A Contentious Woman and a Dripping Tap are both alike. Discuss.

A Contentious Woman. Is it permissible to even use the term "Woman"? perhaps the subject "identifies" as "non-binary" meaning that they do not accept that they are a female human, they maintain that their gender is something else. Perhaps they prefer to use a different "preferential pronoun" to "she." Perhaps 'she' is more comfortable with "zee" or one of the other multitude of words that have been specifically created to pander to the lgbtq+ brigade. Crazed left-wing liberal "democracies" such as Prancing Nancy Trudeau's then enshrine the "zee's" and... (actually there's so many of them, 60 to be precise, here's the University of Wisconsin's table)

So take your pick, I'm feeling "xem" today.

Oh yes, the Nancy's enshrine the insanity into law. It is illegal to refer to me as "he" I am now "xem". 

When the bad men come for us in the middle of the night let us hope that the "xem" people and the "pers" people, and all of these other people that have not existed since the dawn of time will unite together to protect us.

Somehow I don't think that is going to happen. 

Question : Am I allowed to write what I am writing? 

Question : Have I committed a crime in expressing my opinion?

It would seem that is dependent upon the perception of the person that might be offended, according to the Metropolitan Police's definition...

“A hate crime is defined as 'Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.' 

I think I may be okay, I'm not targeting any individual, I'm simply generalising, giving an opinion upon a group, the lqbtq+ group. Hang on though, what if an individual in that group perceives my opinion to be offensive? I'm beginning to understand, I think, I'm only committing "hate crime" if I commit a recognised criminal offence, say assault for example, and my assault is motivated by the victim's disability (for example).

Thank goodness for that. I'm safe. For now. 

Can they get me on anything else?

“A hate incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender."

Christ knows. Oh well, I'll just have to take my chances. Should be okay, a "hate incident" isn't a crime, not yet anyway.  So it won't matter that the police will make a record will it?

“Not all hate incidents will amount to criminal offences, but it is equally important that these are reported and recorded by the police.”

Can't understand why but I'm getting such a "Big Brother is watching you" type of feeling. How many "incidents" are being reported and "recorded"? How many people are unaware that something they said, without realising the consequence, is now stored digitally upon computers and can be found and linked to within milliseconds?

Is 1984 now upon us? We're getting inexorably closer.

But I have digressed, correction, to have digressed I would have had to begun to at least talk about the topic upon which I am supposed to be writing, that of the "Contentious Woman and the Dripping Tap." I found it difficult to continue without acknowledging the difficulty of the word "woman." It is certainly a word that is capable of stoking fury on the part of those who have successfully lobbied against their being ascribed that term. Their pressure now makes it a potential crime for me not to adhere to new words that have been created to give them what they want - whatever that might be - I'm still confused by it all.

LGB... whatever... and there is also a "+" at the end of all those letters. What is the "plus" for? Is it some kind of (here's a favourite word) "inclusive" symbol? I dare not ask. I may offend. Without realising that I am offensive I have committed an offence. Record me and have done with me. I am a "-" (for those not versed in "doublespeak" I am a "minus"). I am a danger to my society, I am less than useless.

Take me, lock me up, throw away the keys. My life is an abomination (I almost used the term "abortion" - thank the Lord that I never mentioned that hot topic - if people want to kill unborn babies that's up to them. I'm not going to mention that if those unborn babies are placed upon incubators they will survive. No, I'm steering well clear of upsetting any sector of society that has legislated for the right to kill).

Sorry, still not getting very far with this...

Okay, I'm going to hope that the brief foray into the word "woman" has been sufficient to enable me to continue. Are any other individual words in the title of this piece likely to cause offence? I think I'm safe. I don't think they can. Perhaps though the combination of words is going to render me liable to prosecution?

"Contentious Woman" - I'm starting to get a bit of head spin now. If I use the term "Contentious Woman" is it an accusatory term? An accusatory statement? As in, "You! Yes, you! You contentious woman!" or am I okay considering that I placed the word "A" before the term 'contentious woman'? So I'm not making a statement that an individual woman (that I have not named or even alluded to) is not being harshly referred to as "Contentious Woman" I'm qualifying that I'm referring to "A" contentious woman. 

"But, my Lord, notice how he cleverly interposed the word 'A' prior to his use of the derogatory term. He did so to try to elude what he so obviously set out to achieve by the use of this discriminatory term."

My God! It's not just 'derogatory' it's also 'discriminatory' - I've had it - how can a mere 'minus' withstand the truth and justice that is going to be dispensed upon me? I have to accept responsibility for my error. I did not know what I was doing but that is not an excuse. I have erred and must be punished. 

