A Riddle...

I'd like to start this blog post with a riddle:

A father and son are driving across a railroad track when the car suddenly stalls and gets hit by an incoming train. The father is killed on impact, and the child is rushed to the hospital in a critical condition. There, the surgeon, upon sight of the patient, says "I can't operate on this child because that's my son." How is that possible?

I was asked this riddle during a longer car ride evenly divided within gender, and even though I already knew the answer, it was interesting to watch how surprisingly long it took the people in the car to come up with the solution.

One thing that was recently mentioned before class and angered me was the announcement of a bone marrow drive. The announcement reminded me of the Red Cross' archaic restriction on blood donations for gay people who, according to them, are "at higher risk of having AIDS." There are constantly small restrictions like that in place in society that create gender inequality and sexuality inequality.

However, society is continuously working towards breaking down those legal inequalities. What concerns me most are the inequalities embedded in peoples' minds - the thoughts that make solving this riddle difficult for my friends.

The answer to the riddle? The surgeon is the boy's mother.