Two fairly recent articles made me think about this issue (I won't "out" the author of either article, as I respect them both highly, and I understand the issues that cause the one author to feel as he/she does) of how men and women are perceived in stereotype.

There is a tendency to perceive the woman as being good, decent, nurturing, loving, and all of the qualities of niceness. While my wife embodies these qualities most of the time, there are certainly women (my mother, my sister, and, quite probably Lynndie England being examples I can readily cite) who do NOT embody these characteristics, who NEVER embodied these characteristics, and for whom a rash generalization of the attributes of women would give undue credit. Simarly, many men are maligned for qualities that cannot even BEGIN to be ascribed to ALL men, not even all HETEROSEXUAL men (need I remind you that Buddha and Gandhi were both men?).

I cannot say what percentage of women fit the sterotype of the "noble" woman. It may be 3%, it may be 93%. My guess would be that it hovers somewhere around the 16-17% mark, with women fulfilling the opposite traits exhibiting a similar percentage. The majority of women, my lovely wife included, will fall somewhere along the curve that houses the remaining 66.67%. Men would fall on a similar scale.

The problem is, we judge people by outward traits of the "ideal" that are largely shapen by our own limited experiences. But could we rightly adjudge Susan Smith as a nurturer? or Bill Cosby as a callous, insensitive father?

Maybe what we need to do is stop judging people in generalities, and start getting to know them as INDIVIDUALS. There's a lot more sense in that.