Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas lived together as a couple for forty years. Alice was very supportive of Gertrude's writing, even Gertrude's publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. They frequently opened up their studio to their artist friends--male and female. The sexually ambiguous gatherings centered around discussions led by Gertrude. Many-up and-coming artists looked to Gertrude for support and inspiration: Hemingway, Matisse, and Picasso. They considered Gertrude a valued mentor and one of the "guys." Gertrude struggled her whole life with identity issues. She believed that "genius" was a male attribute, and she always wanted to achieve such greatness, which is likely why she embraced "maleness" in an effort to succeed in her writing. "She interpreted maleness as a social role rather than biological essence, this not excluding herself from the province of genius"
(Weiss 60-99).
(Weiss 60-99).
