Homeland Security is for girls: when it comes to worrying about terrorism, men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

• Author: Franke-Ruta, Garance

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS FAMOUSLY criticized after September 11 for asking nothing of Americans but that they go shopping. In February, Bush's Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge went a step further: He gave Americans a shopping list.

On the day he delivered the ominous news of an Orange alert, Ridge suggested that citizens secure duct tape, plastic sheeting, and other necessities to construct a "safe room" in the event that a toxic cloud of something awful happened to settle over their homes. As a resident of Washington D.C., a city that's been through two attacks, Ridge didn't have to tell me twice. I grabbed J., my "emergency preparedness buddy," and set out for Target. We both know she's not good in a crisis; but that's OK, because I'm the type who's had a flashlight, Cipro, and a National Guard-issued P100 toxic dust mask on hand for more than a year. (Besides, she's got both the things I require in an evacuation partner: a sense of humor and a car.)

Veteran mallgoers can attest that supply shopping in these anxious times is uncannily like the annual day-after-Thanksgiving blitz. Our neighborhood hardware store was advising customers to line up at 6:30 a.m. For duct tape! So we ventured instead to the bountiful malls of Northern Virginia with no fewer than four--yes, four--crosschecked supply lists in hand. You see, my apartment sits within the area around the White House that Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher has helpfully dubbed "the Death Zone" (thanks, Marc). So to prepare for a massive, radiation-spewing explosion, I figured I needed Ace bandages, large amounts of gauze, medical tape, antibiotic ointment, industrial-strength soap, and eyewash. Check. Check. Check. And for good measure, J. and I splurged not on a pair of Prada mules but on a pair of high-powered communication radios.

As J. and I waited in a checkout line long enough to rival the next Star Wars premiere, something strange gradually dawned on me. Looking around at my fellow preparedness shoppers, I realized that most of those fumbling with D batteries, prepared foodstuffs, and enough bottled water to free Willy were women. Aside from the unshaven few who always huddle around the high-tech gadgets, the male of the species was virtually absent.

As my week dragged on, I began to notice this pattern everywhere. Newspapers regularly publish reports that women are, for example, twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with panic disorder and social phobia, nearly twice as...