Women Vs Men: Are Men REALLY the stronger of the two?

[CrystalLight]

I know this is a topic that probably has been discussed at length before, whether it be here or elsewhere. But, have you really thought about it? Pertaining to strengths, whether be physical, emotional or mental-- since the beginning, Man has always been painted as the stronger, 'Dominant' of the two sexes. Is that really true?

How about the countless amount of men that crumble into a pile of goo whenever a pretty lady passes or even offers small conversation? Aren't the women technically wielding the power in that aspect?

Are we just growing into a society where it's becoming neutral, Men and Women alike sharing the hypothetical top pedestal, or underneath the surface still lays a struggle that perhaps Women are winning over their counterpart?

I'm not talking a direct power war here, just the normal day to day scenarios that are perceived in favor of Men, but perhaps are only occurring due to the guidance that's not always seen of Women?

Personally, I'm sketchy of most Women as a whole. Can't stand many of them, mainly those my age and those who try to act like those my age. I prefer a Man set and steady, not needing me to hold his hand or slap a gold sticker on his forehead for not keeping the toilet seat up, etc.

Doesn't mean that a shitload of Men out there aren't looking for that type of reaction. And Women have been giving it to many for years. Does that put the power in the Women's hands? Again, not some epic battle for blood and rights.

 

[EcEu]

you certainly said a mouthful jo.. hmm

I do a lot of observing, at my seat before class, at the benches during breaks, and i see a lot of behavior patterns between guys and girls.

I think though, that girls have the upper hand

One of my best friends told me that It was hard being attractive going to school because she constantly had men talking to her trying to get her number and what not. She didn't do anything but just be at that one location at that one time. She had to deal with that for her final years of high school and all of college and she didn't do anything but just be there, that says a lot about the power she had with just her presence.

Guys end to be more hormone driven, don't ask me why, they just are. And more often than not i've seen guys let their guard down and do whatever a pretty girl would ask.

I guess when we get older people mature and this changes, but from what i've seen with us young adults, girls got it going on.

 

[Bohemianne]

Both have their own unique strength and weaknesses. Men and women are complementary. It's just that the stereotypical brainwashings of this cruel society screwed things up.

 

[kered]

Both have their own unique strength and weaknesses. Men and women are complementary. It's just that the stereotypical brainwashings of this cruel society screwed things up.

And given the inner workings of both male and female things will probably remain the same as long as the human race is still around.

 

[Dave2112]

Exactly. Much of the percieved "war" of the sexes is societally driven. And, like Jo said, there IS a certain neutrality that's becoming more prevalent as that society becomes less "survival" driven out of neccesity and more "cultured" from lack of same.

Men and women each hold thier own forms of power. It's easy to look at the surface and say that men have phsyical power, women have emotional power...but break that emotional power down further and you'll see that men and women even differ there. We're based in different emotional sets because of our differing emotional needs. I honestly don't see either as being more powerful than the other, but rather complimentary in the long run.

 

[kered]

And it's all in the "wiring" each sex was gifted with. So boys and girls will still be doing the same thing and neither will truly understand how things work. And that is what makes it so interesting.....and yes, fun.

 

[Musicroxmysox]

I often think that girls have the upper hand in things. Mostly because a lot of the boys I know sort of have one track minds. However I really feel like this kind of issue stems from each person individually. Some men are stronger characters then women, and vice versa. I think a lot of it is all in our up bringing.

 

[Snail Shell]

It more a matter of mutual respect in my mind. Respect for the opposite sex is an integral part of forming friendships and relationships that will last for the rest of your life.

Snail Shell

 

[kered]

I often think that girls have the upper hand in things. Mostly because a lot of the boys I know sort of have one track minds. However I really feel like this kind of issue stems from each person individually. Some men are stronger characters then women, and vice versa. I think a lot of it is all in our up bringing.

I also think this is correct. There are different types of so called power among the two sexes and one power yet to be explained is the power of affection. Why else would most men rather face twenty pissed off Shaolin monks than upset their wives or girlfriends. Out of fear? I don't really think so. I can only guess that is the males wish to make the female happy and comfortable mainly out of the respect and regards toward the lady. This of course works both ways.

The thing is we guys manage to screw it up at times even with the best of intentions.

