'Nesting' is a common term for the set of behaviors that makes a home more compatible with a family than a single person. Are you unfamiliar with it?

Is it really idiotic to suggest that women are more likely to do handmade crafts than men? I know many women who knit as adults, or make small crafts as kids.

However, there's an easy way to settle this. If etsy is going to underserve the vast market for men who knit adorable mittens and hats for their kids, you can certainly be successful with a startup that targets that market. Or we could just bet that the online craft market with a higher fraction of male sellers will be more successful than the one dominated by women.

Or we could concede that -- whether due to biology or the patriarchy -- gender correlates with some behaviors. That shouldn't be hard to admit.

Are you thinking of this person: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=167383 ? I didn't say that.

Unless you're addressing an autistic audience, it is acceptable to say "Women do X" when you really mean "Women do X more frequently than non-women, although of course some women do not do X at all, some have never heard of X, some hate X, etc." For example, I am rarely corrected if I say "Five-year-olds are taller than four-year-olds," even though it's trivial to demonstrate that this isn't true. If your argument is that the statement in question is not literally true, you are correct. But if you use that to conclude that the tendency described does not exist, you're stretching things.

The statement was not "Women are nesting more than they used to," but "Women tend to nest." Whether they start nesting immediately or a bit later than they used to distracts from the point that they do it more than men regardless of timing.

>I know a lot of female professionals and I can't think of any without kids that spend any appreciable amount of time on handmade crafts.

I know female professionals who don't, female professionals who do, full-time parents who don't, and full-time parents who do. Perhaps, given your admittedly limited circle of acquaintances and your previous admission of bias, you should leave this discussion to people who have more data and less of an axe to grind. That is, you should do so if you want to know the facts -- if you want to defend your prejudices, proceed.

> Are you thinking of this person

Yes, apologies. I hardly got any sleep. Change "your" to "the" as in "the actual idiotic suggestion which I refuted" and the rest applies.

But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

>But you actually thought I was talking about ducks. So we're square.

That's a very strange thing to say. You acted shocked that someone would suggest that women tended to 'nest', and then brought up ducks. I have no way of knowing your intended tone. It would be very rude to assume that you were being sarcastic if you were actually a non-native speaker who was legitimately confused about the idiom. Perhaps, whether you are a native speaker or not, it is considered acceptable to make fun of people for using words when the meaning is apparent but another definition could be used where you are from. So one could say "The music was haunting," and someone in your social circle could respond "Ghosts are a silly superstition!" I bet it's a blast.

Did you have a response to the content of the comment, though?

understand there's a difference between correlation and causation, but ...

" In fact women college graduates are pushing back starting families by record amounts."

and divorces are also climbing by record rates

Well, instead of taking offense when none is implied, try to understand what I said.

Of course females in their 20's enter the workforce. They also buy houses. They also decorate those houses, with candles (huge industry), paint (massive), knickknacks (ever heard of pottery barn?) and - wait for it - handmade goods.

Why handmade goods? Because having a family - nesting (it's a very common term, google it) - usually forces one to re-evaluate their world views. A woman with a house full of pottery barn items starts looking for something more authentic, and she usually goes for something handmade. This is why farmer's markets and such are a growth industry.

Of course it's a stereotype, but it's also a very profitable one.

You're obviously new here, so let me give you some unsolicited advice.

1. The crowd here is very business savvy. If you aren't, that's cool, but understand that many of the terms we use here that you might not be overly familiar with. Here's the first result in google for the keyword "nesting": http://www.parentingweekly.com/pregnancy/pregnancy_informati...

2. Trends and stereotypes are important factors in marketing. Pretty much everyone on this site understands that there are exceptions to every trend and stereotype. They also understand that if you want to make money, you need to understand a trend and focus on it. If you want to focus on social aspects, go into government.

3. "which puts lie to your claim that they start nesting right out of college."

I didn't actually say that, and you can see from my follow up that it's a two step process: First you graduate and get a job, then you settle down and have a family. It's not important that this may take up to 10 years, it's important that the pattern is common enough that it can be banked upon to produce results.

I think you're making a big deal out of what, at worst, was a poorly worded phrase.

Relax a little :)