--both from my educational training in psychology and sociology, and through long experience teaching/counseling, that men and women, fundamentally, are more alike than many people think (or than many people would LIKE to think).

There are research-documented average gender differences in such areas as visual/spatial processing, functional vocabulary, upper body strength, and a few other dimensions--most obviously, reproductive. But the variation WITHIN each gender on most measures is much greater than the average differences between genders.

I do get suspicious when claims come out for huge differences between genders on the emotional/intellectual level, or for various "skills". I've speculated (in my dialectical way) that there's a lot of money to be made in convincing men and women that they are very different (witness the whole Venus/Mars literary industry) and that they need very different products, services, and the like. (Not as much money to be made from only one cosmetic or shampoo line.)

I think, in the end, we are all part of the same species, and that men and women's "differences" are more individual than gender-based. So many of the previous posts here point to that--and yes, I too was a stay-at-home parent to my son, as my flexible work schedule permits me to do most of the housework, cooking, laundry, and PTA-ing. (I don't let my wife near a checkbook--but that's not a gender thing, it's an individual lousy-at-math thing.) My wife is the far more accomplished athlete, though.

In the end, men are from Earth, and women . . .are also from Earth.