[julie_m]

I have always felt that men and women are more similar to each other than we care to admit.

Some people are disturbed by the presence of someone who is not obviously identifiable as male or female, almost as though they are unsure how much respect to treat them with.

If you take three groups of 50 men and 50 women each, and tell group A that they are about to take a test in which men usually perform better than women, and launch into a (bogus but authoritative-sounding) explantion why; tell group B that women usually outperform men in the test, and "why"; and don't mention any connection with gender at all in the group C pre-test briefing, then subject them all to the sa,e examination which includes an even mix of especially easy and especially hard elements, the test results for groups A and B will tend to show that their pre-test talks have become a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereas the men and women of group C will perform about equally.

In a variation on an older test which appeared to show that boys and girls had an innate preference for different toys, adults left temporarily in charge of a child that they believed was a boy but was actually a girl dressed in boys' clothes, reported that "he" seemed to prefer toy cars and guns to dolls and ponies, and vice-versa for a boy dressed in pink whom they thought was a girl. It seems that adults can unconsciously project sexism onto children in their care, limiting their options for self-development.

Final, random observation: I once overheard a group of women discussing why men prefer to urinate against a vertical surface. The general consensus seemed to be that it was something to do with a feeling of power associated with aiming a weapon. None of them mentioned fluid dynamics --how surface tension causes the stream to follow the surface down, avoiding splashback -- at all.