 

[baldadonis]

Sadly in my daily 9-6 job, the women are certainly not on the same pedestal as the men. All the lawyers in my small firm are men, all the paralegals/receptionists are female. And besides the fact that the men occupy a higher position on the job ladder, while the women are respected in our office, there's a little less respect and patience than for the fellow men in the office.

Outside of this limited context, if there is a power dynamic, it is variable, based on time and place. In the long run, we each need the other to coexist, and in the long run, with certain exceptions, I think the power balance is largely on the same scale.

 

[Marquis De Sade]

Depends on if that female's a mother defending her offspring.

 

[CrystalLight]

Guys end to be more hormone driven, don't ask me why, they just are. And more often than not i've seen guys let their guard down and do whatever a pretty girl would ask.

I guess when we get older people mature and this changes, but from what i've seen with us young adults, girls got it going on.

In the discussion pertaining to age; Yes. I agree in many scenarios if you look around, no matter how 'strong' the male is, the female is almost always the one pulling the weight in accordance to either sexually, civilly or other wise.

I mean shit, some just have to flash a pretty smile and a guy is slamming money down to get them that new purse/house/chalupa that they've been eying.

In a way it's amusing to watch this occur, but sometimes it just makes me want to slap the male.

It's just that the stereotypical brainwashings of this cruel society screwed things up.

Could you elaborate more on that? Are you referring to the whole..

MAN GET FOOD.

WOMEN COOK FOOD.

Thing??

I often think that girls have the upper hand in things. Mostly because a lot of the boys I know sort of have one track minds. However I really feel like this kind of issue stems from each person individually. Some men are stronger characters then women, and vice versa. I think a lot of it is all in our up bringing.

That's very true, for many men they are purely driven by their basic structural desires.

It more a matter of mutual respect in my mind. Respect for the opposite sex is an integral part of forming friendships and relationships that will last for the rest of your life.

Snail Shell

Well, yes. However, there are many women who deliberately use men (see: gold diggers), and the only way they can begin to get like that is by adding a facade of respect for men to make them think they're in the upper hand.

But, yes-- Respect in all facets gain you the privilege of building and sustaining friendships and relationships.

I can only guess that is the males wish to make the female happy and comfortable mainly out of the respect and regards toward the lady. This of course works both ways.

The thing is we guys manage to screw it up at times even with the best of intentions.

It's not that I'm dogging on all females. But, some of them use that mindset that many (but not all) men have that you just mentioned, to their advantage. Which isn't fair.

Depends on if that female's a mother defending her offspring.

Pwhoosh. That's a whole 'nother aspect. That shits embedded deep into many females. You don't even think about breathing wrong near what they've produced.

That just makes me punchy thinking about it.

 

[kered]

It's not that I'm dogging on all females. But, some of them use that mindset that many (but not all) men have that you just mentioned, to their advantage. Which isn't fair.

Who said life was fair? And some guys use it too.

 

[Dussicar]

Well, I hope nobody minds, but I gotta use this thread to vent my cynical opinion.

A few weeks back, I blasted off in the "nice guy" thread about women who go out of their way to pick the assholes and justify their warped perceptions with other nonsense to justify their actions. I was basically channeling many girls/women I have met from highschool and up.

Stupidity and the justification of it, however, knows now gender boundaries.

A while ago, I ended up in a situation with a male friend of mine.

He is kind of well-to-do, if you will. By that, I mean that he has a great house in a upper-scale neighbourhood, a new car (looks swell) and makes a verrrrry comfortable living...He's also single.

Apparently, he caught the eye of a certain female that our group is familiar with. She is basically the living embodiment of a blone-haired, blue-eyed, valley girl cheerleader. The woman is thirty and acts like every stereotype of every bimbo in every "who wants to ***** their dignity out for money" reality show you have ever seen.

Well, of course he is smitten right away. Failing, of course, to realise that the only reason why this vacuous, petty vindictive slut (she actually is, too) is interested in him is because he has money and a nice car.

She is the type of person who grew up so materialistic that she isn't even a real person, by society's standards. She lives to leech, if you will.

He kept extolling the virtues of her character to me like he was actually trying to convince himself that she was a nice person instead of convincing me.

The rediculous lengths he went to out of sheer denial were fit only for some highschool kid. Jesus! He was a grown man of thirty three years old!

Finally, I lost it on him and told him that if he wanted to go out of his way to make excuses to justfy the fact that the only reason why he shacked up with her was because she had a tight bod and big tits and replace it with excuses claiming that she is the second coming of Mother Theresa, then he can suffer on his own!

