Is there a "weaker sex"?

[ballz2wallz]

weaker in what way? physically? mentally?

[Publius]

The variables are too wide to give a proper answer. It depends on the person.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by 03 white zx3

Let me ask another question then. Why are so many people from both sexes so eager to prove that they are "better" than the opposite gender?

i don't know that i really experience that. perhaps it's more of an issue with a person trying to prove they are better than another person, regardless of sex. it's human nature to want to be better, especially in this country.

[Ardentfrost]

As far as strength is concerned, I don't see how there's any opinion about this. While there are some broly women out there that could whoop my ass, as a whole men simply have more strength potential than women.

As for endurance (like distance running or swimming), I don't think there is any difference. At that time it is no longer about muscle mass, so it's probably even.

As for emotional weakness, what is generally understood is that men are strong, women are weak. But people try to see too much of a physiological difference here, when it can mostly be traced back to a chemical difference. There are obviously exceptions here, but of course I'm talking about "as a whole."

As for mental capacity/ability, despite what our ancestors said, I have seen no evidence to say that one sex has an advantage over the other. I do, however, see that there are very few female engineers, and I'm not sure why. When I first came to Georgia Tech, the male:female ratio was 7:1. Over the past few years, admissions has specifically tried to make Georgia Tech more friendly to women, but there are still very few in engineering degrees. They end up being in Sciences (biology, chemistry, etc..) or Management. I don't know if this really says anything other than perhaps the engineering industry isn't very friendly to the female gender

So as a whole, women and men are equal in all areas except strength, which they are weaker. So, averaged together, wouldn't that make them weaker?

I'll go with that answer

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

As far as strength is concerned, I don't see how there's any opinion about this. While there are some broly women out there that could whoop my ass, as a whole men simply have more strength potential than women.

As for endurance (like distance running or swimming), I don't think there is any difference. At that time it is no longer about muscle mass, so it's probably even.

As for emotional weakness, what is generally understood is that men are strong, women are weak. But people try to see too much of a physiological difference here, when it can mostly be traced back to a chemical difference. There are obviously exceptions here, but of course I'm talking about "as a whole."

As for mental capacity/ability, despite what our ancestors said, I have seen no evidence to say that one sex has an advantage over the other. I do, however, see that there are very few female engineers, and I'm not sure why. When I first came to Georgia Tech, the male:female ratio was 7:1. Over the past few years, admissions has specifically tried to make Georgia Tech more friendly to women, but there are still very few in engineering degrees. They end up being in Sciences (biology, chemistry, etc..) or Management. I don't know if this really says anything other than perhaps the engineering industry isn't very friendly to the female gender

So as a whole, women and men are equal in all areas except strength, which they are weaker. So, averaged together, wouldn't that make them weaker?

I'll go with that answer

[IminWonderland]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

As far as strength is concerned, I don't see how there's any opinion about this. While there are some broly women out there that could whoop my ass, as a whole men simply have more strength potential than women.

As for endurance (like distance running or swimming), I don't think there is any difference. At that time it is no longer about muscle mass, so it's probably even.

As for emotional weakness, what is generally understood is that men are strong, women are weak. But people try to see too much of a physiological difference here, when it can mostly be traced back to a chemical difference. There are obviously exceptions here, but of course I'm talking about "as a whole."

As for mental capacity/ability, despite what our ancestors said, I have seen no evidence to say that one sex has an advantage over the other. I do, however, see that there are very few female engineers, and I'm not sure why. When I first came to Georgia Tech, the male:female ratio was 7:1. Over the past few years, admissions has specifically tried to make Georgia Tech more friendly to women, but there are still very few in engineering degrees. They end up being in Sciences (biology, chemistry, etc..) or Management. I don't know if this really says anything other than perhaps the engineering industry isn't very friendly to the female gender

So as a whole, women and men are equal in all areas except strength, which they are weaker. So, averaged together, wouldn't that make them weaker?

I'll go with that answer

In regards to why there are less women in Engineering, and one can say historically women have been less inclined to the Math and Science fields, one might wonder why that is. Historically women as young girls are put into gender roles that can influence and dictate what they should be interested in, what they should want to learn about. I'm not saying it's overtly done to hold women down, but if you go to any toy store, and look at the differences between toys for boys and girls, we teach them from very early that we are different, and we should like different things. Boys should be building, and constructing, and dealing with mechanical things, and girls should play with dolls, kitchens, and princess crap. When you set a child up from the beggining that they have to like things that are assigned for their gender, often the can grow up, and when they choose fields of study, they choose a field because the think that's what society expects of them. I look at my major, English, 80% women. In all my English classes, mostly women, very few men. With the irony that Most of the writers we study ARE men. But, with most of these students going into teaching Secondary Education in English, do you remember what you thought of a male English teacher? A Man that likes poetry might be considered effemninant. The conditioning of gender roles, high school teachers are great examples of the genders splitting in areas of study based on what is appropriate for their gender. Ever have a Male Health teacher? Or a Male Home Economics teacher? Are men inferior in the kitchen because they are men? Of course not, all the top chefs are men. Then why is it that we tell children (subliminally) that women are most capable of teaching other young women how to cook?

Personally, I don't want to raise my son or future daughter to think that their gender has any bearing on what they can become in life. My son plays with babies, he has a kitchen, he loves motorcycles, and loves to read and paint. He even has his own vaccuum. I wanted to get him a stroller for his baby, but they were all frilly and pink, so we got him a shopping cart instead that he uses for the same purpose. He is who he is, and his gender should be a secondary aspect of who is becomes, not everything.

Look at how society reacts now when a woman is having a baby. When you have a baby, the first thing people ask....IS IT A BOY OR GIRL? Why is that? Our brains are hard wired that we have to be able to decipher, or think of someone as a gender, before we think of them as a being. This is an old thought process that has been ingrained in our minds, I would love it if we could move away from it.

I dont want to say men are weaker, and I don't want to say a woman is weaker. I want to judge people as individuals, and not make assumptions about their abilities based on their X or Y chromosome.

For every "not thinking" woman, there is an equal "not thinking" man to make up for it. There is no skew.

[Ardentfrost]

Yeah, but what you're talking about is how genders are perceived... Like I said in my post, I rate men and women, as far as overall ability is concerned, the same in everything except strength. You may think a person is not different based on whether or not they have a Y chromosome, but physically (and chemically) there IS a diference.

But then, "weak" isn't a very clear term since its meaning can change depending on context (which was one thing I was doing in my original post). If you want to talk about weaker in society (which I didn't talk about), then sure, all those things you mentioned can be taken into consideration. Women have a societal weakness due to how they are raised (eventhough I wouldn't go so far as to blame their parents, it's society as a whole that expects certain things).

But none of that changes the lower strength potential... or how women's hormones vary more than men's (not that it's a weakness, it's just a physical difference).

I look at things very logically I try to not let emotion cloud the facts when I think about this sorta stuff. I don't think facts are prejudiced, so that is what I want to base my thoughts on (certainly not tradition or what society believes). Maybe I think this way because I'm a man

j/k

[IminWonderland]

Are men stronger than women physically? Doesn't that too depend on the Man and depend on the Woman? I don't think that statistically you can even say that's true, because if you look at a sample, it still isn't representitive of every woman or man because it can vary from country, to region, to ethnicity....

Of course the "weak" aspect of it is subjective...but I don't believe it's all parental, I do believe it is mostly societal. That is why girls who aren't "girly" are the one's with personality, not the one's you wanna bang per se...That is why what is considered beautiful has more to do with seeing a woman as a baby maker, than it does seeing her as a person.

I don't doubt that men and women think differently, because I believe that we do. However, I don't believe that a woman's thought process is weaker than man's. I believe that there are biological reasons for women to think the way they do, and in a way, to behave the way they do. However, society makes a larger impact on that and takes it to another level, to where if you aren't fitting what the expectation is, then you are percieved as weak.

The same can be said about Men. There are men that don't fit their gender roles, and they are looked at as weak.

[ballz2wallz]

men, overall, are stronger than women, overall. that's a fact noone can dispute.

[Ardentfrost]

Yeah, look at body builders. You can take those to be the people of each gender who have the ability to retain the most muscle mass. Men body builders are WAY bigger than women body builders. Or lifters... men lifters can lift more than women lifters.

If it depended on the person/etc... then the best of the best in the world would be more even. I'm not saying that ALL men are stronger or have more muscle mass than women, I'm just saying that given similar circumstances (ie. overall), men are physically stronger than women. I'm pretty sure even doctors say that (too lazy to find a link).

[ballz2wallz]

i'm a dr., and i'm saying it.

[IminWonderland]

All men? Over Every Woman? Are there not exceptions?

In my opinion, if there are exceptions, then the blanket statement of Men are Stronger than Women doesn't hold water.

Men "CAN" be stronger than women. Women "CAN" be stronger than men. Men might have a genetic and biological disposition to being stronger, but that doesn't necessarily make that so.

And going back to the initial question, is physical strength a precursor to determine if one gender is "weaker" than the other? Because a woman may not have the biological ability to have the muscle mass a man has, does that mean that all women should be subjected to what we have been subjected since the dawn of time?

