In response to:
As Barriers Disappear, Some Gender Gaps Widen NY Times Article

 
I get so sick of people still pondering on the difference between the sexes. Let's get over it. People forget that the phrase 'equal rights' pertains just to 'rights' per se and not to everything. The Bible seems to have played its part in placing a hierachical sense in the relationship by suggesting that the woman was called thus because God made her by generating her from a part of the man that he had created first. First of all, no one is being forced to believe this story and secondly we must accept that it's OK to come second if indeed we believe in equality. One and two are the same, no?

If, at least in the West, feminism was necessary to correct certain recurrent social injustices, by and large this appears to have been done. It seems irrational to think that women are still locked into some obligatory house-bound role. In some ways being unclear about roles has made femininity somewhat ambiguous, not so much about being better housekeepers than men generally but about motherhood. Individuals must decide what to do with their lives. An ambitious woman might begin to feel that she's been dealt the wrong card, but motherhood is surely the deepest human attribute. I contend that the delicacy in the dynamics of the rapport between men and women seems to be all about sustaining this fundamental female role.

Let's dissect:

M -an and WOM -an

M -ale and FEM-ale

My theory has no basis in official etymology at all and I might be laughed at for suggesting my own version but Looked at in a fresh way, it could even be suggested that the word Man is an abbreviation of an original word 'Woman' with 'Wom' sounding a lot like 'Womb'. Male and female instead seem to derive from the beginning syllables of the Latin based words for 'masculine' and 'feminine' indicating that, unlike the questionable origin of the word 'woman', the word 'female' is not derived from the word 'male'. The common ending '-ale' suggests that we are two essential parts of the same species.

In this self-generated interpretation, the complementary nature of the relationship between the sexes comes overwhelmingly to life. We are not complete in one but in two. In a sharing relationship, why it might be sensible to assign unequal roles in getting on with life is fairly obvious. In music, in creating harmony, the notes played by individual players are different but tonally related. I am adamant that co-operation between men and women doing what we feel best at, rather than fighting over abstract sociological theses, will see us through the next couple of thousand years.

I unwittingly challenged the conventions of classical architecture by placing the doric column above the ionic which I could claiming that the facade represents the inversion of gender roles... Those in the know go tut, tut!