> I think it must be a lot easier to be a weird misfit now than it was in 1935.
Jane doesn't have children, and people are always asking her why she doesn't have children. Jane learned a long time ago that it makes people angry and suspicious if she tells the truth, which is that she doesn't have children because she doesn't want children. So she's in the habit of explaining that she can't have children as a result of a medically necessary hysterectomy. Then people are okay with it and even sympathetic. (There was no hysterectomy.)
Jane doesn't have children, and people are always asking her why she doesn't have children. Jane learned a long time ago that it makes people angry and suspicious if she tells the truth, which is that she doesn't have children because she doesn't want children. So she's in the habit of explaining that she can't have children as a result of a medically necessary hysterectomy. Then people are okay with it and even sympathetic. (There was no hysterectomy.)
Some things don't change all that much.