“To call woman the weaker sex,” Mahatma Gandhi once said, is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman.”
Indeed, the phrase was a vapid platitude the moment it was coined. Exhibit A: the voids between the genders in terms of pain threshold and life expectancy — case closed. There are plenty more exhibits up the prosecution lawyer’s sleeve, too. (S)he might turn to the history books and cite the fearless exploits of Zenobia, Cleopatra, Lakshmibai, Theodora, Joan of Arc or Empress Dowager Cixi. (S)he might delve into the annals of popular music and point out how different its narrative would be without the exploits of Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Siouxsie Sioux and Chrissie Hynde. Marilyn Monroe’s irresistible turn in Some Like It Hot (see page 144), in which she produced one of the defining performances of Hollywood comedy history while she managed her extreme bipolar disorder, could also be in the mix.
