Touring the Valley

Sex and Gender or Whatever

I'm tired of people insisting "There are only two genders", when what they really mean is two sexes.

Gender is a grammatical construct. Some languages, including English, have two or three gendered pronouns (he, she, it), but do not classify other words by gender. Some languages have two genders (Italian and French are examples) that classify all nouns. Although those genders are called "masculine" and "feminine" they really have no relationship to sex, but are arbitrary designations. There is no reason for a table or a shoe to be masculine or feminine, except that it just is. A word that is feminine in one language may be masculine (or neuter) in another.

Languages in which gender is applied to nouns may require agreement; that is the practice whereby words modifying (describing) those nouns are changed (inflected) to take on the noun's gender.

Languages that have grammatical gender typcally have two, three, or four genders. A few have as many as 20. These genders, or noun classes, may include masculine, feminine, animate, inanimate, human, nonhuman, or other categories that have taken on significance within the language.

Note that this is an overly simplified explanation. For more details and a better understanding of how gender operates in languages, see the following links.

● Wikipedia article on grammatical gender
● Duolingo: What is grmmatical gender?
● Toppam: Grammatical genders in different languages

In the meantime, for people who have strong feeling and opinions - or just a bit of curiosity - about dividing humans into two biological sexes, here are some interesting articles.

● Sex Redefined
● The Five Sexes
● Biological Sex is Not a Spectrum
● What's the Difference Between Sex and Gender?

Those Crazy Women

There are standard methods that are used to try to undermine women in public life.

#1 - Attack her sexuality. She slept her way to the top. She's promiscuous. Or she's a lesbian. Or she's frigid (no wonder her husband cheated - see #4). And, more recently: she's really a man.

#2 - Attack her appearance. She's old, she's fat, she dresses badly, she's horse-faced (no wonder her husband cheated - see #4), she looks masculine, she laughs too much, her voice is annoying, her hairstyle is awful. Or she's trying too hard, spends too much time and money on vanity.

#3 - Attack her health. She's an alcoholic. She has a degenerative disease or fatal illness. (If she ever trips or bumps into something, that's proof.) She's mentally ill.

#4 - Attack her husband. He's gay. He cheated. He's a crook. He actually hates her. He's a perv. Or she's wickedly single (See #1).

#5 - Attack her children. They're gay, they're ugly, they got bad grades - she's a bad mother. Or she has no children because there's something wrong with her.

Sometimes some of these are used against men. But it's very predictable that #1, #2 and #4 will be revived for female candidates.

Prescription For Success

I'm going to restructure my company, using the same business model as health care companies. When you order my products, I will send you a smaller quantity than you requested. If you complain, I'll just tell you that I've determined that is all you actually need.

Sometimes I'll send nothing. When you complain, I'll tell you that I've determined that this was an unnecessary order.

Sometimes I'll send a different product, with a note saying you must try this first to see if it works out before you can have what you ordered.

Sometimes I'll ship exactly what you ordered, but I'll include a bill for another 25%. When you question the bill, I'll tell you it's a required co-payment.

This will be great.

What Are We Paying Them For?

One time, my husband was really sick with a respiratory infection. The doctor had prescribed some medicine to relieve his symptoms, and he had used it all, so the doctor called the pharmacy with a prescription for more. Later, I called the pharmacy to see if the medicine was ready, and I was told they hadn't filled the prescription because insurance declined it! The insurance company's position was that it was "too soon" for Hubby to get more medicine, even though his doctor thought he should have it.

I told the pharmacy to forget insurance, I would pay. It wasn't actually a lot of money. Overall, there are probably many cases where it costs the company more to deny a claim (paying the drones who do the paperwork and deal with the patient's complaints) than it would to just go ahead and pay for it.

Costs aside, I don't understand why office workers who have never even met the patient are allowed to overrule his licensed physician, who has firsthand knowledge of his illness and is trained to treat it.

We think we are paying these companies to provide for our health care. We think their purpose is to help us pay medical bills. They think their purpose is to just collect our money and dole it out to shareholders and millionaire executives.

Still Thinking

Eat the rich, and your family is fed for a day. Tax the rich, and they'll be fed for life.

Imagine you can go back in time and talk to a Republican from the 1950s or 1960s. You tell him that there are some politicians who want to prevent large numbers of citizens from voting, and they also want to throw out election results that don't favor their party. Further, they would like to eliminate the FBI. Would he exclaim, "What a wonderful group of Conservatives!"? He would not. To the traditional conservative, those people would sound like a bunch of Communists.

If the CEO is out of town for two weeks, nothing changes, everyone keeps on doing what they do, the company keeps running. But if the janitor goes AWOL, trash piles up , the bathrooms become unusable, people start calling in sick, and pretty soon nothing is getting done.

In a couple of months the White House will just be QVC on steroids.

Will Donald's "inaugural address" be sponsored by a reverse mortgage company? Will he interrupt the speech to do a promo for trump support hosiery? If Mel attends the inaugural ball, will she be interviewed about her new line of South African emerald jewelry?