Why can't a woman be more like a man? And vice versa. (Uncommon Sense).

Men are strong, silent, sports obsessed, and turn over onto their sides at the worst possible times. Women are thoughtftil, good with thank-you notes, and want to talk, right? Wrong. Get over it

WE ALL KNOW AT LEAST ONE BIG, STRAIGHT guy who embroiders for relaxation, and maybe more than one wife and mother with a black belt in tae kwon do and no makeup in her gym bag. We all know some real men hate football; some real women love it. Academics call this gender nonconformity, and they make it sound rare--or at least subversive. Fundamentalists fear and despise it (how will we know who's who or what's what, I suppose), and whether you're Liddy Dole (ladylike and marine-tough) or Bill Gates (cutthroat and mild mannered), most of us are mixed human bouquets of personality traits, a lot more variegated in our gender styles than in the old days and still somehow anxious about how our new bouquet will be received and perceived.

We want our girls to be strong, self-reliant, and healthy individualists--though not so much so that they don't get asked to the prom, yet we all suspect, even if we don't want to, that for girls, strong, smart, and healthy isn't always the most reliable indicator of prom-ability. We want our sons to be sensitive and affectionate, but not to the point that their friends make fun of them (or beat them up). And at what moment in …