DEAL WITH IT!

It really doesn't help to become exercised over books that do little except show the author's ignorance. There are just too many of them around and there is that pesky 1st Amendment to our Constitution. Recently, two books are causing some consternation because they appear to confirm the trash spouted by the planet guy, so we checked them out.

One is called Brain Sex and the other Why Men Don't Iron. They ARE NOT best sellers and can be purchased secondhand for a couple of bucks as people are rushing to return them. They are perfect examples of how one can claim anything and create authorities to back up even the most outlandish claims. Trying to stir up a fuss against books like these only gives them more publicity and greater readership.

BS (well named!) claims that testosterone flowing through the male brain makes it different from a female brain, and WMDI asks a question that all women know the answer to: "men don't iron because they have women to do it for them." No fooling! Many a wife/mother has taught their husbands/sons to iron.

As for testosterone isn't that a hormone in the blood that causes crud to adhere to blood vessels and hair to leave the head? Who would want the stuff in their brain? Well, actually if it is in the blood it can go to any organ, can't it? Whatever one might think about testosterone and the brain, it seems to be getting a lot of attention these days. George Carlin (author of Brain Droppings) sunk the planet guy's argument with this observation, "Women and men are from Earth. DEAL WITH IT!

Way to go, George. Great advice. Those books only demonstrate that anyone can write anything they want to and publish a book. So we thought why not us? Using their premise of testosterone's affect on the organs of human beings and lack of testosterone causing other things, we are thinking of writing the following two books: Liver Sex and Why Women Can't Change Tires. A short review of each follows:

Liver Sex: We closely examined the liver of men and women and we found profound differences that we attribute to either the presence or absence of testosterone based on the authorities cited in BS and WMCI. This has never been reported before although there are many books written on the liver. It seems that no one thought to examine the liver for gender differences.

Here are a few things we found but you'll have to read the book to get all the juicy details. First, we were excited to see the gender differences in the Kupffer cells. These are scavenger cells whose duty it is to remove damaged red blood cells. They hang out at the edge of blood canals and scarf them up.

In the female (deprived of testosterone) Kupffer cells were round and plump and pleasant appearing. With what seemed to be an innate talent, they lured the damaged red blood cells to them with what appeared to be their excellent communication skills. The scarfing-up was done with decorum.

In the male (blood suffused with testosterone) the Kupffer cells were irregular and really mean looking. They actively sought out their prey without any preamble or attempt to communicate. Because of their activity and single mindedness, many damaged cells were able to slip around them and make their way out of the liver.

We might as well admit it. We are having some difficulty with our second book, Why Women Can't Change Tires. We had been convinced from reading Why Men Can't Iron that there would be no difficulty in finding many examples to write about. So far though, we have not found any women who cannot change tires. We have only found women who get men (or other women) to change the tires for them.

We were struck by the similarity between our findings and those of reports concerning the ability of women and men delineated years ago at the height of the women's movement. They established the activity that one gender could do and the other could not: "women cannot be sperm-donors and men cannot be wet nurses."

Our research also confirmed that males are not speech deficient as they are portrayed in some books, however, some of them do exhibit a brain-sex schism bordering on myopia. A most outstanding example of this condition occurred just recently. We heard CongressMEN like Delay, Armey, Watts and Hastert declare that stem cell research was an "industry of death," but they do not characterize the arms manufacturing industry that way. Obviously for them it's not the killing per se but what or who is getting killed.

Just what is it that we want for our progeny? Do we wish to continue on the same divisive path that pits one gender against the other? Or might we demand that our society remove the hobbles of gender, which demand pedestrian acquiescence, from our newborns to help them discover and grow their wings?

twanda@gendergappers.org       

2001-030

Copyright 2001 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@gendergappers.org.

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