"but I am skeptical that any man fully understands women or vice versa"
Oh, for heaven's sake -- do you really believe this? If so, that explains a lot.
I'll admit, I once thought something similar... back when I was 16 years old and was growing up in a mostly female family. It took me maybe five or six years past that point to catch on to the fact that (surprise!) men are people. They are people just like any other people, and their individual abilities, interests, and social roles are far more useful cues for guiding most social interactions t...
To continue:
Cultural constructions of gender, like biologically-defined sex, also have significant weaknesses as prospective cues for social interaction with individuals. Yes, we're all swimming in the same cultural soup, but different people perceive different parts of it more clearly, or have different parts emphasized more during their formative years, or whatever -- the result is that different women can have surprisingly different takes on what it means to be female in our culture and how they as individuals relate to those cultural norms.
As a result... (read more)