If You Thought Gay Marriage Caused Controversy. . . .

I think there's more to come and the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth will become more pronounced.

Germany now has a legal definition for a third gender:

Starting this November, German parents will be able to select male, female, or “indeterminate” when filling out their newborn’s birth certificate. This means that parents won’t have to label their baby’s gender, thereby allowing those born with intersex characteristics to make a decision later in life. Or not.

The new law, which goes into effect on November 1, was passed back in May, but has only now started getting widespread attention — a mere six weeks after Australia became the first country in the world to introduce legal guidelines on gender recognition. Back in July, the country added “intersex” and other gender designations to official documents, like passports.

An intersex person is someone who has a variation in sex characteristics, including chromosomes and genitals that don’t allow them to be identified neatly as either male or female.

Germany apparently trails Sweden when it comes to recognizing this third gender. The Swedes have introduced a gender neutral personal pronoun:

And in an effort to work towards yet even greater levels of gender equality, Sweden now wants to do it through the channel of linguistic gender-neutrality. A good number of forward-looking Swedes have determined that government and society should no longer recognize any legal distinctions between the sexes. To that end, they have officially introduced the new gender-neutral pronoun, "hen," to the vernacular. To make it all the more official, they added it to the country's National Encylopedia and defined it as a "proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he [han in Swedish] and she [hon]."

I think it may be time to move to a small cabin in the woods with a big pile of books. When these changes are proposed in the United States, and make no mistake, they will be, I'm afraid the debates about marriage that now seem heated will suddenly appear as banal as dinner party small talk.

Quotation Of The Day: Man Doesn't Use His Man's Mind

From this Steve Benen post about Maine legislator Ken Fredette who boasts about his "man's mind":

"As I listen to the debate today and earlier debate on this bill, I can't help but think of a title of a book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. And it's a book about the fact that men sort of think one way in their own brain, in their own world. And women think another way in their brain and in their own world. And it really talks about the way that men and women can do a better job at communicating.

"Because if you listen to the debate today, in my mind -- a man's mind -- I hear really two fundamental issues. From the other side of the aisle, I hear the conversation being about 'free. This is free, we need to take it, and it's free. And we need to do it now.' And that's the fundamental message that my brain receives. Now, my brain, being a man's brain, sort of thinks differently, because I say, 'Well, it's not -- if it's free, is it really free? Because I say, in my brain, there's a cost to this.'"

Sometimes, the brain should tell one not to say anything at all.

Positive Peer Pressure

This Slate article contends that girls do better when surrounded by intelligent female peers whereas boys may not fair as well when confronted by intelligent male peers.  I don't know enough to comment wisely on the premise or the research, but the following quotations struck me as extremely perceptive.  First, it seems that a few bad apples may spoil the whole barrel.

The studies examined the academic achievement of high school students and found that being surrounded by underachieving classmates has a negative effect on girls and boys—both genders feel pressure to conform to the lower standards of their peers (Bold Mine, Italics in original) (Fisman, The Right Kind of Peer Pressure, 11/5/2010).

Second, the Demotivational geniuses are correct; when people are given the opportunity to do as they please, they usually imitate each other (Despair.com, Conformity).  It will be hard for anyone, especially high school students avoid that trap.

The takeaway from all of this is clear for parents looking to maximize their kids' SAT scores—surround your daughters with smart peers and make sure to keep any kid, boy or girl, away from the influence of academic laggards. Both boys (discouraged by stiff competition) and girls (deterred by peer disapproval) might also look back on the advice dispensed by Mary Pipher in the closing pages of Reviving Ophelia. Adolescents, she writes, need to "forge self-definitions independent of peer pressure." (Bold Mine) (Fisman, The Right Kind of Peer Pressure, 11/5/2010).