Interviewer: 'So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?' Frank Zappa: 'You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?

Zappa’s retort skewers a sexist, appearance-based assumption by exposing its faulty logic. The interviewer equates a superficial trait (long hair) with an essential identity category (being a woman). Zappa replies with an absurd parallel—mistaking a single attribute (a wooden leg) for a complete classification (a table)—to demonstrate the category error. The humor works as a form of informal logic: it shows that stereotypes rely on arbitrary markers and that identity cannot be deduced from one outward feature. More broadly, the line reflects Zappa’s public persona as a contrarian who used satire to puncture lazy thinking and social prejudice.

1) Interviewer: “So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?” Zappa: “You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”
2) “You have long hair. Does that make you a woman?” — “You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”
3) “So you’ve got long hair—does that make you a girl?” — “You’ve got a wooden leg—does that make you a table?”