There is a lot more to this stupidity than I have let on, but suffice it to say I have no patience for morons who go out of their way to justify something obviously wrong and demented in relationships to satiate their own sense of denial.

His "pity me/why dosen't anybody like my wonderful girlfriend" speeches left me with my teeth clenched every single time. He's frustrated everybody else to the point that they don't want to be around this trainwreck of a situation and now I'm part of that crowd.

As cynical and petty as it sounds, I really hope that he ends up coming home one night and catches her in bed with his brother, a friend (hell, even his mother would do) or catches something from her that a pill or shot won't cure.

The last thing I told him before I left that last day was that if he ever showed up at my house with tears in his eyes, I'd bash his brains in with a baseball bat. He deserves everything he has coming to him, as far as I'm concerned.

*whew*

I don't know how, exactly, this may have contributed to this thread, but I sure as hell feel better for getting this off of my chest!

 

[maniactickler]

Aside from the sexual part of life, if there were only women on the planet from the start, it would have lasted a month at best. no offense to the women, but survival techniques arent a womans strength.

 

[Amnesiac]

Like all things, gender perceptions are likely borne out of a practical thing that soon became everyday practice, and then became tradition. This is especially true in a pre-technological society that has no way to trace or discover why things happen, only the patterns that emerge when they do.

EX: African-Americans became slaves out of a practical necessity. In the early days of colonial America, slavery was an economic institution (much like indentured servitude), and markets opened their branches everywhere to sell cheap labor. Africans from pre-technological tribes that couldn't resist European science were already part of the market, but so were Irish and indigenous native peoples as well. The problem for traders/landowners was that slaves ran away, and Irish and native slaves once gone, could blend in with the others of their kind in the inside/outside areas; also, family members could save up money and buy them out of their bondage. Africans had neither of these two luxuries, so after a very short while, Africans were the sole slave market in the US. In less than 200 years, they went from being "inferior" people who were easy to exploit to "inferior species" because of their dark skin and buffoonish behavior--a survival trait adopted by slaves to avoid being hung/disemboweled like their visibly intelligent compatriots. Reconstruction's legal recognition of African-Americans as equal to whites was--to the people of the period--the equivalent of giving drivers licenses to chimps; giving animals human rights. This was so conflicting with cultural perceptions that traditionalists resisted violently up until the 1960s when they were forcibly driven underground, where they remain today, sabotaging from below. What started as a way to preserve a cheap labor force turned into a cultural bias of absoluteness that remains with us today, continually interfering with any progressive growth.

I think the same thing happened with women. By neurological design, the architecture of a woman's brain is more complex: it's 30% more active and 10% thicker at the corpus collosum than a male brain. A woman's brain is like a dual-core processor. So a woman's mind is by design more sophisticated. A woman typically has stronger emotional reactions, readings, and interpretations...when given a logical framework of knowledge (like math, deductive reasoning, etc.) it can even be more advanced in its computational powers.

But complexity complicates things. Once again, in pre-technological (hell, pre-AGRARIAN) tribal life would have had little to no use for it. Complex emotional responses and stronger empathic ability is great for bonding with other human beings, but it doesn't help much in the way of tracking prey or killing things...in fact, emotions can get IN THE WAY of killing things, especially other people. So your first conflict is probably related to child-raising: do you raise them to be empathic and compassionate with others...or do you replace that with the habitual knowledge of killing? Which one's more useful in hunter-gathering?

And on and on and on. Even graduating to stable agricultural life didn't change the fact that stability brought competition too, which brought further territorial aggression. Once again, sociopathy is more useful than empathy. Now, sometimes these everyday tactics create psychopaths, and since the "traditions that built the society can't be to blame", it must be something wrong with the person. A couple more thousand years of this and we're still on the same page.

All this killing and warring loses a lot of people, and needs immediate action. Once again, where does a woman's nature help? Males are more task-driven, emotionally retarded (as a default, not potential), and aggressive, so these traits define world virtue for about....8,000 years. If you think 200 years was a long time for Africans to become animals in peoples eyes, what do you think 8,000 years of women being primarily useful for breeding is going to do?

And since all modern civilizations are built on the foundations/ruins of older ones, those social structures (men work, women stay home) are adopted with it. Say what you want to about it, it DOES create an efficient society...at the expense of an intelligent one.

