Had to chuckle at your comment about men being better BSers. I've never been an ad agency employee, but have spent enough time in and around them to have seen the Mad Men dynamic at work.

There is a subtle but important difference between thinking of yourself as a "company owner" with clients and a "freelancer" with projects.

A lot of male writers I know in the ad business would rather think of themselves as business owners or entrepreneurs, even though their clients come and go and they are doing essentially the same thing every day as those who define themselves as freelancers.

Most writers I know who own little ad agencies or studios tend to be male. Most writers I know who do editorial work on a project basis for magazines tend to be female. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

I think there are still a lot of male writers in ad agencies because even though women may be better communicators, men are better bullshitters. Agencies still depend on good male writers to sell their concepts. Sure, things have changed, but it's still not that different from "Mad Men."

James/MWP's experience is curious to me, but it may be an indication of matching skills to target audience and/or industry. (I say that without knowing who she was targeting, since her legendary blog post about wearing women's underpants doesn't say.) For what it's worth, my only experience writing for a women-only magazine was as the token "guy's view" for a bridal magazine — which was a helluva lot of fun.

Your post brought up another question that I wondered about (given that my own copy/blogging heroes are, almost 90%, female-gendered).

And that question is, do more women blog in general? Sort of like cooking. Tons of women doing it, yet still the uppermost tiers seem to be male-dominated.

I bet someone knows the answer…

I don't know if that has anything to do with the male/female ratio in freelancing or not, but I thought I'd add it anyway.

Your point about fixing the problem hits home. Last week, my teenage daughter was in tears over something in the moments before school. I was doing my best to ferret out what the issue was so I could address it (particularly if it was something I had inadvertently caused!), while my wife simply comforted her. Different wiring, indeed.

@Paula, that's an interesting idea. One of my favorite graphic design partners is a husband-and-wife team. Their skill sets are different enough that they work extraordinarily well together.

Thanks for the comments!

I have always said that it's not about good or bad, but different. We are definitely wired differently.

I give the example of a woman who had a scar from breast cancer surgery. She was complaining about it to her husband who said if it bothered her so much, she should have it removed. He wasn't unfeeling. He just responded in the common male response of "fixing a problem." He didn't find the scar ugly, but if it bothered his wife, he wanted to fix it.

When she had the same conversation with her girlfriend, her friend said, "I know it's hard. It's like a constant reminder of that cancer." That was what the woman was looking for.

Two – really caring responses – just different.

So, how's that for skirting the question, Jake? Write on. 🙂