Gender

Are American Idol fans misogynistic? The argument goes that the last three Idols have all been boys (David Cook, Kris Allen, and Lee DeWyze); that this season, particularly, girls seem to be targeted for elimination; and that teenyboppers are to blame for this gender bias, because they always vote for the cute guys. There are several problems with this theory, beginning with its ipso facto implication that DeWyze is cute. Over the course of the show, boys have won five times and girls four - hardly a rout.

L ADY GAGA is dead-on when she sings, "Maybe I was born this way . . . " I'm loving Gaga lately, but what really got me humming along is a story I saw on Twitter yesterday about a little boy in a J. Crew ad wearing hot pink nail polish. The ad, which appears online and shows designer Jenna Lyons smiling broadly and holding her son Beckett's foot with some of the brightest toenails I've seen since beach season. The accompanying copy reads, "Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink.

All seven of the babies allegedly killed in late-term abortions by Kermit Gosnell at his squalid West Philly clinic will be counted in homicide figures as black males, even though only one of the babies has been identified as such. Lt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman, said that the Police Department will count the race of the remaining six fetuses as black because "most of the folks that came in to Gosnell's house of horrors were black," he said. The gender, he said, will be listed as male for all of them.

Looking back at a great season Unfortunately, the rotund lady sung a little too soon, so there'll be no more baseball in our town until spring. I, for one, want to thank the Phillies for a great run. We had the best record in baseball and made it to the final four. That's no small feat. Of course, the fans and radio jocks will dissect every player's performance during each inning of the National League Championship Series, and every Charlie Manuel decision until the winter snows melt.

By Grant Calder For the past 20 years or so, women have earned the majority of bachelor's degrees awarded at American institutions of higher learning. Today, they constitute almost 60 percent of the total undergraduate student body, and that mark may be exceeded in the near future. But the story is more nuanced. A closer look reveals that gender ratios in college and university applicant pools vary considerably. Many state universities enroll roughly equivalent numbers of women and men. Technical universities, meanwhile, continue to struggle to attract qualified women.

A convicted rapist trapped behind bars in New Jersey state prison claims he's also a woman trapped inside the body of a man. But the New Jersey Department of Corrections said James Randall Smith does not have gender-identity disorder, and an appellate court upheld the decision last month, denying Smith a procedure his victims' families would probably grant, if it were performed with a dull, rusty knife. Smith wants the New Jersey Department of Corrections to pay for him to be castrated.

I THANK the Daily News for documenting the protest against SEPTA's policy of putting "male" and "female" stickers on its weekly passes. Because the protest was of a modest size and transgendered riders are a minority, some people may not understand that this problem deserves a great deal of attention. SEPTA's current policy asks drivers to determine a rider's gender, and to expel or accept them on that basis. For any customer whose gender is not obvious - because of his posture, hair or style of dress - this odd requirement leads to confrontations that are humiliating and dangerous.

FROM ALL WE'VE ever heard about Sir Paul McCartney's ex-wife, Heather Mills, she seemed like such a peach, but her former nanny (the one who cared for her daughter, not her) described her yesterday as a bitter and dishonest employer who forced her to work overtime without pay. OMG! Sara Trumble, 26, is suing Mills on grounds of sex discrimination and unfair dismissal, saying Heather effectively stripped her of a nanny role when Trumble gave birth to her own daughter. Trumble, hired by Heather to look after Beatrice, her daughter with McCartney in 2004, told an employment tribunal in southern England that she often worked without pay as the couple stayed out late at various engagements.

Barely 7 months after breaking his back in a scary crash, Will Power continued crafting a stirring comeback tale yesterday by winning the rain-delayed Honda Grand Prix in St. Petersburg, Fla. It was his second victory in as many IndyCar events this year. Power went to the front after a restart on the 78th of 100 laps, then stayed there the rest of the way and held off Justin Wilson by nearly a full second. "I don't think there's anything better than winning," Power said after winning the race that was delayed from Sunday.

The International Olympic Committee is recommending the establishment of special medical centers to deal with athletes who have ambiguous sexual characteristics. The IOC also wants rules put in place by sports bodies to determine their eligibility to compete on a "case by case" basis when gender is called into question. The IOC organized a 2-day conference with medical specialists in Miami to consider guidelines for handling sex-verification cases. The issue gained global attention last year when South African runner Caster Semenya was ordered to undergo gender tests.