Dry balsam gourd parts

 

The bright red fruits of the balsam gourd vine (Ibervillea lindheimeri) are its most conspicuous feature. A close look at one of these vines in Great Hills Park on July 13th revealed other interesting shapes and textures. One was a dry tendril, about three inches (7.6cm) of which you see above (click to enlarge). Another was the scrunched dry leaf shown below.

 

 

 

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Imagine you’re a foreigner who’s visiting the United States for the first time. In your hotel’s lobby a television is tuned to a cable news channel and you see some people identified as Democrats, but you don’t know what that word means. You turn to a nearby American and ask for an explanation of who Democrats are. The answer you get is: “A loose, shifting constellation of political and cultural people who vary according to context, place and time.”

Not understanding that explanation, a few minutes later you ask another American what a Democrat is, and you get this answer: “Someone who experiences the norms that are associated with Democrats in their social context as relevant to them.”

You thought you understood English pretty well, but now you’re beginning to wonder if you’ve overestimated your ability. A little later you turn to a third American and ask what a Democrat is. This time the answer you get is: “A Democrat, for me, is someone who feels that they are a Democrat.”

That still didn’t help, so you ask a fourth American, who says: “Every Democrat is a Democrat. Democrats are multifaceted, intergenerational, international. They are limitless, formless. Democrats are the world.”

A fifth American gives you an answer similar to what the third American said: “A Democrat is anyone who identifies as a Democrat.”

Now, just change the word Democrat to woman, and all the “definitions” are real ones that people have given in response to the question “What is a woman?” Those 5 are among the 26 non-definition definitions that mathematician and journalist Helen Joyce has compiled on her “What is a Woman” page. You’re welcome to read the other 21.

I made a similar point about non-definition definitions of a woman in a commentary on May 2nd.

  

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman