Growing up in the '80s, I was often taught that women and men are not fundamentally different in anything other than anatomy "There's no real difference in the sexes except the shape of your underewar," I used to say. I took that notion to heart, and it wound up complicating my relations with women in many different ways. Because it's nonsense.
The funny thing is, I've always been a philogynist (look it up). Most of my favorite friends are female, and still are. Not for silly reasons, like "they're more nurturing" or "they're more in touch with their feelings," either. In fact, as a rule, my experience is that women are not more nurturing than men, except perhaps to their own children. Furthermore, I tend to think that women are less "in touch" with their feelings than men are. They tend to feel things more deeply, but are less conscious of the fact that they do. In fact, I find that they tend to believe that whatever emotions they are feeling at the moment are entirely rational and sensible, even when they're obviously not being rational.
Indeed, I have one recommendation for every male on the planet, one that I think each and every male needs to learn: When a woman is upset about something, and she is telling you why she is upset, do not make any suggestions about what she could do to fix her situation.
I mean it. Don't do it. If she's describing to you why she's upset, about almost anything, never, never, never, never, never, never, NEVER give so much as the hint of a suggestion as to what she could do about it. Just listen, and nod, and tell her how that you can relate to how and why she's upset.
You're not being patronizing if you do this. You're just getting your head into the female psyche. Because if you make so much as one suggestion about what she could do to fix the situation, she will think you are an asshole.
Write it down, my man. This is how females work. Take it to the bank. It ought to be in the Bible: "Thou shalt not tell her how to fix it."
Whole marriages have been lost over men's inability to understand this, and respect it. The truth is that if you tell them how to fix whatever's bothering them, most of the time they'll hate you.
Indeed, the comedian Tim Allen made a big part of his early career out of men's clueless inability to understand this. If you ever watched the show Home Improvement, almost every show was about Husband Tim's supposed "insensitivity" to his wife's needs. When what was really happening wasn't that he wasn't listening, but rather, that he didn't understand her. (Unfortunately, the show usually made him the bad guy in such encounters, which is why I got sick of it and stopped watching.)
Test me on this. This is just how the female of the species works. They want you to relate to their problems, not fix them. Recognizing that fact isn't patronizing, it's just acknowledging reality.
Mind you, it wouldn't hurt much if you women would realize that when you come to a man with a problem, his urge is to figure out how to fix it. Be that as it may, men need to learn that that's not what women are generally looking for when they're upset about something.
I make no secret of the fact that I think that the gender-feminists are generally full of shit. The biggest area in which I think they're full of it is in their notion of the female as a creature who was oppressed by men throughout history until brave "feminists" liberated their minds. This is, and always has been, utter nonsense. Women have always, as a rule, been self-assured and self-directed, and far more powerful than (mostly male) historians have been willing to acknowledge.
I think men and women are different. I think they have different strengths and weaknesses that come along with their sex. I also think it's a spectrum, so that some men are stronger on the feminine virtues than some women, and vice-versa. It isn't a set-in-stone thing, it's just a human reality. A delightful reality, in most cases.
So here's the thing: If you can't acknowledge that the male animal has greater upper-body strength, and a more athletic cardio-vascular system, then you're just silly. That's what our big chests and shoulders give us. We're able to breath in more oxygen when stressed, able to sprint a bit faster, lift a bit more, throw a bit further, unscrew bottles a bit better. You're just being silly if you don't acknowledge that.
Yes, there are women who can run faster than me, who might even be able to beat me at arm-wrestling, but really, let's just get real: men are generally better at that stuff.
So what are women generally better at?
I eschew the trite notion that they're better at "emotional stuff." Bullshit. They are better at some emotional stuff, but, as I said above, sometimes they're actually less good at it than men are.
No, actually, I think there are three very physical areas where women excel men. They may surprise you.
First off, women have better senses of smell than men do.
Have you ever noticed how your woman is more likely to complain that you need a shower than you are the reverse? There's a reason for it. It's not because they're more persnickity, either. It's actually because their noses are more sensitive.
Last year I asked women on this weblog to say what they liked about men, and I was amused by how many of them said they liked how men smelled. But when I asked men the same question, not a single one brought odor up.
Funny, huh?
My former brother-in-law works for the local gas company. Often, they have to go out on service calls where there is a suspected gas leak. A little-known fact is that gas companies actually put a chemical in their natural gas, just because natural gas has no smell normally but they want people able to smell it if there's a leak. So if you "smell gas," you're actually smelling the chemical that the gas company put in there.
