Don't be scared, her hammer's pink.

[may_dryad]

This is why I shouldn't read the Wall Street Journal.

The home-improvement industry has always been a no-woman's land known for its drab aisles lined with nail bins and mysterious steel objects whose purpose was understood only by grunting guys in flannel shirts. Now it is going designer pink. Companies such as Tomboy Tools, Barbara K Enterprises

Comments

[joreth]

Yes, the basic premise is that women are more different from each other and men are more different from each other than the entire gender of women is different from the entire gender of men. It sites many studies to show that, aside from some basic physical differences, women and men have the ability to take on each other's "traits" in thinking and behaviour depending upon the situation, so that much of what we think of as gender-based is really cultural, not biological. It also spends some time debunking the whole hunter/gatherer myth from the '50s. Honestly, I have no idea how we ever fell for that one!

I recommend the book, I just found it in one of those off-label kind of bookstores that doesn't sell anything blockbuster and consequently has all their books really cheap. If you can find a used copy or something somewhere, I suggest reading it sometime!

Of course, I came across these kinds of studies back when I was a soc/psych major, but this book packages them all conveniently in one place and addresses the flaws in other studies that claim men and women really are different, both the male-dominant theories and the later feminist (2nd wave?) female-dominant ones. Naturally, I have been getting into all sorts of debates lately with guys who think women "think, act, and work differently" (yes, a direct quote, but I couldn't get him to give me any examples of how it was so).