Pesky comments

I find it always amazing the types of matters people divide into male and female characteristics.  Yesterday I submitted some paperwork for a report to be compiled.  The papers weren't divided the way the woman taking the reports was thinking they should be divided.  There were not any instructions on how to submit the papers.  I didn't really know the woman other than to have seen her a few times in passing.  I couldn't read her mind.  So, I just divided the papers in the way I thought they should be. (This would have been a perfect environment for an experiment, but it wasn't one.)

The comment I received from the lady was "You need to divide the papers into two groups."

"I did," I said.  I explained the way they were divided.

"Men!" she replied.  The aide that worked with her took the papers, handed them back to me, and asked for me to clip the papers together that belonged together.  Who would've known!  Simple solution, but one that was customary to her, not to me.  I have never thought of, mainly because I haven't seen evidence for, a man's characteristic to be associated in any way to how groupings of papers should be divided into two recognizable stacks.

Language - yes.  Language has features that men and women used separately from each other.  Society's assignments of expected roles in social groupings - yes.  Role assignments are common across the world.  Types of jobs women and men decide on - yes.  Jobs can follow society's expectations or typical interests of men and women when a majority follow those featured interests.  But how papers should be divided - never.

I guess I should take the woman's response and just answer with "Women!" But I won't because how papers are divided is more relevant to personality, experience, formality level, and incentive than to gender feature.  So, I'll chalk the experience up to a difference in our experience of life, setting, and incentive level.  I'll be able to let the matter go without another thought.