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Except for the brainiac part ... dolls and sewing and knitting and teaching and helping and all that jazz.
But math and spatial perception have never been my weak points. The person I know most like me is my second brother; as a matter of fact we both work in the same field now, one intimately connected with language (as a second profession in both cases, me having been a lawyer and him being an expert in a cultural/literary field).
He's missing the math. I once handed him one of those spatial perception quizzies in a magazine, where you pick which of four flattened 3-D objects matches the one in the picture. I'd breezed through it in a couple of minutes. He spent 10 minutes turning it this way and that and then chucked it back at me. But -- I look at music as closely related to math, and my own learning of music was much like language learning. At bottom, though, I am unmusical because I am completely non-aural. My brother has the music.
I am a map addict when I'm travelling, although I can intuit my way around too, and I quickly become oriented in new places (and really enjoy that process). And I plan and oversee (and do some of) my own renovations and such. No spatial perception problems here whatsoever.
In high school, when we did the aptitude tests in grade 12, I and a boy who had been in my class since grade 6 - we were both kids from the wrong side of the tracks out of our element in an "advanced" class full of rich snobs, but he had the great big advantage of being a boy - both scored in the 99th percentile in both the math and language segments.
I became a human rights-oriented lawyer. He became a high-profile math professor.
Oh, and of the two other leading lights from the wrong side of the tracks, one boy and one girl: one was in charge of the Jupiter probe for NASA a few years back, and one did a doctorate in history and now works with abused women. Guess which one is which. 
We all first came together in the early 60s. I'd love to find a similar cohort today and see what happens to them!
I have an advanced degree in a technical field and have usually been in work environments that are heavily male. Although I've encountered my share of misogyny, most treat me as a colleague, yet a lot of men are surprised/confused/amused when they become aware that I do "feminine" things. Once I was at a conference and during a break went over to speak to some female colleagues. One brought out a piece of embroidery she was working on, so the conversation morphed from the conference to which kinds of needlework we did/didn't enjoy. A male colleague joined us and was caught off guard that four "technical" women he knew enjoyed a pastime that is so traditionally feminine. 
I guess it's better to be a colleague who surprises people with "feminine" hobbies than a "feminine" person who surprises someone by possessing intellect, but I'd rather just be thought of a person who has a wide range of interests/abilities.
Because they are taught from such an early age to be chivalrous/polite, and it is demanded by so many women around them -- imagine how many if not most women would react if men did not open doors for them or "let" them go first, for instance -- ordinary apolitical regular guys really do have a lot invested in the chivalry model. They're treated like dirt themselves most of the time, both in public discourse and by women in their lives, if they don't adhere to it. Their self-image as nice guys depends on adhering to that model, in ways that it doesn't in the case of, say, a white racist model. "Nice guys are polite sexists / polite sexism is the right thing to do" really is a very strong message.
(If you doubt how many women do still demand these things, and also that men pay their way in social settings, etc., just have a look at the discussion boards at eHarmony ... from which I have been banned several times.
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If men define those male behaviours as sexist i.e. bad, they are left having to engage in behaviours that the women they interact with (and especially with whom they are looking to establish romantic relationships) will very probably reject as rude. And I do have sympathy for those men!
If a man offers to help a female coworker set up an office computer, Glick said, and she accepts, she is perceived as warm, but lacking a level of competence. If she politely refuses, however, she is often viewed as a "bitch." Men who accept help are also seen as vulnerable, Glick said, but they do not suffer the same repercussions for trying to do things on their own.
And there is women's double bind. The human "normal" is not the feminine normal, and the feminine "normal" is not the human normal. (An assertive person is good/normal and an assertive man is good/normal, while an assertive woman is bad/abnormal; a dependent woman is good/normal, while a dependent person or man is bad/abnormal; and on and on.) Who was it did the initial work on that back circa 1970? Was that in Phyllis Chesler in Women and Madness?
No matter how women behave, it is bad for one reason or another. If they behave in a stereotyped feminine way, it's bad because feminine is bad, in human terms -- weak, dependent ... talk too much ... . If they behave against the stereotype, it is bad in feminine terms -- aggressive (where a man would be called assertive), selfish (where a man would not be expected to defer to / sacrifice for others), hostile (where a man would be independent).
If men choose the stereotyped strong/chivalrous model, they are usually rewarded. They will get negative responses only infrequently, like from women like me, strangers who reject their offers of opened doors and going first. And if they see negative discourse about it in public, there is a swelling chorus of nay-saying (as in the post above) to counter it and reinforce their adherence to the model -- which they may consciously choose to adopt, because they enjoy the privilege the model brings them, or which may simply reassure them that they are doing the right thing as they have always been taught to do, and quell the conflict they might otherwise feel if they did suspect that maybe all was not right with the way things are.
They are much more likely to get rewards for that behaviour, from every category of women in their lives -- mothers, aunts, wives, dates, coworkers and strangers. So it's the safest bet for them.
And huh, here we are with women again being essentially the vector for the transmission of the sexism.
It's women who hand out the rewards/punishments for the various behaviours.