But anyway, it's not unusual for people to call the gas company if they think they smell something. They think there might be a gas leak, but aren't sure, so they make a phone call. They may just be imagining it, but they call anyway.
So here's what he told me: if a man calls in and thinks he smells gas, at least half the time he's wrong. But any time a woman calls in and says she thinks she smells a gas leak, they always--always--find out that she's right. It's such a given, that if a woman says she smells gas, they'll spend extra time looking for it, because they know that 99.99% of the time, she's right, and there really is a leak somewhere in the house.
They just know that women are always right about this.
Women are more flexible too. Once again, some men are more flexible than some women, but as a rule women can bend and twist themselves better than men can. Which is highly useful in certain areas.
I'll tell you another area where women routinely excel: hand-eye coordination.
In archery, competitive shooting, pool, and billiards, there is (usually)no "male/female" division. Women compete equally with men in these fields--and often dominate them.
If you take the time to look, you'll find that women make up the majority of the world's top-tier archers. I'm not kidding about this, either. Within archery, there is a certain male/female division, because very few women can pull a 100-pound or even 70-pound bow. Plus, if you're a chick, it's very easy to "thwock" that string against your breast, and hurt yourself, so some women avoid the sport. But if you get past those physical realities, you discover something interesting: Most of the world's top-tier archers are women. Not that there are no men who are any good at it, but it's a sport where women often dominate.
My lovely wife was a hard-core ROTC student in High School. One where, surprisingly enough, the training program (in a public High School!) used .22 rifles. And she was far and away the best sharpshooter in her school. Ask her some time how well she could plink a target at 100 yards. It will impress you. She was easily #1, among an ROTC class that included plenty of guys who wanted to brag about their shooting ability, and only a handful of girls.
My late grandmother Gloria used to like to tell a story about growing up during the Great Depression, before World War II. They lived on a small dirt farm, which they eventually lost. But one year, before they lost it, an Army unit came by, and asked if they could stay on their land for a couple of days during a training exercise. The family was pleased to oblige.
The next morning, the Sargeant took his men out and worked on shooting training. Really, just a plinking exercise, setting up bottles and cans for the men to shoot at. Almost as a joke, they asked my grandmother Gloria if she'd like to shoot with them.
She was all of 13 years old. And she out-shot every stinking one of those soldiers, even the Sarge. And man, was he pissed about it.
Not that she was an habitual shooter, either. It wasn't her main hobby. But she out-shot every man in that unit, and humbled every single one of them.
In fact, although I have no direct knowledge of it, I'd even be willing to bet you a dollar that Connie is generally a better shot than Kim. Or close to it. I'll betcha I'll betcha I'll beee-tcha!
Which is not about belittling anyone. Hell, I used to date a girl who could out-shoot me in pool any day of the week. I just think such things are funny, and point to the quirkiness that is the human animal.
I like women. I always have. In fact, most of my favorite people are women. Not that I'd ever want to get into a boxing match with one of 'em, because it would probably be no contest. Let's not even fool around about it: I'm big, and I'm very strong even compared to other males my size and age. So the whole thought of it is rather repugnant.
But I generally salute women for their strength, their power, and the unique abilities that make them what they are.
I love 'em.
This is a really thoughtful article, I enjoyed reading it. It's always good to hear people having a sensible dialog about gender issues. In my spare time right now, I'm attending a course at the local university on "Feminist Philosophy." In spite of the bullshit, I've always admired feminists, and am a great supporter of the cause.
The stuff they put in natural gas is called "mercaptans" and it stinks to high heaven. I used to work for a company that made gas detectors and we had to calibrate with the stuff. One of the chemists dropped and broke a 30ml vial of it- had to evacuate the lab it stank so bad...
As to the whole male/female thing, well it's long been my belief that the gender-fanatics were the worst thing to happen to the race since we decended from the trees. But that's just me.
Dean, I did not know that the best shooters were women - though, I have been told by guys who teach handgun shooting courses for people interested in learning self-defense, that the average women learns to shoot better and faster than the average male. One reason is because women inherently have better inherent skills like you mention, but also because, women dont bring any mental baggage along with them when they come to the shooting class. Whereas, a lot of men already come to the class thinking they are rambo, and that they know everything there is to be known about shooting, even if they are the kind of guys who have never touched a gun in their lives.
One of the neatest things about my husband is that he does exactly that: he listens to me.
And if -- AND ONLY IF -- I ask for a suggestion, some help, a way to fix my problem he will jump in. Being that he's a 21+ year veteran of the military, that always astounds me. His natural impulse HAS GOT to be to just fix everything. But he doesn't.
