Okay i just read the item about disadvantages of being female. There were many
good points, but i think that there are alot of advantages of being female.
If anyone can think of any advantages of being female, i'd appreciate it if
they entered them here. I guess i'll start.

51 responses total.

The first advantage that i can think of is women are able to have children
and the second is once a month (up until a certain age) women are given a
reason to be in a shitty mood if they want to be.

Nobody is afraid of you raping them.  It is easier to talk to strangers.

It is? Easier to talk to strangers? Wow. I  think I'd find it easier if I were
male. Because I wouldn't feel afraid of strangers if I was a man, and bigger.

And Maryeliz, I would NEVER call that time of the month a blessing. I
*finally* got rid of it a year ago next month (surgically), and I am so much
happier and healthier that I could dance in the streets! (You have to
understand that I was the unfortunate possessor of periods that lasted 8-9
days and were heavy flow for most of that time and were less than three weeks
apart. My doctor said I was literally bleeding to death. And I was. So forgive
me if I don't think of that as any kind of advantage!)

Um. Advantages to being female? Giving birth is kind of cool, yes. and
breast-feeding is also rather nifty. 

re 3- I never called it a blessing, i called it a reason to be in a shitty
mood if we want to be. And i swear you and my mom should start a club for
women who no longer have periods and gloat about it. My mom gloats about it
almost every month and it makes me sick. And btw, i praise you for being able
to go through periods that lasted over a week.

Advantages of being female?  Some are sexist, but who cares?

Upon exiting a bar with a group of guys, I had a flat tire.  Those guys would
never have dreamed of having me change my own tire.

Guys hold the door for you - and if you hold the door for thet, they think
it's a huge deal.

Guys never expect you to pick up the check - and are shocked when you do.

Guys expect women to be irrational - so when we aren't, they practically fall
at our feet.

The only reason I could ever dream of being a man is so that I could make some
serious cash playing professional sports.

Females are much less likely to have hemophilia because it is X-linked.  Men
with hemophilia don't generally live long enough to pass it along.  A female
would need two bad copies of the gene and is unlikely to get more than one
(from a mother who is a carrier).  We are learning about this in connection
with a relative of Jim's who got born with an extra chromosome (his mother
is not a carrier for this) and also hemophilia (she IS a carrier and now has
to worry even more about whether to have a second child).  

Most of the adult hemophiliacs died of AIDS before a better test was developed
for donors.  The younger hemophiliacs can now be treated with something that
is injected into them three times a week at $1000 per shot.  No wonder the
costs of insurance keep going up.  If you get this treatment, you don't need
the transfusions.  

Women are on average healthier than men because of X-linked disease.  Usually
having just one copy of a bad gene does not affect you much (unless the bad
gene produces something bad for you instead of just not producing anything
at all - dominant instead of recessive).

Actually, women with hemophilia -- meaning homozygotes, those who got the
trait from both sides and have the symptoms -- die faster than men with it
do.  They don't survive puberty.  (At least that's what I learned in Genetics
in undergrad.)

How did their fathers survive puberty without any good copies?

This particular hemophiliac will not have any kids - a side effect of the
extra chromosome.  

What other diseases are sex-linked, or at least more common in men?  I think
there is some hormonal protection against heart problems in women.

Men don't menstruate, so hemophiliac men can survive past puberty.  Some do
not (I don't know what the percentage is), but they don't have a built in time
bomb the way women do.  Some reproduce.

Many conditions are sex-linked -- Fragile X, for example.  Hemophilia is just
the best known one.

It seems pretty irresponsible to reproduce with that sort of gene in you.

Sindi, most people aren't as... dispassionate as you are.

But even so, consider: the children of a male hemophiliac and a female normal
will be male normals (for the kid to be male, the father has to pass the Y)
and female carriers.  In other words, none of them will have the symptoms.
Granted, if the mother is a carrier, half of the male kids and all of the
female kids are screwed. But you can test for that.

If you think about it, every time you reproduce you are playing russion
roulette with what genes you are passing on to your children.  So, I don't
think it is irresponsible to reproduce when you know that there is also a
chance that you can have a healthy child that will grow to adulthood.

Benefits of being female, is the power you can sometimes hold over men...
every sexist but reversable as well.

Actually, I agree with her on the hemophilia gene.  I was just pointing out
why the parents might not.  With certain genetic conditions, I think it *is*
irresponsible to have a kid (unless you have a way to test the fetus) because
of the kind of life the kid could have.

Half of the male children of a female carrier will be hemophiliac - is it
responsible to have female children if you are a male hemophiliac?  Or male
children if you are a carrier?  Jim's relative, who did not want to have her
fetus tested for Down syndrome because she is Catholic, is unlikely to want
to have the sex of her next child (if any) tested.  If a boy, 50% chance of
being hemophiliac.  If  girl, 50% chance of being a carrier.  

