An e-mail:

Also keeping in mind that much of the “whining,” as you put it, seems almost to be about the mere fact that there is a difference between men and women that might have some effect on relationships (either way, in my experience). Maybe this is an aside, but I was having an argument with a friend about the use of plural-pronouns as a substitution for the English language’s lack of a gender-neutral pronoun. I made the point that everything in many foreign languages is gender-specific (der tish, for example), and that it is ridiculous to start taking offense or to butcher the language to avoid causing offense. His comment was “I don’t like pronouns at all – they suggest that there is a difference between men and women.” This ended the argument, of course.
It seems to me that we are living in a society where it is almost just as likely that your boss will be a woman (still a discrepancy, yes, but we won’t get into that). A female boss may be just as inaccessible to male employees by virtue of gender differences as a male boss is to female employees. But isn’t this one of those problems that we seem to be making into far more than it really is (due, in my opinion, to a changing world-view and value systems – as a Christian, I would recognize and celebrate gender differences and feel perfectly fine for doing so)? Just like we think there is a huge problem based on the fact that if a black person/white person/woman/jock/nerd, whatever, walks into a crowded room, that person may gravitate initially toward other blacks/whites/women/jocks/nerds?
Maybe I’m way off base, but our obsession with “Equality” for equality’s sake seems to really fall short …