Now, I don’t actually have any problem with the claim that women work when sick more than men. I’ve even written about — and polled NR readers — on the question of whether men and women are actually affected differently by colds or whether men are simply big babies.

I’m not sure it’s empirically accurate, but it feels anecdotally true to me. It’s certainly true in the Goldberg households. I have, I think, a very strong work ethic, as did my father. But, just like my dad, when I get a head cold I regress into a fairly pathetic puddle of enfeebled self-pity. Meanwhile, my mom could always power through, as it were, as can my lovely-yet-hardy Alaskan bride. I’m not quite as bad as Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. If I asked my wife to sing me “soft kitty” she’d probably respond, “Okay. But first I need to print out the divorce papers.”

But here’s the thing. After weeks of bleating that it was sexist to raise questions about Hillary’s health, the immediate response from the very same people was an irrefutably sexist argument. Men are just a bunch of Jeb Bushes, low-energy shlubs laid low by a hangnail. But women are the Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Bangas of the species. (For non-longtime readers, this translates from the original Ngbandi, “The warrior who knows no defeat because of his endurance and inflexible will and is all powerful, leaving fire in his wake as he goes from conquest to conquest.”)