Cuz he loves me.
I'm a lucky girl.
And so is Rosemary. :)
And so is Rosemary. :)
Yeah, but I had to train him. Why do you think he's so "smart" about women? Dean spent plenty of our early relationship telling me how to "fix" my problems. Finally, I just said shut up and listen. I don't want your suggestions I just want to vent.
Nope, Kim is a much better shot. Shooting also requires incredible wrist strength, strong arms and upper body strength to handle the recoil. It isn't the FIRST shot that determines how good you are, it's a series of shots, and Kim wins hands down. Stamina is a critical component of shooting, too, and men are better at that. Men have the ability to invoke a sort of tunnel vision, tunnel focus thing (I'm assuming a trait left over from the chase/hunt). That ability to tune out all distractions is something that aids men in tasks like shooting. Women, on the other hand, cannot tune out outside noises as effectively--in fact, they have better wide range radar (ability to hear and sense everything going on around the hearth and know what the children are doing at all times, just by the noises they make--a sort of primordial multi-tasking ability)--this works against them in an activity like target shooting.
Women are not better at pool or shooting (the pool thing never ceases to piss me off because women SHOULD be able to compete equally in that, but they cannot and do not). Archery also requires upper body strength. The more lbs you can pull, the more accurate you are going to be. Men can pull 2-3 times more pounds than women. I do love archery, but the damn boob gets in the way, too. (And there is NOTHING more painful that scraping your boob with the string.) My Celtic ancestors who cut off that breast weren't brave, they were just sick of the pain of the scrape.
Now on the smell thing... Absolutely correct.
Guess this just proves my husband's pet nickname for me... "wierdo". He has a FAR better sense of smell than I, and I'm much better at focusing than he is. Multi-tasking is something I'm having to learn. That said, it's silly for people to say that there are no differences between men and women. I have no problem believing that we're just wired differently - and we do better when we work off each other's strengths.
Connie: This is why women are better with rifles than handguns when it comes to sharpshooting. Even moreso in exercises which have the gun on the ground, rather than from a standing position.
But on archery, I'm afraid you're incorrect. I'll do a little research for you, but I've already done it in the past and found that most of the world's top-ranked archers are in fact female.
You'll find that on university campuses with competitive sharpshooting teams, there tend to be an unusual number of women on them, sometimes outnumbering the men.
Pool? There are just fewer women who are into it, but the ones who are in it tend to be freaking great at it. My old girlfriend was fifth-ranked in the state of Illinois. Not fifth-ranked female, fifth-ranked period. Even though it was only a hobby for her, and she didn't shoot all the time.
By the way, did women ever really remove their breasts to shoot? Wouldn't a tight wrap do well enough?
Lyana: Yeah, these aren't set in stone things. That's another way that people get tripped up on these issues. It's a spectrum, for everybody. Our spectrums overlap more than they separate, really. But they're still very real.
Absolutely right on about just listening and DO NOT FIX! Re: Mercaptan-- I worked for the gas company in upper MI. The absolute worst job was to fill a wick odorizer. It basically consisted of dribbling liquid mercaptan into a tube in the ground. When done, all your fittings, hoses, etc. was filled with the stuff. There's a liquid bacteria that supposedly kills the stuff, but not quickly and efficiently enough. Anyway, I spilled some of the mercaptan in the bed of my pickup and left a trail all the way from Sutton's Bay, through Traverse City and to Kalkaska. (Non Michiganders look at a map.) I hope the field service guys enjoyed all the OT they made on leak complaints that day!:)
As an offside segeway, because of that shit, I can't smell it at all anymore. I think those sensors got burned out in my nose. Can't smell propane either unless its STRONG.
Love your blog!
You may want to consider that at the college/university level, there are more women teams in some of those sports or an attempt to compensate for Title X type things.
Women in the shooting sports do not compare to men AT ALL, once you get into the professional levels. There may be a few types of competitions where men and women compete, but those are exceptions. Currently, a woman holds the (I think Army) marksman title, but that isn't the way to bet. Cowboy action shooting, for example, is dominated by men.
With compound bows the skill has changed a lot. Archery is divided into categories by class. It is very possible that there are more people involved in the lower poundage classes, and therefore women would appear to be better because there are more peopl in the lower weight classes. But when you look at some of the more traditional archery (or the higher pound classes), such as with long bows (which is what I do), women cannot compete equally with men.
