Whether women are more apt to walk a mile in others' shoes

I didn't care all that much about the hubbub surrounding Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's comments on whether she could make better choices than a white male, but this Slate article gave me a good reason to think that if that is what she meant, it may be true.

Women, because of societal norms or a greater penchant for empathy and understanding, have often put themselves in men's shoes, but the reverse is rare. Want a peacemaker who can dig to the bottom of feelings and untangle the emotions in a situation? Get a woman, who often will look into, and understand, both sides. (Men are great peacemakers, too, but I'll give them the upper hand on negotiations via reason or fists, for the most part.)

Relationship misunderstandings are full of men "not understanding women," and every women spends a good chunk of her life seeing the gap that can't be crossed due to gender. (Whereas men rarely bemoan that they can't go to the other side.)

Whether it's true or not, I'm not sure, but I do think there's credence to the idea that women are used to walking a mile in many people's shoes, whereas those dang heels don't fit on the men's feet so much.

The flip side of being a minority

A lot of people are making a big deal about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's "Latina woman" comments. But this Slate column points out the difficulties minorities can often have, not negatively for being minorities, but negatively for having to represent and speak for minorities once they are successful.

In the effort to even the playing field, minorities get elevated into awkward positions. They have to answer questions others wouldn't (including questions other minority groups wouldn't necessarily get). Simply put, when there are discrepancies, and moves are made to even out the discrepancies, often the discrepancies are only magnified more, creating...you guessed it, more discrepancies.