"Dripping Tap" - that should be okay, shouldn't it? I mean a dripping tap is certainly annoying but it won't cause anybody to feel that they've been discriminated against, will it? Or, here's another beauty, "Marginalised" - will someone feel 'left out' because I've described the tap as dripping? Perhaps. Who knows. What about the 'tap' doesn't it have any rights? If we're going to be "Inclusive" why shouldn't objects be included? Who is it that says we cannot protect objects? And if we exclude some objects whilst accepting others that would be wrong, wouldn't it? So if I want to protect, in this instance the 'tap' then I must also agree that the 'chair' has to be accorded the same level of respect as 'tap'. 

I don't know what personal pronoun the 'tap' will want to be recognised by (sorry, I forgot to mention 'chair' it was an unintentional marginalisation) hang on, I'll scroll back up and pick the one that seems most appropriate for 'tap'... here it is... no, sorry, couldn't find one, but I did find one for 'chair' it is "ver." As in "ver chair" it has a nice flow and sound to it, the two fit nicely together. I am typing whilst I am sitting on ver chair. I am not forgetting "'?' tap" but I've noticed that my spell-check is agitated by the word 'ver' it is insisting upon giving it a red underline. I think that a warning to the tech giant that the liberties that they so rightly espouse for us are being eroded by their insistence upon the highlighting of my chair's personal pronoun is going to cause at the least, consternation, and, at worst, outrage. Yes, that should do it. Surely the tech giant will bring its own house into order after that? 

I think I should quite before I get myself into deeper water - not tap-water - I'm talking metaphorical water. I only started out to discuss the Biblical quotation, taken from Proverbs. around 1000 BC someone, probably a prophet but who knows, sat down and wrote down this saying. 

Oh dear, I've just noticed "BC" the LBCQT people will be incensed, no, hold on, it's not LBC... it's something else, but the anti-Christ people will be incensed, BC is Before Christ and that's politically incorrect, it should read, "BCC" as in Before Common Era. That is to protect the sensibilities of the newcomers to the West, the ones who have their own religions, the ones that cry out, "There is not God but Allah." 

So that they will not be offended we have altered time itself. 

And the atheists, we must not marginalise the atheists, I mean they've been crying out for years, "There is no God." At least the first lot have a God, of sorts. The second lot don't care for either of our gods. But now at least they're getting somewhere, if it wasn't for the first lot the second certainly wouldn't have got rid of BC. Who cares? What of it? It doesn't affect me. Does it?

Now, certainly, I am able to approach the topic of this discussion, having due recognition and "Respect" to every weirdo under the sun. [No I'm not going to, tempting though it may be, I won't discuss "Respect" with a capital 'R']. I'm going to do what I should have done right from the start and discuss the title!

Dare I discuss the title? In the Muslim world a man's word carries twice the weight of a woman's. In my world a woman's word gives her greater protection under the law. Certainly if a woman is dismissed from her job she can claim that she has been discriminated against because she is a woman. I cannot make a similar claim because I am a man. If I was a black person (I think that I have to say 'black' meaning every hue and shade of every colour, black being the all encompassing word for "non-white") then I would have similar legislation to protect me, but who am I to complain that I have been marginalised. I'm a white male. 

"Oh, what a crime, he must be a violent aggressive man to even utter the words! Fetch the police, this mad dog needs to be restrained before he bites someone!"

I'm sure the guy that wrote down the original saying, I imagine that it had been in common use before he wrote it down, didn't mean to offend various pressure groups, particularly those that are marginalised, ostracised, categorised and circumcised. In fact he'd probably also been circumcised, given that the Bible came from the Judeo world, so he had nothing against the "non-foreskin brigade". He'd just heard it and wrote it down, simple as that. If it was a man. Had to be. A woman wouldn't have written down a saying that criticised members of her own kind, would she? 

I don't know why, I'm getting a certain rhyme ringing in my ears, "Here I am sitting broken hearted, paid a penny and only farted." I always remember it, it was alongside another witticism scratched into the paint on the public toilet door, "If you can read this, you are now, bending over at the waist." That is the same level of attention that the interferences operate upon, they are like the dripping of a tap, a constant interruption that I can put out of my mind but are always there, if for one moment my guard drops then they are back, as irritating as Scottish midges. 

I've just noticed something, I said, "interferences" I've subliminally grouped the whole darn lot together as one, the dripping tap and the QT+ and the BCC, etc etc, are all one. Perhaps like many sayings in the Bible it is a metaphor. It represents things that upset and cause consternation to the majority. Is "Contentious Woman" also a metaphor? Maybe, but it seems a bit too direct doesn't it? I think I'm on fairly safe ground to stick with it as referring to an attribute of a specific woman. We're not talking about the whole of woman-kind are we? Or woman-kind and non-binary kind, even. 

Basically the saying is saying that if a "Contentious Woman" exists (and I'm not saying that she does) then she and a "Dripping Tap" are both alike. I can see what the writer's getting at, if there was a contentious woman then she would be having a similar affect to the tap. That's about as far as I dare to take it.