http://dailyuw.com/2009/11/10/alpha-females/
By Celina Kareiva
November 10, 2009
There’s an old riddle that goes something like this: A father and a son are in an automobile accident. The father is killed, and the son is rushed to the hospital where a surgeon performs an intricate operation. When the operation has been successfully completed, the surgeon looks down at the boy’s face for the first time and cries, “That’s my son!”
The correct and seemingly obvious answer is that the surgeon is the boy’s mother, but because this profession requires a degree of technical precision, authority and higher education, most people immediately choose a male figure like “stepfather” or “priest.” The riddle is supposed to trigger some intense self-reflection about gender expectations. But whether these concerns are still applicable today is debatable.
Read the entire article, with comments by HCDE undergraduate Jessica Cropley.
