ABSTRACT
People have different-sized ears. Imagine that society was organized around a distinction between people with big ears and those with small ears. Whenever we filled out a form, instead of ticking either the ‘female’ or the ‘male’ boxes we would have to tick the ‘big ears’ or the ‘small ears’ box. Toilets would have different pictures on them; rather than and they might be something like this:
There might be jobs that are thought more suitable for people with big ears. People might say that big ears make good counsellors, they are so good at listening. There might be different clothing associated with each group. Perhaps big ears never wear hats, whereas small ears sometimes do. And perhaps small ears in some countries are not entitled to vote, because it is thought that
they cannot hear political arguments properly and therefore cannot make reasonable decisions. But surely this is a ridiculous example? What about people with medium-sized ears, what would happen to them? Well, much the same as happens to those people who are neither female nor male.
