In 2008 I claimed (in Finnish), that stereotypically the male sex is Dynamic and the female sex is static. It has come to me as a surprise that in the Metaphysics of Quality community people generally seem to think the opposite — that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is primarily about static quality, is a journey to the masculine world, and that Lila is a journey to the feminine world. Namely, what struck me as odd is that femininity is seen as more Dynamic than masculinity. I’ve never thought it to be so, and anecdotal evidence suggests to the contrary. That is, the fact that men are usually the more visible leaders in this world, but also the worst criminals. The richest people are men, but men make more suicides. Among men there seems to be more diversity in level and type of achievement than among women. This diversity could be attributed to strong Dynamic tendencies either latching to static quality or bringing peril.

The conception of femininity as more Dynamic seems to be rooted in the fact that Lila (the woman) is portrayed as an ambassador of Dynamic Quality in the book. But who makes the portrait? Why, that’s Pirsig himself — a man. And what Pirsig seems to fail to realize is that while he is using Lila to obtain Dynamic Quality, this does not suffice to prove that Lila is an exceptionally Dynamic person herself. Even if she is, that does not amount to all women being like her. And Lila is indeed portrayed as an unusual person.

Saying that women are stereotypically the Dynamic sex is, in my opinion, looking at things from a heterosexual male viewpoint. Heterosexual women could as well argue that men are stereotypically the Dynamic sex to them. Ultimately, it is perhaps not as useful to state either sex to be the Dynamic one as to state that intimate human interaction is Dynamic. And Lila is a more intimate book than Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.