Think of boxing where there are very few competitors in the heavy weight classes--and no women in that class. There are simply more people involved in lower-weight boxing classes (where women COULD compete) and that might distort the figures (if you wanted to intentionally distort). The reality is, that there are no women in heavy weight boxing, so they'd exclude that (considering it an outlier) in the calculations of how women faired against men.
For example, women tennis players today can hit the ball as hard and as fast as the men in the 80s and 90s. That is not because the women have gotten stronger, but because the rackets have changed (and they have a larger sweet spot than they used to). Women still cannot compete equally against men because men ALSO have the same, better equipment.
In some of the shooting sports, those same things occur, and strength is not a factor (because the equipment has overcome some of those things). Women aren't better, the sport is just easier. Make sense?
Traditionally, men have faired better at sports that require both strength and computation (ballistics, trajectory, etc.), men tend to do better. That's not to say that it happens all the time--trend only.
Think of something like golf. We can understand that strength is a factor on the fairways, and that's why there are men's and lady's Ts; however, once you get to the greens, men and women SHOULD be able to compete equally, but they don't--not even close. Strength is not a factor on the greens, but women suck at putting. I cannot watch women's golf for that reason--Makes me crazy. They are not as good as the men, even when you factor out strength or stamina.
The ladywife is better at focusing in concentration; but I agree its a spectrum.
Dean: I'm doing a Victorian age supplement for gaming. I'd be interested in your thoughts on Victorian women.
So far I've seen stuff on 'separate spheres' with the women taking the sphere of domesticity, and leaving politics & all that to the men.
Then middle-class woman started to get involved in philanthropy to the lower-class women (only of good character). This helped women get organized. Then it was found that using lower-class women as their reps among other lower-class women worked better ('church ladies'??), and then finally the women realized that in order to make serious changes they needed access to the levers of political power.
That's the line I've read, but I think it has at least a couple of slants I'm not interested in swallowing.
Thanks for the blog; if you can or the commenters can advise that would be great.
Tadeusz
Connie: I don't think we're disagreeing as much as you think. Jesus, no man should be in a boxing arena with a woman ever, unless it's just a light sparring match and he's helping her train or something.
And I think I already acknowledged that with archery, few women can pull the heavy bows. In the light-compound area though, or crossbows, they tend to be very, very good. Hell, my uncle used to be an athletic director at the University of Texas at El Paso, and he was somewhat mystified by the fact that most of their best sharpshooters (in rifle competitions) were women.
But men are better with handguns in competitions for precisely the reason you mentioned: shoulder and arm strength are critical to keeping a steady hand. Of course. But put a woman on the ground with the gun on a stand, and you have a whole new game.
The Israeli military, even though it has (through hard-won lessons) excluded women from direct combat operations, still uses women as snipers. There is a reason for this.
Tadeusz: Well I'm not the world's biggest expert on that era, but everything I've ever read about that era, especially things written by or about women of the era, indicates that they were almost a matriarchal society.
Mind you, not "matriarchal" in the sense that men didn't hold most of the most visible positions of (obvious) power. That kind of matriarchy has never existed. Because it's not what a real matriarchy is.
There are tribal societies where women are pretty much acknowledged to be in charge. But even in such societies, the women get together and choose which man will be chief. They rarely take that role for themselves. Because, for the most part, they don't want it, and it's impractical anyway.
No, a real matriarchal society is one in which men are extremely deferent to women in most social situations, and routinely seek out their thoughts and advice, and go out of their way to do what they know women want them to do, and consider it a point of honor to lay down their lives or their well-beings in deference to their women.
Modern-day gender-feminists--or "feminists," as one of my female correspondents like to call them--have made the rather misogynistic mistake of characterizing all this as just another way that men oppress women. It's a neat trick they pull, wherein anyplace where men are actually deferring to women's power, they manage to characterize it as just another way that men oppress women.
In the Victorian era, at least for the middle and especially the upper classes, deference to women, their sensibilities, and their wisdom was the norm.
In the lower classes, it was always harsher and more brutal, with people living in a level of poverty we in modern America don't even understand anymore. Thus simple pragmatism tended to be the rule more than anything else. But even then, I think we're fools if we think it was little but brutal men cuffing around their meek women. Pfagh! How misogynist can you get?
Anyway, in the middle and upper classes, women liked the men being in charge. They also expected their men to listen to them and do what they told them to do, and saw themselves as being every bit as important. Getting men to do what they wanted was very much a point of pride.