Along comes industrialization, and now machines do the work of many men. Automation comes along 300 years later, and now men work to manage the machines. Suddenly...life slows down, and a woman's nature FINALLY starts becoming useful! Insight, imagination, empathy, compassion, etc. wow, life is really interesting, and we've been ignorant of so many things! A lot of the male contributions CREATED the conflicts that gave them their reasons to work!

However...

LOGICALLY,

Brain architecture determines nature and biological thresholds. Sometimes that gives you an advantage (water pressure endurance) and sometimes it doesn't (height/size/bulk), not to mention their own particular vulnerabilities (cancers of respective organs). It's all a matter of degree and circumstance in which one becomes useful and the other a detriment.

But human societies have become long-obsessed with creating Swiss-Army Humans; people who are good at EVERYTHING in EVERY SITUATION. Most of them are STRENGTH-and-AGGRESSION based tasks, so women are often considered the lesser. But truth be told, humans are not built for universality or specialization, but moderation...and success depends on specific requirements in a given field. It works for gender, and then individuals within those genders.

So men and women are equally worthless and equally useful. Everything else is a matter of case-by-case criteria.

And it's MOTHERFUCKING HIGH TIME Feminists and Traditionalists got that through their thick fucking absolutist skulls.

 

[Amnesiac]

Small addendum...

As for why men fear being compared with women, it's another one of those human instinct things.

Humans are social animals. Social animals have a centralized, hierarchy-based leadership system. All a government really is is a collection of smaller hierarchies under the leadership of another hierarchy: Each state delegates lesser administrative power to mayors and county administrators and they in turn report high-priority problems to the state's GOVERNOR. The governor's administrative power is delegated by a FEDERAL administrator, who in turn, reports to the Leader of the field in which they specialize, who in turn reports to the President of the Country.

With the leadership position comes benefits by necessity: the leader protects the tribe, so he needs the best of everything. This includes: eating first, and the biggest and best portions; breeding rights with his choice of females; absolution of wrongdoing to preserve confidence (this is why shit flows downstream folks): this is why there are omega fe/males in tribes...they take the abuse that can't be dished out on superiors--a violation of the authority structure; and host of others.

Sounds like the captain of the varsity football team or an Ivy League Class President doesn't it? Guess what...IT IS.

This system also flows downhill too. So in order to possess leadership abilities and enjoy their rewards, you have to appear strongest in the eyes of the others. You can do this through accomplishment, or by denigrating others with humiliation to inflate yourself.

The point being...

If women in a system are perceived as lesser, than a man who is called or referred to by a woman will be perceived as weaker by the other males he is competing with. If he doesn;t respond right away or continue to inflate his masculine traits, he WILL be perceived as weaker and lose his respect, and with it, any perks or breeding rights he already has. He is also now vulnerable to attack by other males who seek to inflate their own position by reducing HIS (typically with taunting, teasing, humiliation and physical violence...in prison this includes SEXUAL violence too).

So is throwing like a girl an insult? It is if the guy risks being humiliated and treated like shit by his friends if he doesn't dispel that.

 

[Ticklerguy4u]

I agree with some people. I think both men and women are equal in what makes them strong and weak toward each other.

Sex has always been a weakness of men. We are biologically ruled by it. Every thing we do revolves around getting it. Women have control over this is because it doesn't rule her life like it does us. But what happens when a guy ignores a woman sexually. In some cases, he becomes desirable.

However, emotions on the other hand are a woman's weakness. I think I heard some guy say one time..."divide a woman's emotions and you can conquer her." Guy aren't generally ruled by emotion. Which is why very few men will see a chick flick or read a romance novel.

Of course there are some exceptions. Some guys are emotional and some women are sexual. Both tend to lead to the person's destruction more often than not. Same thing applies when guys are too sexual and women are too emotional. I think "we" men and women have to balance each other out and quit exploiting each others weakness to gain the upper hand.

Different parts of us are stronger and different parts of us are weaker.

 

[Ticklerguy4u]

One more comment about guys tripping over themselves for a woman from a guy's POV.

As long as she has what a guy wants. He will chase her until he gets it. Once she no longer has it, becomes unavailable, or his priority changes toward her, he isn't interested anymore.

So does she really have the power? Only if she remains desirable to the opposite sex, once it goes away she has lost the power over men. So she never really had the power in the first place--just merely exploited our weaknesses.

