STL is not thread safe, get over it

STL is not thread safe, get over it. Why it should be after all? STL is plain C++ code, compiler doesn't even know the existence of the STL, it's just C++ code released with your compiler, what the STL has in common with the C++ language is the fact that it's standardized. Given the fact that C++ and STL is standardized you can expect to have STL implemented on every platform with same guarantees enforced by the standard. You are not even obliged to use the STL deployed with your compiler indeed there are various version out there, see the roguewave ones for example (http://www.roguewave.com).
Let's take as example the std::list, let's suppose for a moment that the stl implementation it's thread safe,
some problem arise:

1. If it's not needed to be thread safe you will get extra not needed overhead
2. What shall do a thread calling a std::list::pop_back on an empty list?
• Waiting for a std::list::push?
• Returning with an "error"?
• Throwing an exception?
• Waiting for a certain ammount of seconds that an entry is available?
3. It should be used in an enviroment with a single producer/single consumer, in this case it's possible to implement it without locks.
4. Shall be multiple readers permitted?

Yes sure you can solve all the points above with a policy template, but just imagine your users complains.

Well, again, get over it, STL standardized is not thread safe you have to create your thread safe list embedding a real std::list, after all making a wrapper around an STL container is a so easy exercise that if you find difficult to do it yourself then you have to ask: "Am I ready to start with multithreading programming" even if someone provides me an out of the shelf std::list thread safe?

Consider that two different instance of  STL containers can be safely manipulated by different threads.

PS: I have written about std::list instead of the most widely used std::vector because std::vector for his own characteristics has to be used in a more "static" way with respect to an std::list and using an std::vector as a container used by multiple threads (producer/consumer) is a plain wrong choice.