My fondness for Anna of Dakota Women continues to increase. She is currently failing students in American History. We are now not just pals, but kin. I seem to have drawn Anna out of retirement, at least briefly, by my posts on gender and sex and on Clarence Thomas. It is too bad that K at Dakota Women seems to have no stamina for this sort of thing. I reply to Anna.
I am going to leave [K] to deal with my now real-life pal Ken Blanchard's interesting view on biological sex. I will say, however, that it would be a pretty sad world if, as men and women, we were nothing but the sum of our chromosomes and reproductive functions.
I am still waiting for K to respond. But in my post I distinguish gender, which is socially constructed, from sex, which is biologically fixed. The fact that we can "assign" gender means that we are more than "the sum of our chromosomes and reproductive functions." I am male, and the father of two. But I can also recite Jabberwocky from memory.
As to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill matter, I am inclined to believe the former whereas Anna is inclined to believe the latter. Another word for that inclination is bias. Neither Anna nor I know who was telling the truth. I do submit that if someone she cared about, say Hillary Clinton or another politician to her liking, were subject to an identical accusation, Anna wouldn't side with the accuser. Anna says:
Justice Thomas can be upset about his confirmation hearings if he wants, but his effort to smear Anita Hill is just as unreasonable.
It isn't a smear, Anna my friend, if Justice Thomas is telling the truth.
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