Amanda Cross and Androgyny

Abstract

Amanda Cross is the pen name Carolyn Heilbrun used for her mystery fiction. In two of her novels she employed the theme of androgyny. She also wrote the non-fiction, 1973 Toward a Recognition of Androgyny in which she promoted androgyny as aspect of her approach to feminism, an intellectual denial of any significant differences between the sexes. While that thread of American feminism has lost favor in current feminist ideologies, matters of gender identity are rising in prominence in American social and political thought, reviving the debate on male and female roles and identities in the United States.