I remember hearing that they actually used to believe women couldn't orgasm. You know, being the weaker sex and all. There are all sorts of assumptions made when you say one gender is weaker. That assumption has been detrimental to women for thousands of years. The idea that because of menustration, because of child bearing, women are essentially "weaker" creatures than male counterparts. Because of that notion, it has stemmed a long time discrimination and persecution.

Are we not at a point in history that we can say that both men and women have individual abilities, one not making them a weaker sex?

[Ardentfrost]

dude, I've said in both or my previous posts that I'm not saying "all men are stronger than women" I've said that overall, men have a genetic advantage to muscle mass, and given similar situations, a man will most often be stronger than a woman. Obviously the body building women are stronger than me, but not stronger the body building men.

[IminWonderland]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

dude, I've said in both or my previous posts that I'm not saying "all men are stronger than women" I've said that overall, men have a genetic advantage to muscle mass, and given similar situations, a man will most often be stronger than a woman. Obviously the body building women are stronger than me, but not stronger the body building men.

I understand that. But what does having that genetic advantage mean, and how has that genetic advantage been used in the subjection of women over centuries?

It's almost like, to me, that using that premise of physical strength by saying well, Men are stronger than women, therefore women are less than a man, puts the idea that because women may not be able to be equal on a physical level, that they can't be equal on other levels as well. And that arguement has been used in the persecution of women for a very long time.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by IminWonderland

I understand that. But what does having that genetic advantage mean,

it means they can fight in wars, carry weapons, carry dead animals, carry injured, lift heavy things to build houses for their families...the list goes on

and how has that genetic advantage been used in the subjection of women over centuries?

is that all you think about? how men have used their gifts to hold women down? who cares how it's been used wrongly. the good things outnumber the bad.

[Ardentfrost]

I don't really think men use their strength to keep women out of the workplace at this point in time. Hell, I bet a lot of CEO's can get their asses kicked by their secretaries.

The societal things that you've mentioned CAN be attributed to things like women making less money than men in the same jobs and that sorta thing, though it is hard for me to believe it's really like that (hard for me to believe doesn't make it untrue, mind you).

Actual raw strength means very little in modern society. If this were a few million years ago, then perhaps we'd say that the men are better equipped to kill the sabertoothed tiger for dinner than the women, but as far as hailing a taxi, I think women hold the advantage

[IminWonderland]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

it means they can fight in wars, carry weapons, carry dead animals, carry injured, lift heavy things to build houses for their families...the list goes on

is that all you think about? how men have used their gifts to hold women down? who cares how it's been used wrongly. the good things outnumber the bad.

Is that all I think about? Well, if your gender was supressed for centuries, you might be thinking about this differently. And looking at your laundry list...

Fight in wars...women do that. Carry weapons? Women can do that. Carry Dead Animals? You don't think a woman has ever killed an animal and drug it back to her shack? Carry injured? I'm sure women can do that too. Build houses? So by that reasoning, if there were no men, there'd be no shelter? Um.....yeahright.

Who cares how it's been used wrongly? Um, women do. Or at least they should. It's kinda like black people. There was a time that they "THOUGHT" that blacks were genetically inferior to whites. Is that true? Of course not. But, because they "THOUGHT" that, look at how it was used.

Biologoical differences between men and women are concrete, that's for sure. Imagine the repercussions to women, when it's a "proven" fact that you are a weaker "specie" than male counterparts. And the good out numbering the bad? I wish I had a time machine, so that way I can send you back a couple hundred years and make you a woman in the Victorian age, and we'll see how fairly and justly you are treated. Shit, we haven't even been able to vote for 100 years yet, that's how equally we were looked at.

[IminWonderland]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

I don't really think men use their strength to keep women out of the workplace at this point in time. Hell, I bet a lot of CEO's can get their asses kicked by their secretaries.

The societal things that you've mentioned CAN be attributed to things like women making less money than men in the same jobs and that sorta thing, though it is hard for me to believe it's really like that (hard for me to believe doesn't make it untrue, mind you).

Actual raw strength means very little in modern society. If this were a few million years ago, then perhaps we'd say that the men are better equipped to kill the sabertoothed tiger for dinner than the women, but as far as hailing a taxi, I think women hold the advantage

Oh it's true. Trust me.

Well, looking at today, if physical strength means less today than it did 500 years ago, does having more physical capacity still entitle men to the "stronger" gender? Especially since, very rarely does the modern man have to build his own house?

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by IminWonderland

Oh it's true. Trust me.

Well, looking at today, if physical strength means less today than it did 500 years ago, does having more physical capacity still entitle men to the "stronger" gender? Especially since, very rarely does the modern man have to build h