Anyway, most women concerned themselves with hearth and home, and liked it that way just fine. The problem that came in was for the women who did not have that as their primary interest in life. This could be very frustrating for them because it was hard to find a suitable role that did not seem unwomanly.
One might also keep in mind that few people lived past their 40s in that era. Marriage typically happened in your mid-teens, and having several children (some of whom died before reaching maturity) was very much the norm. Death in childbirth or complicationis from it was also quite common, although somewhat less so in that era than earlier eras.
So that's why ESPN shows much more women's pool then men's. Ans here I thought it was because the men are ugly ...
This blog oppresses wymyn. But anyway...
Takes me back to my high school days and before. I remember that girls were very good at archery and there was an all-girl's archery club. Another thing girls and women often love is horses. Naomi Wolf has a chapter on this feminine-equine connection in her book "Fire With Fire", a sort of sublimated female Will To Power. Mastery over a quarter-ton beast -- not for wimps.
I also remember learning that girls were good at kicking. They don't have the upper-body strength for too much slugging and punching, but they sure could kick. Girls also seem to like jumping rope. Track, running, is also something they like. I guess that strengthens their legs for the kicking. Fortunately, I was never at the receiving end of it!
Weighing in on the listening part - I must be a man with boobs. For all those who want to vent their problems without receiving a response in the way of some kind of analytical approach to discover possible causes and possible remedies: Tell it to the wall because you'll get the response you want.
Empathetic response - not appreciated either because as we know, 'It's my UNIQUE pair of shoes and I walk in them, not you."
Sympathetic response - either patronizing or validating a special victim status.
Sounds harsh and not every venting of some troublesome issue requires a 'fix-it' solution, but sometimes there are clear cut answers.
I'm not sure I buy into the 'women just want to be listened to' stance. Or am I so special?
Communication is a give and take. You have a problem and you want to talk about it? You must be attempting to try to get to the root of why it bothers you so much.
Sympathy and empathy can also be useful responses for those who are willing to acknowledge that some experiences are the result of powerlessness and other experiences have a commonality to them.
For the 'fix-its' out there:
there are no solutions, there are only alternatives and most people, men or women, are not always ready for the alternative. That is just human.
But we each own our unique misery.
Don't tread on it.
Unfortunately for me, I can't stand when people just listen to my problems and nod as if I told them without actually wanting a response. I occasionally have to prod them for some input and sometimes realize that they weren't actually 'listening' because their approach was just to let me talk.
Dean - you really like this men/women thing discussion.
For every generalization one can find a number of exceptions. My husband behaves more like the 'wanting to vent' and I dare not respond in any way that appears to invalidate his complaint in even the slightest.
With a heavy sigh I can say 'life sucks' and that's about it. Totally useful approach to the situation that caused the venting in the first place.
Jeez - I thought I was a girl like all the other girls.
Yes, for every generalization you can find an exception, Observer. That's why they're called generalizations, not ironclad rules.
I believe I even said up front, some men map a bit better to the female pattern, some women to the male pattern. Looks like you map much more to the male pattern on these things. So what? That doesn't make you inferior, it makes you exceptional. Is that a bad thing?
And yes, I do like these male/female discussions because decades of PC dreck I inhaled while I was growing up in the '70s and '80s led me into a bunch of bad and stupid assumptions about people that just don't work.
Ditto the kneejerk tendency to assume that every male/female difference has its roots in "oppression." Balls, I say.
You ought to read yourself some Florence King some time, Observer. I suspect she's exactly your kind of woman: sharp-witted, extremely logical, has little patience for emotion and handwringing. If you've got a problem she wants you to fix it, not complain about it.
But she also came to realize as she got older that most women aren't like that.
And the real question is: do they need to be like that? I don't think so. There's nothing inferior about you if you relieve your stress by talking about your problems. It's just not how most men do things, and men often find it frustrating in their women: "Well what the hell does she want me to do about it?!?!?" is a refrain that damn near every man I've ever known has uttered about his wife or girlfriend.
It's ubiquitous. Not universal, but ubiquitous. Why not make note of it and work with it, rather than deny that it's there?
I actually map to rather feminine behavior patterns in certain areas. I don't like working on cars, they bore the crap out of me. I own a gun but I never use it. I don't like hunting or fishing--not because I object to these activities in the least, but just because I don't find them very entertaining. At family gatherings, while everyone else is out playing volleyball or horseshoes or whatever, I'd rather settle in with a nice book or maybe sit around chatting with people.
My suggestion to you is that, rather than feel stereotyped or oppressed by these kinds of generalizations--you are certainly not a "man with boobs"--you just look around and see them, and note where you differ from the average.
