men and women, women and men

My mother-in-law emailed me this joke:

Three Men on a Hike

Three men were hiking through a forest when they came upon
a large raging, violent river.

Needing to get to the other side, the first man prayed : 'God, please give me the strength to cross the river.' Poof! ... God gave him big arms and strong legs and he was able to swim across in about 2 hours, having almost drowned twice.

After witnessing that, the second man prayed : 'God, please give me strength and the tools to cross the river.' Poof! .... God gave him a rowboat and strong arms and strong legs and he was able to row across in about an hour after almost capsizing once.

Seeing what happened to the first two men, the third man prayed: 'God, please give me the strength, the tools and the intelligence to cross the river.' Poof! .... He was turned into a woman. She checked the map, hiked one hundred yards up stream and walked across the bridge.

It got me wondering: why do we act like there's a contest between men and women? I still see t-shirts and bumper stickers that say things like, "When God created man, She was only joking." In the kitchen of one of my childhood friends, there was a pair of embroidered wall hangings. One had the rooster crowing, "I rule the roost." And the other was a hen saying, "And I rule the rooster." Why do some of my friends and I make disparaging comments about our husbands?

Are these comments on our individual marriages or about specific men? Is it about finding a way to create or enhance a sense of community with our sister-women?