Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles

It occurs to me to add that many women -- especially geeky women -- have trouble with this stuff too. I went through school having parent-teacher nights where the teachers said how I was poorly socialised. I got picked on in the playground. I had few friends. I hung out in the library and computer labs to avoid dealing with other kids. They considered keeping me down a year in school because of my social problems -- thank $DEITY that never happened!

As an adult, and particularly since my mid 20s, I've made a very serious effort to try and gain some social skills. It didn't come naturally to me, and I had to do it painstakingly and with lots of errors. I know other geek women who've done the same; one friend of mine treats it as a process of exploration and debugging, for example. It is absolutely possible for most people to do this (I concede that there are a small number who can't), and I don't see why men should be exempted from this.