Even though we know that it’s 2012 and we’re way past this whole battle of the sexes thing, we also know that it’s 2012 and we’re all kind of basically still in the sand box.

Askmen.com, a Cultist go-to for comprehending the madness of maleness, and a place where we also occasionally check our hormones at the front door to contribute sound, unbiased lady advice, recently published its annual Great Male Survey: Men in 2012, along with its counterpart, The Great Female Survey. We’re never ones to pass up a multiple-choice questionnaire, mostly because we’re lazy and sneaky and it’s a cheap little trick to appear like we’re producing lots of new content. But, after answering the first few questions and feeling forced into selecting responses that didn’t quite match up with the ones that we concocted in our hyper-critical minds, we had our own questions about whether this survey of the sexes leaves enough room for the complexities of being a woman or a man in 2012. While I think this oversimplification is mostly due to the fact that multiple choice is by nature very limiting, and surveys are meant to be general assessments and not specific comments, I also think, whether or not we’d like to admit it, that in this modern age of female breadwinners and beached white males, we still tend to talk about gender differences like we’re dealing with patriarchal apples and homemaking oranges—and we aren’t.  I think it is possible that although the dialogue about gender has expanded in 2012, the vocabulary pertaining to it is still hustling to catch up. All that being said, here are a few of the questions we struggled to answer, and our reasons why.

I feel like this question might as well have been, “Are you the kind of person who cares more about a happy relationship, your career, or the mass genocides occurring around the world?” Personally, on certain nights, I’m troubled by all of the above, and other nights I sleep like a baby. I think part of problem women face today is feeling like we need pick what we prioritize and declare what kind of woman we want to be right off the bat. In reality, isn’t it important to care about all pieces of the pie chart, including your career, your loved ones and the world? Just sayin’. I don’t want to have to choose.

My objection here is that I think it’s unclear as to whether you are asking about the qualities that SHOULD merit popular recognition/celebrity, or the ones that in reality DO. There is a huge difference here. Furthermore, where is the reference to intelligence, philanthropy or technological advancement? It seems too narrow-minded of a question.

Again, I feel like this question is forcing women to pick what kind of woman she plans to be. Is she going to be a mom or a career woman? Can she have both? This is the age-old question. Can women have it all? There is a lot of evidence to prove that the balancing act is possible, and I think this question is not at all reflective of that.

This question is just trying to be a trouble maker. If you’re going to include it, there needs to be more than two answer options. What if someone doesn’t have photos of her ex because she’s not attached to him but she also certainly doesn’t hate him like this question seems to assume she does?  And what if the person does still have the photos buried deep in a shoe box archived in a dusty closet somewhere but does not actively look upon the photos for joy or comfort? What if she just keeps them so that when she’s 84 she can look back and have a photographic timeline of her young, attractive life and all the men she once had. It’s called nostalgia. I feel like this question is just trying to ask, but nicely, if you’re a crazy, angry, dramatic ex or one who is stuck in the past and emotionally lingering? Update: Women are capable of healthy break ups.

This question is just bizarre and sounds more like a conspiracy theory than science. If this hypothetical male birth control pill is approved by the health powers that be, and is supposedly as effective as the female birth control pill, then what’s not to trust? Furthermore, why are we talking about “trust” in relation to the (nonexistent) male birth control pill, when women have been pill popping and blindly trusting medical professionals for years. Either way, whether I would or wouldn’t “trust” it would be second in importance to whether my male partner wanted to ingest it into his body.