I've just recently been to a coffee in town. At the table besides me a few engineers (young professionals, not students) were chatting. I overheard them entertaining each other with the difficulty of programming a robot which can understand 'woman's logic'. I guess in most cases it is actually quite easy to explain to people like them the lack of sophistication behind such a label. But just to make sure, here are a few easy pointers to why talk about 'woman's logic' (especially in a demeaning sense) is just plain stupidity.
We have different concepts of rationality. Some of these applies to the capacities we posses as the types of animals we are. Such are our basic spatial positioning skills, our mathematical logic, our abilities to make inferences based on evidence, our mathematical skills, our skills tracking regularities in changes, etc. These are not specific to any gender.
'Rationality' is sometimes also used to stand for intelligence. Intelligence is gender independent - you find researchers, doctors, engineers, skilled professionals, mechanics, soldiers, and pretty much anything - requiring skill and doing well at school - among female population. Of course this only applies to countries where woman are allowed to get schooling, and throughout their upbringing and schooling aren't held back by harmful stereotypes they are made to adhere to, or pressure from peers.
What female agents seem to be more prone to do is placing value on emotions, personal relations (especially kin relationships). I emphasize 'seem' because I'm almost sure that most males are worried about, care about, etc. much more than they admit. Even if not, the explicitness is a difference. By explicitness I mean things that males often consider repugnant about female behavior, and hence, use discriminating terms like 'woman's logic' to talk about them. (Quick additional remark: valuing emotions and stable relationships is crucial to society.)
Such cases of making something explicit are for example being often worried about health of family members, about their emotional balance, getting stressed by cheeky remarks, etc. I do not even mention cases when females ask a male 'Do you still love/Find me attractive/etc.?' If you don't understand such games, teasers and affectionate jokes, you are not yet mature enough for a relationship. Just say something nice, complementary, and funny. No need to think your girl is really worried, expect if you start taking the question seriously. After all, that sends the message: 'Oh, I really have to think about this.' Silly response, isn't it?
So, what about the less obvious cases? Why do 'woman make so much fuss about things'? One obvious reason is evolutionary: females are hard-wired to care a lot about offspring. Also, social structures enable better survival chances for them and their kids, and more protection. A larger, healthier, more successful group can do better in terms of evolutionary fitness. These things do not depend on culture. They have evolved long ago, when small changes had higher stakes for staying alive.
Some other issues are culture influenced. Most of our societies are still male-dominated. Being male-dominated does not (only) mean that most good jobs are occupied by guys, and they get to make decisions for woman as well in many situations. It also means that this has been the situation for quite a long time, and hence the shape social institutions took, including norms of interactions, what's right and what's not, etc. have been heavily influenced by guys. I'm not making here any claims about this being good or bad. Just saying that this is the way it is. It seems to be quite likely that in many respects our communities are more physically and overtly aggressive than they would have to be given our current rates of food production. There is no need for as much vicious competition as was a long time ago. Of course competition does not disappear if more woman are elected. They also have in them to secure the necessary means for themselves and their groups. But the forms of aggression are different.
The male dominated character of culture places many normative behavior on woman. In most societies if one is not a good mother that still stigmatizes one strongly. Whereas if one is an awful father, one is reproach but not held responsible and blamed for the same degree.
Still, one might ask, if man and woman aren't so different then why are there so many visible differences in behavioral patterns? Well, already the question shows the fallacy of mixing up cause and effect. It is not that there are some differences in man and woman which would ground all of the behavioral differences between them. It is rather that there are some cultural expectations, stereotypes, social pressures, and basic hormonal processes, that are all involved in leading to such differences in behavioral patterns. So, it's not just inherent differences which cause different behavior, and then lead to different treatment. It is rather different treatment that causes different behavior.
One more thing. Different behavioral patterns aren't in themselves bad. If I would say 'let's change some of our social institutions which influence woman to behave in ways that bother man' that would not be much more than saying 'oh, yes, of course guys are always right, so if some of the less emphatic/sensitive/intelligent don't understand a piece of behavior without effort we have to change it!'. And that idea is bollocks.
Accepting the possibility of there being different but still okay patterns is a good step. And no, it does not mean 'anything goes'. It just means that you first think, and assess whether the difference is okay, or not. Obviously, differences in female and male behavior are perfectly fine. And, ideally, up to choice.
In general, if you don't understand someone, first don't blame them for not adhering to your standard of rationality (or 'logic'). Always try out different interpretations to see how you can make sense of their behavior. In most cases you simply don't exert enough effort to understand the other person. These skills can be learned and enhanced. So, before making jokes about 'woman's logic' think a bit about how logical your behavior would seem when you are emotional, moved, angry, stressed, tired, worried, etc. to others, who don't know you and are not sympathetic. See, you aren't that much of a role-model of rationality.
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