How did we miss this?

We already know that yogurt is the official food of women. (Dessert: Fling Bar.) And that real men don’t eat the savory egg tart that dare not speak its name. A.K. Whitney over at Siren (via The Frisky) has even been told — by the waiter she just ordered from — that Beef Stroganoff was “a man’s dish.” So tell: have those stereotypes — steeped in lame, undercooked notions of masculinity and femininity — made their way onto your plates? Are you a guy who gets a look for ordering salad? A gal who asks for regular…and gets served Diet?

OK, now I’m hungry. And not, it should be noted, for a rice cake.

Really? They need to try this hard to market chocolate to women?

(Somewhere, Miss Fling is snickering.)

From yesterday’s New York Times: New research — well, not that new — shows that as men age beyond about 30, their chance of fathering a child with an autism-spectrum disorder or schizophrenia increases, just as their overall fertility decreases. According to NYU psychiatry researcher Dr. Dolores Malaspina: “It turns out the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father.”

As the Times’s Lisa Belkin writes: “The push and pull between timetables and dreams, between our bodies and our babies, is at the core of many women’s worldview, which also means it is at the core of relationships between the sexes. This tension feeds the stereotype of woman as eager to settle down and men as reluctant, and it’s the crux of why we see women as ‘old’ and men as ‘distinguished.'”

Indeed, says Dana Goldstein of The American Prospect. “Imagine a world in which the stereotype of women rushing men to the altar, biological clocks on overdrive, simply disappeared, as men took full 50 percent ownership over the reproductive process. Or in which wealthy 50-year-old divorced men ceased to be such catches for 30-year old women, because of weakened sperm. I wouldn’t want to return to a society in which both men and women are pressured into settling down and having babies at an unduly young age. But I do like the idea of rejiggering our notions about the intersection of gender and aging. It isn’t just women who have a lot to fit into their lives in terms of career, romance, and parenthood. Science is beginning to tell us that men are facing the same pressures.”

This is not to say we want men to have reproductive challenges. But given that science shows that they do, it’d be nice if culture would catch up.

I thought it was just the English major in me that despised the butchered staccato — not to mention the soulless narrative and truncated nuance — of texting. Turns out, it was probably just my estrogen talking.

Studying text messages submitted by young men and women to Allmusic, Italy’s TRL-like interactive music channel, researchers from Indiana University found that “while men historically talk more in public settings, when the exchanges occur via text messaging in a public venue …  it is the women who push their messages closest to the character-count limit, who use more abbreviations and insertions, and who implement more emoticons (like smiling and frowning faces).”

In other words, while men historically out-verbiage women oratorially, women seem to try harder and longer (yup, that’s what she said… and said and said) at conveying content and meaning when they have to do so via SMS.

Funny enough, I was planning to announce to my friends this week (via my much-loved Facebook page, a technology I so prefer to txt) that I am *off*texting*for*good!*. My status shall soon read: “Rose no longer emits or accepts text messages. She is a callivore, not a textinarian.” And yeah, I just made up those two zeitgeist-ready words. Feel free to pass along.

Via Broadsheet:

Now that woman can drink ventis with impunity, maybe we’ll no longer be “too tired” for sex. But otherwise, most discussions of much-studied low female sex drive — and prescriptions for revving it up — lack a look at the big picture, argues Amanda Marcotte in today’s AlterNet (via RHRealityCheck). Hormones, toddlers, fatigue, fate: not that they don’t play a role. But we do not live in a vacuum. (Or to vacuum; we’ll get to that). What’s missing from these conversations, according to Marcotte? The role sexism plays in turning us off. In other words: It’s not you, it’s the patriarchy.

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You’re never too old to have a cool roommate! Dig the shared digs of these hip “spinsters”*.

* Hey, that’s what the younger one calls herself. Reclaim on!

Even if we can’t easily verify all the details of the original story, we can be reasonably sure these babes are cooler than Ant-Nellie. (And anything starring Kevin Costner.) From Kate Harding at Broadsheet:

Someone needs to make a movie about Jacquie Davis and Helen Cliffe, like, yesterday. The story of two old friends who happen to be female bodyguards is intriguing enough right there, but better still, they’re wisecracking female bodyguards! Take single mother Cliffe on her work-life balance: “It’s far more stressful than being shot at, sorting out the childcare.” Or former police officer Davis on working for the Saudi royal family: “It’s the same thing every year: you have to be vetted by a guy from the Saudi embassy saying, ‘Oh, my God, you are a woman!’ At which point you have to throw one of his blokes on the floor and stamp on his windpipe to prove you can do the job.”

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In an advertorial for Maserati, the Telegraph reports the results of a new study in which 100 percent of female participants had a significant increase in testosterone secretion (i.e. arousal) after listening to that particular sports car’s revving engine. (60 percent of men had the same response to a Lamborghini.)

“The roar of a luxury car engine does cause a primeval physiological response,” said researcher psychologist David Moxon, whose work was actually commissioned by a British auto insurer (i.e. insuring that people continue, despite economic downturn and concern about other kids of emissions, to buy luxury cars). He added the sound of an average car engine actually led to a decreased level of testosterone. Which, of course, is concern #1 when shopping for an automobile.

Here’s what Switched.com had to say: “So, women, say all you like about how much you appreciate a man who drives an efficient car to save the environment, we now know what you really want.” Mmmhmm. We’re the ones who want to drive the sporty roadster, once in a while, just for fun. And then go home with the guy on the waffle bike.

for VP. So sayeth The Frisky, here.

Obama-Sarandon 08!