As a child, boys and girls play together without a problem.  As kids get
older, they start segregating themselves and often get into a stage where
they think that members of the opposite sex might as well be aliens.  Then
when you finally mature, you learn that although men and women are different,
they are also alike.

What do you think are some of the major (real) differences between men and
women?

64 responses total.

Men tend to be destructively competitive, superficial, and self-centered.
Women tend to be constructively cooperative, deep, and sharing.
Other than that, not a lot of difference.

Marc, it sounds like you've been hanging out with all the wrong people.  I've
met more than an few superficial, self-centered women and more than a few
deep, sharing, cooperative men.

It's not the plumbing, it's the personality.  (Of course, I suppose that it
could be argued that until recently a man had to work harder to be a
"sensitive, caring person" because of the way men and women have been raised,
but that's changing.)

How do men and differ primarily?  Women bear young and nurse them.  Men come
into the child nurture thing 9at least directly) only after the child's birth.

Men are reluctant to grow up (the only difference between men and boys
is the price of their toyz), and always keep a hang towards
independency meanwhile being dependent.
Therefore so many men have affairs, but always
tend to come back to their old nest.
A woman is loyal unless she loses her love/devotion for
somebody. If a woman has an affair, she is in love.

at least that's my impression of what I witnessed around me,
and of course that is by no means a standard.

#1 was somewhat tongue in cheek.  There are lots and lots of exceptions, but
if you find someone who "has to win", I'll wager it's a man.  If you find 
someone who wants to talk things over (without winning) and effecting a
resolution which respects everyones feelings, it is more likely to be a woman.
True, you and I know many exceptions, but I feel the generalization still
applies.

Well, OK, if you'll put that proviso on it -- that it's social rather than
inevitable, I guess it's true that I've rarely run into a woman who has to
turn every conversation into a contest for supremecy.  ;)

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Is that so?
YThen this difference is built in very very deep.
OK, life is a conspiracy: from your first days you are
expected to bahave according to your gender.
If someone behaves/acts like someone from the opposite sex, it is
considered strange/funny/queer.

Still, I think there is a basic difference, and that got to do with
the way both genders are built.
Then again, it is the y-chromosome that determines the gender, but if
hormones aren't produced according to this gender, and the balance is
exactly the opposite of what it should be then,
a woman (double XX) can be a man and vice versa.
This last part is now having its discussion about gender testing
for the Olympics (the Barr bodies and so on).

I tend to notice that the majority of men I know envy the fact that women can
be hugging each other and saying, "I love you" within three hours of
soul-searching and bonding, whereas it takes them a LONG time to form a deep
relationship with another man.  If I see a guy hug another guy, it shocks me
sometimes because they are part of the rare few that are comfortable with a
true >>HUG<<.  =)  I say "the majority" because I know some of you guys are
cuddle bears at heart.

One reported difference between men and women is that men generally test
significantly better for hand-eye cordination in 3-D spatial kinds of
activities.  I have never seen any data or studies on this, but I have seen
this reported as fact.  

When women talk among theirselves, the conversation often involves feelings.
Most men do not discuss feelings.  (My perception).

        re #9 Most men do not discuss feelings.  My group of friends does.

Yes but it's so hard to sort the biological differences from the social
differences.  Is that hand-eye coordination advantage because they've been
encouraged to practice more?  Or because they have a different brain structure
before birth?

Even evaluation s o brain tissue at some point past birth could be misleading
since the brain, like much else about humans, develops in response to demands
made on it.

In studies, people had a very hard time interacting with a child until they
knew its gender.  And their perception of the child's gender played a large
role in how they interacted with the child.  That suggests that we are
subjected to very strong social cues from the moment o birth that influence
everything we are to become.

So, I still hold that the only differeifference we can be certain of is the
plumbing.

(mcpoz tries another angle) - Don't girls develop socially and in school
earlier than boys, with boys catching up in mid-teens?

Well, tes -- but phsychology experiments have hown that people tend to
spend quite a bit more time talking to girls and cuddling with thm\em.  Is
that response to babies inclination or is it training?

most men will not discuss urinals, either...;-)

huh?
You lost me there.
Still, what I posted before.
How strange must it be to you when you suddenly are
told that you are of the opposite sex, while you always
thou you were the other.

Let me see if I understand this Plumber's Theory of 
Sexual Differntiation.

If I take some newly hatched chicks, some newborn lions, and
some newborn deer and raise them independently, when they ma-
tured, I would find hens strutting in the barnyard while
roosters brooded the eggs,  male lions doing the hunting 
while lionesses sat in the shade, and does fighting it out
over which gets to mate with the most desirable buck??

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There is nothing in parenting that requires a penis.  For
conception it is helpful but fucking is not parenting.

17:  But aren't they (the Ms and the Fs) all the same, 
except for the "plumbing"?

Plumbing must be an american expression.
I cannot exactly put my finger on the meaning.
Can anybody help me here?

From my dictionary:

    "plumbing: the pipes, fixtures, and other apparatus
     of a water, gas, or sewage system"

That I knew, I mean in this gender context.
Or should I take things literally?

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Like the spinal column, tear ducts, bile ducts? ;-)

it is a slang term..
it refers to the human genitals as the pipes and fixtures
of the human system.. like plumbing.

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I use it the way you do, Valerie.  (Just as a reference point.)

yeah, i refer to it as more urinary than reproductive...

Mr Webster says genitals = reproductive organs.

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See, foreigners may cause lingual discussions.
Since it is slang, things are bound to be subject to personal
interpretation.
>grrrrinnnn >:)

Hmmm, if you're sitting in your home country and I'm sitting in my home
country and we're having a conversation ... which of us s the foreigner?

Do we have to get Marilyn Vonsavant on this one or can we agree that each is
the foreigner to the other?

<laugh>  Sounds fine to me.

Just as a referent, I brought this up because whern I lived in South Carolina,
I had a most amazing conversation.  I was applying for a job, and I had a
social security card, but no driver's licence.  I needed to have a picture
ID to prove that I was old enough to work in bar.  (I was, barely)
I brought my passport as picture ID.  The person interviewing me wanted to
know what country I was from.  I told her I'm a US citizen.  She told me that
that wasn't possible "since only foreighners have passports."  I explained
that as soon as I crossed a US border, I was a foreigner.  The she
got really confused.  I got the job, but Gloria was never quite convinced she
didn't have an illegal alien working for her.

That experience has made the conept of foreigner forever hilarious in my mind.


...never mind.  I guess you had to be there.  <blush>

"Foreign" accepted!

Exactly: when on holiday bigotted tourists could even say:
what are all these foreigners doing here, not realizing
he/she is the foreigner! hahahaha

This might help: english is not my mother language, so wouldn't
makes that fact me the alien?
(always wanted to be an alien, snicker)

hmm, my typos are showing my alienness quite clearly

An Asian friend of mine grew up in a small town in Vermont where Asians were
so uncommon, people constantly stared at him and asked him where he was from.
When he said "Vermont" nobody believed him, even though he sounds like he is
from Vermont.  So he gave up.

The next time somebody asked him where he was from, he replied, "Mars."  They
never bothered him again.

        I wonder what the differances between men and woman are that transcend
culture and time. What are the "constant" differances, if you will?

That's an excellent question, and one of the ones I don't think we can 
ever have a complete answer to.

The only answer I have is that women (in general) can bear children and 
men (in general) cannot.  (That last looks to the day when scince will 
find a way for men to "bear" children using artificial impregnantion, 
careful hormonal treatments and who knows what all else.  It might 
happen...

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