“It is,” he admitted. “But it wouldn’t be if I were a woman. Women
are made differently. They don’t have this ambition. Their ambition is
for children.” He smiled at me as if I knew what he was talking about.
And I did. I smiled, and for a few seconds we were in agreement.
Then: “But what if you were a woman, and somehow you felt exactly
as you do now?”
Josh’s eyes fixed on the wall for a moment. He was really thinking
about it. Then he said, “I’d know something was wrong with me.”
I’d been wondering whether something was wrong with me since the
beginning of the semester, when I’d attended my first lecture on world
affairs. I’d been wondering how I could be a woman and yet be drawn
to unwomanly things.
I knew someone must have the answer so I decided to ask one of my
professors. I chose the professor of my Jewish history class, because he
was quiet and soft-spoken. Dr. Kerry was a short man with dark eyes
and a serious expression. He lectured in a thick wool jacket even in hot
weather. I knocked on his office door quietly, as if I hoped he wouldn’t
answer, and soon was sitting silently across from him. I didn’t know
what my question was, and Dr. Kerry didn’t ask. Instead he posed
general questions—about my grades, what courses I was taking. He
asked why I’d chosen Jewish history, and without thinking I blurted
that I’d learned of the Holocaust only a few semesters before and
wanted to learn the rest of the story.
“You learned of the Holocaust when?” he said.
“At BYU.”
“They didn’t teach about it in your school?”
“They probably did,” I said. “Only I wasn’t there.”
“Where were you?”
I explained as best I could, that my parents didn’t believe in public
education, that they’d kept us home. When I’d finished, he laced his
fingers as if he were contemplating a difficult problem. “I think you
should stretch yourself. See what happens.”
“Stretch myself how?”
He leaned forward suddenly, as if he’d just had an idea. “Have you
heard of Cambridge?” I hadn’t. “It’s a university in England,” he said.