- by Art Hoppe, columnist, the San Francisco Examiner
READERS ARE FURIOUS that Supervisor Tom Ammiano wants insurance companies to pay for city employees' sex change operations.
Readers, as usual, are all wrong. The vast majority of such operations involve changing men into women. And if there's one issue we can all agree upon, it's the crying need for more women in government.
I'm confident the National Organization for Women along with feminists everywhere will applaud Mr. Ammiano's crusade to ensure their gender is more adequately represented in our City Hall.
For all too long the corridors of that bureaucratic institution have been dominated by cigar smoking, poker playing, whiskey drinking, hard- hearted males. Simple justice demands that more women take their rightful place around the water coolers, on the telephones and in the restrooms of that edifice.
Simple justice may not have widespread appeal these days among taxpayers. After all, they're being asked to lay out $10,000 to $30,000 in higher insurance premiums for each sex change operation. Their question, of course, is, "What's in it for me?''
The answer is that women bureaucrats are a darned sight easier to deal with than their male counterparts.
Let's say you call the Health Department's Animal Bite Reporting Service (554-2850) to report being bitten by an animal. What do you want? Sympathy. Most people who call City Hall want sympathy, either before or after they hang up the phone.
And who are more compassionate, men or women? In a major 1987 study of laboratory rats by Barnes and Frolich of Rutgers University, the researchers placed a feverish baby rat in a cage containing six female and six male adult rats. They found that five of the six female rats licked and cuddled the baby rat while the six male rats headed straight for the cheese and the sixth female rat.
From this, they were able to conclude that females of the species are 2.6 times more compassionate than males, which was something all of us knew already anyway.
Not only are women more compassionate but they attune more readily to the emotional needs of those in distress, which, of course, would include taxpayers. Should you ring up Potholes (695-2100) or the Sewer Odor Hotline (557-6833) -- which are among the more than 1,800 city government numbers listed in the phone book -- how lucky you are if a woman answers.
"A smell like what?'' she'll say, all concerned. Or, `"Your car disappeared at which intersection?'' And you'll feel in your bones that she really cares. On the other hand, no male bureaucrat in all recorded history has ever told a taxpayer, "Poor baby.''
So if you want to be licked and cuddled when you call up City Hall, support Supervisor Ammiano's brilliant plan to increase the number of women in city government without increasing the number of city employees one iota.
Indeed, there's no reason this bold policy couldn't be carried all the way to the top. And if our mayor will only olunteer for this surgical procedure, I can think of a dozen fired city employees who'd be glad to groom him for his new role.
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