Human universals - essay

Anthropologists, those odd denizens of museums and the most run down buildings on University campuses, have long argued over the question of whether there are universal features of culture or whether everything must be considered "culturally relative." Having just had occasion to spend a month in Oaxaca, Mexico, where I spent much of my time observing the town square (the location of a lovely bar where one can sit outside), I believe I have discovered what seems to me an extremely curious, perhaps even universal human phenomenon (with the exceptions noted below).
For reasons that I do not know, there are embedded in the cobblestones that make up the square a pair of large heavy metal doors like the kind you often see embedded in the sidewalks near large buildings. Also, for reasons I do not know, one of these metal doors has been bent so that one corner protrudes unnaturally about two inches higher than it is obviously supposed to. My observations, while granted neither very systematic and certainly not scientific, do indicate an unusually strong pattern of behavior having to do with this out of place matter.
Male human beings, no matter what age or nationality, seem to be drawn to this door as if it is an affront to their sense of decency. They scrutinize it carefully and then invariably step on it in an absolutely vain attempt to make it go back into place (I confess to having done this myself). When this fails, as it inevitably must, they usually (there are rare exceptions) jump up and down on it several times and then get off to inspect their handiwork (I suppose footwork is more appropriate). Older men are somewhat more conscious of being observed jumping up and down on this door and are consequently prone to give up a bit earlier. In any case, the door doesn't give an inch and remains there as provocative and uncooperative as ever.
During the course of my month long investigaton of this strange phenomenon I observed Mexicans, Mestizos, and Indians all engaged in this utterly futile but obviously challenging task. Similarly, I observed Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Dutch, Japanese and still others I am not certain of engaging in precisely the same routine for precisely the same purpose. And again, in many cases, both children and adults of all ages (although it is my impression that males of about 30 to 40 seem to be the most offended by this recalcitrant piece of metal). So why? Is there indeed some universal drive or need or instinct or compulsion that insists on order or symmetry? Is it something like the "dirt out of place" that anthropolgist Mary Douglas has argued offends people so that men and boys are driven to try to fix it? In fact I have seen some men actually depart their unfruitful attempts glowering with undisguised hatred at this piece of inert matter as if it were deliberately frustrating or even mocking them. Strange, that.
Yet what is perhaps even stranger is that only males do this. Females are apparently totally uninterested in this door that won't stay down. They must see it because they never trip over it. But they never (and I mean never) try to fix it. They don't walk or stand on it and they certainly don't jump on it. Not even little girls who, one might argue, are too young to have learned not to. Is this because women are simply uninterested in such things? Or is it because they are just naturally smarter than men? If this isn't grist for the anthropologists' mill I don't know grist when I see it.