 

[munchausen]

Power is difficult to define...

I think it's dangerous to women to define female power in terms of sexuality -- how severely limiting is that? Women have power, as long as men want to have sex with them. So whatever you do, don't age. Or get ugly.

There's definitely some measure of power in sexuality (see Delilah) but any time power is contingent on desirability, it's temporary, fickle, and compromised. I personally think young girls get WAY too much pressure to be like the vapid hotties they see on TV. I mean, really, show 20 high school kids an episode of "Beauty and the Geek." Which group do you think more of them would be apt to emulate? At the same time, we take for granted that beauty=stupidity -- why think when you can just be hot?

All this is compromised, of course, by my sincere appreciation that women do care about their appearances. So I guess I'm a hypocrite. Oh,well.

Also, just as an addendum: male power has been pretty well completely redefined, so it doesn't much matter in contemporary arguments who could hunt and who could gather. I'm absolutely certain I can outbench and outbox Donald Trump, but who's more powerful, him or me?

Final thought: whoever you are, don't worry about whether men or women are stronger -- worry about how strong you are.

Here endeth the pretentious lesson.

 

[huskys]

In the discussion pertaining to age; Yes. I agree in many scenarios if you look around, no matter how 'strong' the male is, the female is almost always the one pulling the weight in accordance to either sexually, civilly or other wise.

I mean shit, some just have to flash a pretty smile and a guy is slamming money down to get them that new purse/house/chalupa that they've been eying.

In a way it's amusing to watch this occur, but sometimes it just makes me want to slap the male.

Whether we like it or not, agree or not, or want to change it or not, humans (both male and female) are ALWAYS going to use sex as a way to get what they want.
Having worked as part time night club security for a long time I have seen the above scenario many times.
Just as wrong is when I see young women who I know to be highly intelligent with great jobs, putting on the sluttiest outfit they can find, thinking that is the the way to find a descent guy.
This makes me want to slap the girl!!! (figuratively of course)

So who's to blame??
Males, females, society, tradition. Everyone's gonna have their own opinion on that too I guess!!!

 

[Sandrock74]

Yes, yes we are.

 

[Fire_Sprite]

Hm... well to put it in terms of strength, yes they're weak in that situation. But the girls also are. They may be able to get the guys to do things, but it's in same way a toddler generally gets what it wants from it's mother. Even the most sex starved guy has his breaking point and can easily cut the bullshit when it comes to indulging a girl. And I've seen plenty of women who've lived on the kindness of others being completely helpless in a situation when they can't depend on their looks.

Both sides of that situation are pathetic. It may seem like the women are profiting, but in the guy's mindset indulging in the attention of a female is a reward in of itself. Though I don't think it's about which gender is biologically "stronger." Both just have their faults imprinted into them by society. Women are raised to be the fairer sex, the more attractive and adorable they are the more they're catered to. This behavior is ingrained throughout childhood and the end result is a nation of girls who idolize pop singers and spend an hour every morning in front of a mirror. Men on the other had are raised to believe that the greatest achievements of evolution are mammary glands and that spending your free time in the pursuit of pussy is perfectly acceptable. Are men more biologically prone to think about sex and the differences between genders? Undoubtedly. But its only the social acceptance of this behavior that creates a generation of a hormone dominated retards that treat another human being's body like its a commodity. Basically men become possessive which makes the women dependent which makes the men possessive ad hominem.

It's one of the many bullshit aspects of society, but I don't think it's a cause that needs to be crusaded against. The civilized world is already breeding itself out of this behavior. Just wait it out I guess.

 

[Ticklerguy4u]

Just as wrong is when I see young women who I know to be highly intelligent with great jobs, putting on the sluttiest outfit they can find, thinking that is the the way to find a descent guy.

This is my point. Women may have the power of sex over men but who set the rules up? Men.

Now , why some men fear to anger their wives or girlfriends? Well from my own experience sometimes I am no mood to hear bitching and moaning about it. I may want some nooky that night or women can hold a grudge for days sometimes weeks. Who needs that? I've heard from friends of mine telling me their wife gets pissed off for things she remembered years ago.

So its more to protect our peace of mind more often then fear of physical abuse.

 

[PainTrain]

Sexual Attraction is the only area in which women gain the power. That I am afraid, is all. Without that, there is nothing. The sole purpose is to procreate the species, and be together forever.