What happens to hemophiliacs who don't have insurance that will pay $3000 a
week for treatment?  

Is there a way to test for hemophilia in a fetus?

It is not a given that half of the male children of a female carrier will have
hemophilia, it is just a mathematical possibility that half will.  Genetics
is a bit of a crap shoot and there is also the chance that the eggs with the
bad gene won't be fertilized.  It is the luck of the draw.

On average half.  Statistically half.  

re14:  the downs test (alpha feto protein):

refusing the test doesn't always have anything to do
with being *catholic* (your bigotry is showing)

1 out of 10 tested produce abnormal results, for every 100 of
those abnormal results 2 or 3 actually have birth defects

for every abnormal test they order an amniocentesis. 
1 per 200 - 400 results in a miscarriage caused by the amnio
test. (american baby magazine, this months issue, i think...)

shitty odds for 
a shitty test i guess.  (shrug)

there are also false negatives

would the *catholic* in question be likely
to abort in the case of a positive test anyway?

gosh...i hope that didn't come across as being *dispassionate*

:)

Hang on, the Down's test basically doesn't work?  That SUCKS.

that's pretty much what i've been hearing, yep.

Alrighty then, no pregnancies for us, ever.  My wife is 35.  (Not that we were
planning to yet, but if we had, we would have gotten the test for sure.  If
it doesn't work, then we won't take the chance.)

wow...35?  THAT'S OLD!!! shucks...my wife is only 33.

how much you & your wife wanna have a kid, joe?

lemme put it this way...are the chances of you guys having a
downer a hell of alot greater than your chances of getting some
form of cancer in the next couple of years?

don't let the AMA bully you.

I have always liked every person I have ever met with Down's syndrome, 
fwiw. My Dad has a cousin with Down's syndrome. The last time he saw 
him, he was talking to him about his work. I guess he works in a 
factory or something and due to a mistake he made, he was forced to 
take a different job there, one he would only describe as a "sit down 
job". My Dad said that he looked over to his other cousin (a university 
professor) and said "I have a sit down job, how about you?" Then they 
both got lots of sympathy from the cousin with Downs. 

I like being a woman because in our culture, women are allowed a much 
greater range of emotional expression and I think such expression is 
healthy. 

They may be nice, but I sure don't want one as a kid.  I'm not criticizing
people who are fine with that, just making a personal statement.

Re #21:  When you're evaluating a risk, you look both at the chance of it
         happening -- which is what you're talking about -- and at how bad
         the result would be if it did happen.  *To me*, having a child with
         Down's would be an extremely bad result.  I realize it isn't 
         politically correct to say that, but it's the way I feel.

fair enough.

*shrug* I dont understand that feeling. But hey, I know people who have 
decided they dont want kids because they hate vomit. I dont quite 
understand that either but doesnt really matter what I think about 
other people's choices not to have kids.

Advantage to being a woman - they get off on crimes or receive lighter
sentences.

#26- Amen to that!

Are you fine ladies speaking from personal experience?

There are females and then there are women.  

Pogo was right.

Re #28- no i am not speaking from personal experience.

No - I'm speaking from the research I did for class last semester and seeing
"Chicago" twice this past weekend.

This response has been erased.

Then there are women who use PMS to get chocolate!

*laughs at #33*  :)

Advantage:
I love being able to wear *anything* I want, any time I want to wear 
it. I can wear a men's business suit to work and get compliments; I 
doubt the man in the next cubicle would enjoy the same results from 
wearing a dress. <grin>

resp:4 I've been a card-carrying member of the "Period-Free Gloaters" 
club since 1995. I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is...!

Oh! another advantage: delicate and sensitive gonads stored safely 
*inside*, thankyouverymuch.

Another perk: Women are very unlikely to be color blind. It's another 
sex-linked thing.
Women have much better peripheral vision than men. Y'know the 
stereotype of the man checking out other women in public? Well, women 
do it too, but we don't need to look directly at the men we're scoping 
out. It harks back to when men evolved to be hunters, and needed 
predatory vision: straight ahead, excellent depth perception, and women 
evolved to be gatherers and the protectors of children: a wider field 
of vision to gather more info of the area.
Men can see farther, in general, but women can see more. As in, we have 
a larger focus point in the front of our vision.
Women have healthier hearts because we store our fat low on our bodies 
and men store their fat high.
Women have a pain threshhold that's about eight times that of a man's.
Women have a broader sense of taste and smell. (Again, evolved as 
gatherers, needed to detect poison.)

Oh, and women live longer, of course. :)

Yup, thought of another: Women can, basically, wear anything we want. 
Dresses, pants, suits, men's clothing specifically, or women's clothing 
that looks masculine. Women can wear makeup, jewerly, and perfume, or 
not, as they choose. Men have less freedom regarding clothing and hair, 
and other similar physical expressions of individuality. 

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss