During her confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson told America she has no idea what a woman is, because, after all, KBJ's not a biologist.

This from a nominee specifically chosen because — drum roll, please — she's a woman.

More specifically, a black woman.

We can safely assume, then, that KBJ is equally unaware of the definition of being black.  After all, she's a judge, not a race-hustler.  Presumably, if Judge Jackson is interested in the definition of blackness, she can consult Al Sharpton or Ibram X. Kendi or others of that ilk.

But, back to the main question of what is a woman, I think I can safely speak to that issue both because I am a biologist, having earned a B.S. in biology, and because I treated female patients for forty years as a dentist.

I noticed a certain oddity as a dentist, and I imagine the same is true for a lot of other dentists and physicians.  Almost two thirds of my daily schedule comprised female patients, all of whom made their own appointments.  Only a third of my work was devoted to men, most of whom had had their appointments scheduled by their wives, girlfriends, or mommies.

So let's start our definition there: women take care of themselves.  Unlike most of my male patients, they typically don't wait until something breaks or hurts to come in.  They're generally proactive.  I'm sure that trait at least partially explains the roughly five-year difference in life expectancy between men and women.

Also, women are brave.  As a group, they suffer the slings and arrows of extensive dental treatment with grace, dignity, and courage.  Men, on the other hand, brag about their incredibly high tolerance for pain before grabbing the arms of my dental chair in a death grip and refusing to open wide.  If I had to do a particularly difficult and hazardous procedure, I much preferred to do it on a little, old lady, not some big, bearded, muscle-bound baby.  Women are tough, double-tough!

I've been blessed to have spent considerable time in a wide variety of medical venues, gross anatomy labs, emergency rooms, operating rooms, dental operatories, and even morgues.  I've seen a lot of wild stuff.  And when someone asks me what's the wildest, craziest, most frightening thing I've ever seen, I tell 'em: childbirth.  Can't be sure when it's starting, how bad it's going to get, how long it will take, or just what the outcome will be.  And whether I was watching my wife or another woman giving birth, my internal mantra stayed the same: thank God, I'm a man, this can never happen to me, thank God, I'm a man!  As I said, women are brave.

They also smell good.  Now I'm generalizing, of course.  But I remember so many female patients who showed up with freshly brushed and flossed teeth, and a personal bouquet of some delightful flowery perfume or eau de toilette, or at the very least, the pleasant smell of their lotions or hair products.

Men, as a rule, showed up with bits of cheeseburger between their teeth and variously smelled of sweat; tobacco; motor oil; or, most egregiously, Old Spice.

Now, this is not a general rant against men, no.  Fact is, women can't drive.  They're tentative and overly careful, often braking on the highway for no discernible reason.  Women have driven right off the road to avoid hitting a squirrel, while most men merely tap the brakes, grimace at the point of contact, and then go back to picking their noses.

It's no accident that in the four seasons of Formula One racing available on Netflix, there are no female drivers.  Women prefer jobs where they're likely to return home in one piece.  They're a lot smarter in that regard than men.

Women like to talk.  And talk and talk and talk.  I ask my sons how they're doing, and I get answers like "fine" and "OK."

I ask my daughter the same thing, and I get a comprehensive rundown of her life since childhood, her current health, her hubby, her job, her co-workers, her friends and their jobs, her moods, concerns, feelings, thoughts, hopes, prayers, and expectations.  Women are great communicators, much better than men.

Women are also humble, much more humble than men.  You have the beautiful, exotic, curvaceous lady who thinks the slight curl of her upper lip makes her look like a duck.  And then there's the guy who clearly thinks he's God's gift, unshaven, smelling of the lawn he just mowed, his hairy gut peeking out from below his mustard-stained Yankees shirt.  I've always wondered why women feel the need to dress up, comb their hair, and put on cosmetics when it's clearly men who need the help.  Why is that?

Women, although clearly harder workers than men, have no tolerance for the icky stuff.  My wife would start working the moment her feet hit the floor in the morning, somehow managing an often chaotic family, huge piles of bills, a house in constant disrepair, communication and scheduling with the outside world, and often doing three jobs at once up until the moment her head hit the pillow at night.  But if one of the toilets got clogged, or the dog had an accident, or one of the kids vomited, she couldn't handle it.  Those were my jobs.  The family hamster died one day, apparently around noon, and when I got home fairly late that night, poor Rolly was still in his cage, rigor mortis setting in.  Disposing of dead hamsters, apparently, is a man's job.

Most of all, women make families work.  They make holidays and birthdays special, they buy the presents and wrap them, they hang the wreaths and break out the appropriate decorations and dishes.  Men, as a group, tell the kids to go outside, grab another beer, and go back to watching the game.  At least I did.

I'm certain by now that astute readers have noticed that your biologist author has said absolutely nothing about ovaries, vulvae, milk glands, estrogen, that super-sensitive spot called the supraclavicular notch, and such.  Fact is, the biology of a woman is crystal-clear.  You'd have to be an obtuse, radical leftist — like our friend KBJ — to pretend otherwise.

But, as even affirmative action Supreme Court nominees must admit, women are caring, brave, hardworking, humble, family-oriented, and communicative, plus they smell good.  Sadly, they can't drive worth a darn or clean up cat vomit if there's a man around.

I sincerely hope this in-depth discussion of what constitutes a woman has enlightened all you non-biologists.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.