True, in recent years, these unfortunate sterotypes have abated slightly, with some male tortoises recognising that their behaviour is unacceptable, and even a few female tortoises indulging in an unfortunate laddette culture. So your claims for equality are well placed. But remember, at 175 years, Harriet was from another, more conservative era, where parity between the tortoise sexes was not a given.

I don’t know very much about tortoises, but why do you call male tortoises “fucking yahoo idiot”s? Clearly they don’t behave any more badly than females, otherwise her gender would have been suspected sooner. If you are anthropomorphising, then presumably your view of tortoises is derived from that of humans. Why do you think males are “fucking yahoo idiots”? It seems a bit harsh, but I’d be interested in your reasons.

But the question is are male tortoises treated in a way which would be bad for female ones? If so, how? And why does a female tortoise deserve deference and reverence beyond what a male tortoise deserves? If this too is an anthropomorphism, then I would ask the same question in regard to human females. What seems strange to me is how many men interpret women wanting to be treated with *the same* deference and reverence as men, as women wanting to be treated with *more* deference and reverence than men. Clearly that would not be equitable, would it?

The implication was indeed: b), that poor Harriet was treated like a fucking yahoo idot male tortoise for five quarters of a century, and not with the due deference and reverence she - as a female tortoise - deserved.

I’m not convinced that this is so - certainly not in Harriet’s case, and not, I believe in the human arena either. For a female to be treated “as a male”, would not, I believe, be ignominious, except to the extent that a) treatment of males was ignominious per se, or b) said female held males in low esteem. The same would be true in the reverse case.

To the extent that a) and b) are believed to be true in the world at large in relation to females, I can well understand why a male might find the very idea of being treated “as a female” ignominious. To betray such a belief entails either position a) or b) above, surely?

If Harriet’s gender was not apparent from her physiology, it might have been apparent from her behaviour, which it was not - so where’s the ignominy then? Perhaps males and females are not so different after all.