down to pee. The boys had another advantage: standing upright, with a pea in their hand, they could also direct it to water the ants. In chronological order, he is number one, patient zero of my contagious desire to change gender. Having reached venerable maturity, I have not yet recovered.

I would like to be reborn as a man for nine other good reasons. Number two goes back to adolescence: men never had “those days”, their “things”, their “troubles”. They could always swim in the sea. Run. Climb trees.

Number three is still from that era and lasted a long time: males could take care of females. If so, they were skillful, charming, enterprising. If the females courted the male, they starved, nymphomaniacs, no good.

The fourth is to become parents. Boys don’t cost anything, the most important thing is to have children. They don’t swell, they don’t have to be tested every month for nine months, they don’t know labor pains. They can disappear and then even the economic cost of being a parent becomes zero, or they can take on their responsibilities, but it’s just a matter of being there, maybe paying, their body doesn’t end up in the hospital.

Annie Spratt on unsplash

Number five is about suitcases: when the boys leave, they have light suitcases, they pack them in six minutes. Change of linen. Clean shirt, toothbrush, toothpaste and go. I spend an average of two days packing and unpacking some of my luggage, which includes anxiety, heels and ballerinas, two smart pieces for the cold and heat for the off-season, a few casual outfits, shawls and little black dresses for those who never know.. . etc. Men wear uniforms, there are few variations, we live in variations, so much so that the musical theme sinks and disappears.

Number six has to do with menopause: they don’t have it. No hot flashes and extra pounds, no dates with a full and despised middle age.

Number seven is about hair: it falls out, we don’t, but it becomes problematic. And we have to take care of the regrown hair, the highlights, the jaunty haircut that camouflages necessity with choice.

The number eight is related to marital status: if they are single, they are “bachelors” – a word that refers to young and rude uncles who did not want to get involved in marriage. If we are single, we are old maids, a word that refers to boring and ugly women that no one wanted to marry.

Number nine is a complicated matter: they lived at sixty as we did at fifty. Dog/person from one to seven. Woman/man one to ten. Don’t ask me why.

The last reason I would like to change gender is boredom. I have been what I am for far too many years: a woman, feminist and progressive, kind to the weak, nervous to the strong, always looking for the right recipe for living on the right side. Isn’t it great to wake up one morning in a male body? Be a good cheater of a certain age. One who wrote many novels. And tomorrow he goes to dinner with a woman the same age as his daughter and, moreover, who loves him?