I have a bit of gender confusion.

And it's all because of a hat.

Oh, and Spike TV, John Henson, Nick Lachey and Howard Dean.

I'll start from the beginning. I was wandering the ever-exciting Nittany Mall, stopping in the five stores that have yet to go out of business, when I saw it. It was sitting alone on the shelf and I had to have it.

That's the story of how I got my first mesh quasi-trucker/Ashton Kutcher hat.

You're probably upset that I still think the trucker hat is in style. Don't you see? Issues of fashion aren't important when you're talking about serious things like gender.

So off I went, wearing my hat. At first, I didn't feel any different; I just couldn't see as well in class. I wondered: How do guys do it? Maybe boys learn at an early age that it's good to wear a sweaty, smelly baseball hat everywhere. Girls don't.

As I sat, eyeing the hat for some answers, I got to thinking. Where do these rules come from? Why is Ashton Kutcher a hero for wearing mesh hats and dating Demi Moore, and I'm just a weirdo with a hat?

The answer is television. A whole world of gender exists in those magical little boxes and surely, an answer to my gender confusion must, too.

Yet, it wasn't as easy as I expected. It seems even the media and entertainment industries are just as unsure about gender as the rest of us.

Then someone had a brilliant idea -- create a television network dedicated entirely to men. Thus, Spike TV was born. It seems that men needed a network all to themselves, because owning and making all the decisions about the TV that we consume wasn't enough.

Apparently, men were so distraught by shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, that they insisted America protest and represent the average beer-drinking, hammer-wielding Joe.

And represent it does.

With shows like Baywatch, WWE Raw and paid programming, Spike TV is a cutting edge source of what it means to be male. Of course, watching an infomercial about obtaining larger muscles is a lot different than being made over by the Fab 5.

Spike TV even brought back one of cable television's most-missed hosts for his very own show. John Henson, who once cracked jokes about Jerry Springer's best moments on Talk Soup, is now at the helm of The John Henson Project. The show claims to be "always thinking, so you don't have to."

Here, I must demand equal-opportunity sexist television. Where's the female show that thinks for us? Hint: It's not the Lifetime network.

It's a shame that a comic such as Henson must be relegated to gender-based humor. Instead of cleverly and hilariously commenting on the ironies of talk shows, he's been put into a genre where he decides which celebrities the average male can beat up.

Henson's show is supposed to be a backlash against the term "metrosexual." If you happened to miss that definition in English 15, here's a very basic refresher course:

metrosexual (n.) - a guy who takes care of himself.

At last! A real guy must be someone who doesn't wash his face and watches hour after hour of wrestling. I guess gender isn't that complicated after all.

Except for one fact: We're obsessed with defining gender. We place so much emphasis on pigeonholing gender that we kind of forget that maybe there is something more telling than mesh hats and beer.

The thing about gender is that there are contradictions all around us. Nick Lachey, star of Newlyweds, is a pop singer who drinks a lot of Miller Lite and really loves his wife Jessica Simpson -- stupidity and all. If we can handle a manly pop star, we can handle anything.

Now, we watch guys bare it all for the harsh critique by the Queer Eye guys. We root for the guy who learns that maybe a little "gayness" isn't all that bad.

We even have a Democratic primary candidate whose wife -- Judith Steinberg -- has remained at home with her profession rather than dutifully following her husband on the campaign trail.

Does this picture of Howard Dean's wife threaten voters? Definitely. We can't have all this gender bending in the White House, can we?

I think we can. It's about time a man stood out there on his own. After all, if they get nervous, they can check out their very own television network.

There will always be men who choose to watch Spike TV and can't understand that gender is a lot more complicated than male versus female, gay versus straight. Who knows if we'll ever come to the point where gender isn't an issue, but I think we've gotten closer.

When popular culture realizes gender isn't so important, I'll get my hat, my hammer and my makeup.

I'll be ready -- confusion and all.