Five Stupid Stereotypes

There are a lot of articles out there prescripting advice to men and women out there: What women don't know about men; How to Please Your Female Friends; The Secret of Manhood.

Well, phooey - all of it. For some reason these irresponsible journalists promote the ancient stereotypes that the thinking class among us try so hard to eradicate. So, here's a little handy list to help them:

1) Shoe Addiction is Not a Female Problem

I hate shoes. I prefer, in fact, to walk barefoot - unless I'm wearing flip-flops or ergonomically designed footwear (go Dansko!). But high heels, patent leather, and "sexy" (aka torturous) shoes are a marketer's dream, not a woman's. It's like saying men are irrefutably obsessed with Crocodile skinned boots. Okay, some might be, but it's not genetic - and I think there's a cure out there.

2) Cooking and Child Rearing in Not a "Woman's Profession"

I read a snarky little piece on Men's health by a moron who actually said this. He was a stay at home dad lamenting the "duties" of women who are "designed" to be the only parent in a household.

Wake up: It's 2007. Women have rights now remember? And brains too, imagine that. They are perfectly capable of schmoozing and selling, leading companies and bossing others around. Sometimes they even hold a job and raise kids while making dinner. No really, it's true.

Even more outlandish: Men can be perfectly good parents. That's why "father" and "Dad's day" are in our vocabulary.

3) Everyone Likes to Look

The desire to look at attractive things is not a Y-chromosome anomaly. Men and women alike enjoy the views of curvy ladies and hard-bodied men; it's just that women are trained to be polite about it, and men are teased as "faggots" if they don't ogle profusely (only at women of course; men are not "allowed" to think other males are in any way good looking specimens).

Get a clue: attractive things attract people. Period.

4) Emotions and Objectivity are not Hormones

People like to pretend that women are the "emotional" ones and men are the only rational beings on the planet. Do I hear an ego talking? One that comes from a deeply emotional plane? Cause you do know, folks, that ego aint rational, right?

Women and men both share the capacity to have asteroid-sized egos, and each are trained by society to exhibit them in different ways. But don't try to tell me that men don't feel, don't cry when their dogs die. Or that women can't figure out how to separate gossip from fact.

5) Technology is everyone's Invention

I am a woman and I can change oil. I even know how to replace a drive shaft. Nope, never had sex-change surgery. Just used the old noggin and the limbs the gods gave me. A lot of men like to act as though they are the only specimens armed with the knowledge that cars even use oil - and are pretty sure that this secret cannot be explained to a woman.

But have you ever heard of Ava Lovelace? Inventor of one of the earliest computers? Or Marie Curie - the one who discovered radioactive elements? Or the countless technological feats that women were denied credit to before they were deemed officially "human"?

Let's stop the insanity, and get a grip on reality. We're not that different folks, unless we choose to be.