Being different isn't a bad thing. In fact, I'd say that as a rule it's a good thing. We don't need everyone pigeonholed into stereotypes or rigid roles.
So that's why ESPN shows much more women's pool then men's.
Yep. Women are damn good pool players, when they apply themselves to it. I'm not sure why Connie thinks it's not so. In fact some women chafe at "women's divisions" in pool competition, because they know full well that most of them can compete with the men just fine. Many local leagues just don't bother breaking the men and women out from each other, for just that reason. Other than the fact that most of them don't have sledehammer breaks, they can be deadly accurate on the table.
You know my favorite woman's sport to watch? Volleyball. They're much more fun to watch play than the men. Because the men are so big and tall, the ball goes rocketing around so fast on the men's game, that volleys usually look something like this: "SLAM SLAM SLAM POINT!!!" "SLAM SLAM POINT!"
The women have to be much more adept and flexible at moving around, and they'll get those volleys going back and forth, back and forth--much more exciting. It may be my favorite Olympic event.
Dean,
You sound defensive. I certainly didn't mean to put you there.
I study men all the time - and women, both of the 'general' sort.
I was just making an observation about the seeming frequency of your lead-in discussions of the differences between men and women.
It's certainly interesting, hence my posts.
My defense: I don't feel inferior or oppressed. Stereotyped? Maybe and certainly in the company of those who wish to view me through that prism first. But that is just normal human behavior on both sides. Personally, I take pleasure in upending generalizations. Maybe I'm lucky to just be 10 years ahead of your own informative years not having suffered the growing pains of PC. But I am also the child of eastern european immigrants, which has its own contradictions and afflictions in America's post WWII modern society.
To be sure I am so un-PC that today's 20 somethings don't quite understand that direct commentary is not mean-spirited criticism, irony can be humorous and sarcasm is actually not a bad word that needs to be relegated into the realm of archaic dictionary terms no longer in use.
Yet my un-PC life does not manifest itself like today's
un-PC practice of just mouthing off stupidly because one can. That is my rant. I could go on.
Thanks for listening. :)
p.s. I do like your blog so far.
Sweet. Come on back any time.
Yes I do get defensive. I've gotten ripped to shreds and mischaracterized by gender-feminists, and kneejerk PC-thinkers, so often, I tend to start from a defensive crouch.
I should probably stop that.
Mercaptans, just for the sake of going off-topic, are also the basis of the scent a skunk sprays. Just thought y'all might want to know that. I'm a font of trivia.
As one of those who doesn't fit the stereotypes (I want solutions and if someone tells me their problems I want to offer solutions), I am going to ignore the rest of the discussion. ;)
I'm like Dean. I map onto a lot of typically feminine characteristics. I don't know anything about mechanical or technical stuff, I've never been into sports, and I don't remember ever giving advice or solutions, directions on how to get to a place once in a blue moon, but that's it. I'm extremely aesthetically oriented, I love to listen to classical music and to surround myself with beautiful colorful objects. In the Myers-Briggs typology, I'm an INFP.
And yet I know Dean is right. There are certain subtle differences between men and women. Physically, it largely comes down to linear or angular and projecting vs. round or curvaceous and encircling. The primary difference is in the face. But there are also subtle differences in gesture, manner, ways of speaking, etc.. I can't really articulate them, but they're there and I know them when I see them.
None of it has anything to do with the false dichotomies of strong/weak, active/passive, aggressive/nurturing, oppressor/oppressed, etc..
I've thought it would be interesting to pass myself off as a woman (a Lesbian), but I know that sooner or later I'd be found out. Some tell-tale signs would identify me as male. I don't know what they'd be, but they'd be there. Men and women are different in some very basic way. Like Dean, I used to not think so so much, but I'm coming to see it more and more.
It's interesting that Dean, a man, is so interested in finding women's strengths, while Mrs. du Toit, a woman, is interested in confirming the superiority of the man. That's because Dean is gynosexual while Mrs. du Toit is androsexual.
One more thing: Why aren't the feminists demanding more pool halls and archery clubs?
Male/Female differences are a natural result of evolution. Very interesting topic too. Funny how some people think evolution is an inconsequential thing useful only for making fun of certain religious folk, huh? Probably, a lot of those radical feminists consider themselves big believers of evolution.
BTW I read that once a university campus was evacuated because of the smell of a pound or so of mercaptans. (a skunk uses much much less than a pound)
The natural gas scent is ethyl mercaptan, while skunk smell is butyl mercaptan.