is your book male or female?

recently i was standing in a christian bookstore, not an abnormal experience for me. me and books...well, we have a love affair going. i love them. i take them everywhere i go. i've got probably seven or eight in my car, three or four in the bathroom and by my bed, a ton more scattered around the apartment and boxes and boxes of books that i'm trying to figure out how to fit in my three room apartment. i mean do i really need a kitchen table? beds are overrated too. my books usually look like they've been through the ringer. i love their shape, the texture of the page, their thinnes or thickness, their smell. yes i admit it. i open books up, especially new or old and leather bound ones and smell them. i need help; it's true.

but the thing is as i stood in the bookstore i became rather irritated and made a discovery. some books are apparently female and some obviously, to everyone but me, male. now let me preface everything i write here. i believe that men and women are different; we process the same information, many times, completely different. i believe that there are some fairly safe assumptions/generalizations that can be made about women and men. we could argue all day if it's because we are born that way or because society shapes us that way. you know, the old nature vs. nurture argument. is it genetics or grandma? i don't know. the truth is probably both and i won't bore you with my closet feminist viewpoints. the fact is there are differences.

so i understand that there will and should be books that speak to men about men's issues and women's books that speak to women about women's issues. issues being those things, that be it because of our in born nature or our society's infauation with pre-defined ideas of masculinity and feminity, that more directly involve one sex or the other. and there will and should be books for men by men and for women by women. i can definitely tell you that my spirituality is deeply rooted in the fact that i am woman. so i get that and for the sake of convenience i understand the whole sectioning off of areas and subsequent labeling of said sections as "Men's Issues" and "Women's Issues".

but tell me is leadership really a man's issue? is money management soley a man's issue? why is that books written on leadership by John Maxwell - books that deal with being a leader be you male or female - fall only under the Men's Section? why is it that books by Billy Graham about pursuing a God ordained path lie in the Men's Section? are we in the christian world that regulated to these ideas of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman that we believe that women obviously don't manage money or have interest in it so those books should go to the Men's Section and women can't or don't care to be leaders or know about living a life of purpose? and while i realize we are different, are we that different? do women really not care about money and being leaders? do men really not care about anything to do with emotions and trying to be perfect and struggling with self esteem? are we so blind that we don't see that potential is lost on both sides when we regulate women to tasks and ideas that are void of leadership in their personal and professional walks as well as zapping men of their potential when we pretend that they do not struggle with deep seated emotional issues as well?

i'm sorry for this seemingly tirade but it bothers me that to pick up a book on leadership by a well known and great author that i must "trespass" into a section that clearly states that if you have the ablility to carry children this isn't for you. or walk to the cash register with a book that the cash register will assume was, of course, bought for my husband.

so i was wondering...are your books male or female?