And men really do have the idea instilled that not being chivalrous is bad, and unfortunately it also gets all tied up with the idea of not being abusive -- "never hit a woman" has too much of the chivalrous and not enough of the just plain anti-violence, anti-abuse message much of the time, in informal/family settings.
If a man actually articulates these things - that he prefers egalitarianism but what is he supposed to do when women expect all this? - then he gets less of my sympathy. Grow a backbone. But for the great masses of ordinary men who are working with what they've been handed all their lives, I do understand how they might find it difficult and genuinely confusing sometimes.
Now, if women choose the stereotyped deferential/dependent model, they get short-term rewards in most cases, but in the long term, by being adhering to a stereotype that is essentially negative for many aspects of life, especially economic (while strength/chivalry stands men in good stead all round), they damage their long-term prospects in many ways. And that does include not just education and jobs, but also intimate relationships, since while being deferential/dependent may attract a mate and even keep a relationship running smoothly, it can also make women vulnerable to abuse.
Absolutely!
It's the defining of "polite" where the problem comes in.
For thee and me, it's treating everybody like a human being, equal in every way to every other human being: deserving of help when it's needed, deserving of respect for their own competence otherwise.
For those who internalize the cultural chivalry model, it's not the same thing. Somehow, many of them even manage to live with what would be the intolerable dissonance, for me, of "women are equal but" should have their doors held for them, their way paid for them ...
That's an interesting response to the knee-jerk chivalrous types: to feel guilty that they think they need to wait for you to to first. Me, I just feel like I'm being herded, which is really what is happening. But I might try reacting as if I feel guilty, some time. No, dear, that's all right, you don't have to sacrifice for me.
Along the lines of what you said about men pushing past, it's interesting to note how chivalry does so often go out the window when it actually does mean real sacrifice. I remember boarding a small (about 14-seater) commuter plane a few years ago for a flight I'd taken several times before. It was going to be full, and if you didn't get one of the few decent seats, it was going to be a deafening couple of hours. I'd been chatting with an older woman before boarding, and when it came time to walk half a block across the tarmac to board, I stayed beside her as she walked slowly to the plane. A dozen men in suits with briefcases rushed past us to climb aboard. Now, maybe chivalry didn't call for them to hang back behind us as we shuffled along ... but surely they should have saved us the good seats! Need I say ... they didn't.
and when somebody is pushing a stroller I hold the door open for her.
I don't look old and I'm a few years away from medicare age but I am not strong or healthy. Observant people can see i have difficulty in walking, for instance. So I don't get offended if a man helps me in any way. 
I hold doors open whenever I see someone who may have some difficulty doing it alone. Sometimes it leads to a comical standoff because the man with the cane or pushing the stroller is hardwired to think that it's a man's job and he insists on taking the door from me before proceeding. The problem is that I'm hardwired to help people and I'm a little slow at recognizing why there's a problem when a woman holds the door open
Do you find yourself scratching your head that way a lot?
I know I do ...
Thanks for going into the macro level analysis of this stuff. So much.
And that's just what I was saying too about the whole chivalry thing in general -- if a man has been reared to believe it's "polite" to hold doors blah blah and doesn't do it, then it may truly be an indication that he's a rude jerk.
Myself, I don't hang out with people who haven't examined these things for themselves, and come to the same conclusions as me, so the issues just don't arise. And of course since I've been living with somebody for 12 years ... and I am the sole earner in the household ... they especially don't arise for me.
But I can't see a feminist wondering what signal she was getting if the man did not assume he was paying / offer to pay -- because what feminist would be on a date with a man who did??
If somebody says gender equality is okay but still acts according to these attitudes, well what would a feminist want with him anyhow?
And for "cheap dates", well, I guess the thing is that if the woman wasn't expecting the man to pay every time, it would be a little easier to tell what it meant. But gosh, this whole idea of somebody has to spend their money on one to prove they want to spend time in one's company ... it really is just ick to me.
Even back when I was of the "dating" age, just pre-1970 and after, I didn't actually "date" so it's all foreign to me anyhow. At university, there were gangs of us who lived and hung out together, and we were all flat broke, and people I knew just didn't "date" anyhow, we went to concerts and rock festivals and bars and meetings and demonstrations and each other's houses, and slept with each other when we felt like it. In my slightly more mature adulthood, I had various serial relationships that involved meeting somehow and making a connection that became a relationship, which involved things like going out occasionally to eat or see a movie or some performance, spending time at each other's places, sleeping together, and whatnot for a period of a few weeks to a couple of years, then having it end. (I tended to get dumped because, unbeknownst to me in my 30s, I had been on an extended interview for the job of wife and mother for which I hadn't applied, and had failed probation. So yeah, I didn't have the art of selecting down quite pat for a while!) And at some point starting a new similar scenario. My feeling has always been that if I don't want to do all those things with somebody, why the hell would I want a "date" with him? I actually don't ever recall being asked out on a "date", i.e. by somebody I wasn't well acquainted with or at least didn't already know enough about for there to be mutual interest. Comes from being intimidating, I guess. Self-selecting: only the ones I'm likely to be interested in are interested. I've always found it worked for me!
So I'm kind of like an alien when it comes to this stuff. I've just never got it at all. 
