And millions of mystery fans know her as the real Amanda Cross, author of twelve books of detective fiction. In this interview with Quarterly editor Diane Sherlock '78, Carolyn G. Heilbrun BI '77 explains why gender has always mattered in her life.
Women are everywhere now.
They're not there with a great deal of power or in great numbers, but they are much less outside than they used to be. Only the fundamentalist religions are trying to push women back into those traditional roles. Consequently, if we can distinguish, from sex, gender as a cultural form, as a social construct, I think it has changed, though not greatly. But I was always trying not to be Jewish and was brought up not Jewish. Well, I say that I always felt like a feminist because I never wanted to move into what was a very prescribed female world when I was growing up.