Women: Why? Men: Why Not?

So yesterday as I was running errands around town (north central Texas), I saw a car that looked like a banana.

After confirming I was not hallucinating, I mentioned it to Mrs. Tabby. She responded, “Why?” Whereas male friends generally responded, “Cool. What’s it built on?” (An old Ford pickup chassis, for those interested.)

The Banana Car is a homemade affair and apparently travels around the country to do publicity appearances. As a homemade, the Banana Car is a little different from the commercially prepared Oscar Mayer Weinermobiles, of which several travel the country for Oscar Mayer.

(There's a good story behind the Weinermobiles: https://www.mashed.com/1210268/the-story-behind-oscar-mayers-wienermobile-and-other-popular-food-vehicles/)

Mrs. Tabby’s “Why?” versus my male friends' "Sounds great!" responses to the Banana Car reminded me of responses I encountered many years ago (during the early days of robotics) when several students at a nearby university (with a large engineering school) developed a robot to retrieve soft drinks from the hallway vending machine in the dormitory while they were playing video games. To this student robot project, women almost universally asked, “Why?” while most men responded, “Cool” or “Great idea!” Around that time, some of the same students also produced an early prototype of a couch with a built-in refrigerator for beer or soft drinks. It generated the same divergence of responses.

This "Why?" versus "Why Not?" difference has long stood for me as emblematic of some personality traits that tend to be different between men and women. Men’s “why not?” approach is why most innovators and entrepreneurs are men. Of course, it’s also why boys and men do things that cause them to be hurt and die in accidents at play and at work at higher rates than women do.

And of course, like all such broad generalizations, they are not universal. MOST.

I (a man) do not have the “Why Not?” response (though I'm fascinated that people do such things). Our daughter-in-law has a fair amount of the “Why Not?” response.

Are you "Why?" or "Why not?"