  I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine about his expectations of women. nbsp;  He said that he expected them to know how to cook and clean,  and most importantly,  he said that he expected them to be nurturing. nbsp;
 He said that when he realised a woman was really a little bit of a slob,  or messy,  he would be surprised. nbsp;  He automatically assumed they would be neat. nbsp;
 I started to think about this and as a woman I started to get riled up. nbsp;  What do you mean women NEED to be nurturing? nbsp;  Aren't we supposed to be able to be just as heartless as men? nbsp;
 Really,  we are in the 21st century,  we're career women,  we don't have time to nurture every man that expects it. nbsp;  They want us to act like their mothers did,
 and wasn't that a different time? nbsp;  I feel a little bit heartless saying this,  but as a woman I do not feel I need to be nurturing.  Their is another side of womanhood though,  motherhood.
nbsp;  I find that here my expectation of a woman changes. nbsp;  Here,  you've taken resposibility for a child,  and I do expect mothers to be nurturing.
nbsp;  I expect mothers to be a little neater. nbsp;  No, nbsp; I don't expect toys to be picked up,
 who has time for that? nbsp;  But& nbsp; I do expect dishes to be done and there to not be a general layer of filth. nbsp;
 That said,  I also have different expectations for a father than I do for a man. nbsp;  As a baseball fan there is a perfect example of this difference. nbsp;  A man will dive in front of a little kid,
 practically elbow him in the face,  and refuse to give the kid the homerun ball that the man just caught. nbsp;  A father will go out of his way to catch the ball just to hand it over to his child. nbsp;  Not the most noble gesture in the history of the world,
 but still a fatherly gesture such as it is.
