Punch Lines

My work friend Alice was great at telling jokes. Her delight was infectious, and every joke she told seemed hilarious. Even a bad joke sounded really clever when Alice told it.

I wanted to be funny, too, so I tried telling some of Alice's jokes. Clearly, I didn't have her talent for entertaining. People rarely laughed, but just sighed. The truth is that most of Alice's jokes were terrible, the kind of material one might expect from dirty-minded twelve-year-olds. They seemed funny because Alice was energetic and happy when she told them, her timing was excellent, and she usually told them in a bar after everyone had had a few drinks.

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 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.