One of the books I read when I was doing a unit in psycology had some very interesting stuff on research into physical and social conditioning basis for observed differences in gender behaviour. To do a quick and dirty paraphrase of the theory of the book. Apparently one of the reasons for the tendency towards different approaches to problem solving lies in the different ways the brains of babies and young children tend to develop. According to this reasearch as we learn groups of brain cells become dedicated to a particular type of task. Once they are so identified, this is what they then stay. Girls in general initially tend to develop quicker than boys. The first type of skills learnt tend to be generalist and language related. Those who develop slower initially tend towards a more specialised approach and to be more direct and have better spacial awareness. Society tends to compound these initial differences by its inbuilt expectations and assumptions about apt behaviour. And so on .... it all got very technical and took me quite some time to wade through all the jargon - but I think what it ended up saying is what we all know anyway viz men & women do tend to approach life differently.