Why Men and Women are Way More Different Than You Think

By Johnny Tsimogiannis

We live in a world where most animals are binary, as they have 2 sexes, including humans; male and female. For this to occur, you could assume that men and women have considerable differences for them to complement each other well, otherwise the presence for 2 sexes would not be necessary. However, as ideological beliefs like feminism become more publicised, the world’s view on how different men and women actually are has changed, and continues to do so at a rapid rate. As the term “equality” becomes used more and more, traditional beliefs on the genders that were previously considered ‘ordinary’ are decreasing in popularity tremendously, so much so to the point where many have begun to lose track of where our line of thinking has headed, and what the future of it looks like for us. Equality, on the face of it, doesn’t seem like a negative aspiration for a society to have, in fact, it may seem as though not setting this as a paramount priority would be disrespectful in many ways. Nevertheless, harm is ensured when it is of utmost importance, and I’ll explain why by stating the major differences between men and women, and their significance in our world today.

1. Physical Strength

This may already be controversial to some, but it is no surprise to doctors and to physiological researchers when women possess only 52% of the upper body muscle mass than men, and about 66% of lower body muscle mass. Now, of course, these are statistical averages, and so there are always going to be outliers, men who are weaker than the average woman, or women who are stronger than the average man. Nonetheless, that does not disprove that males on average are physically stronger than females. All of the “I know a girl who’s stronger than guys!” doesn’t mean anything, because the statistics don’t change dramatically based on one extreme value, men and women’s strength still remains different. Does this directly correlate with a level of superiority or inferiority? Not at all, it doesn’t insinuate supremacy in any way, it is simply a measure of an element in our lives that shows a clear difference between men and women. Not to mention, there are numerous cons that come with being physically stronger than someone else, including the fact that you’re expected to deal with situations, often very dangerous ones such as fighting, that involve the use of strength, especially if it means the protection of someone who isn’t as strong as you. It is a responsibility you carry with that power, and so it must be used wisely. This has several implications that we see every day in the real world. For example, the construction workforce in Australia is made up of 12% women, and the other 88% are men. Australia is also a first world country, and so this number is much lower in other countries where egalitarian doctrines are not supported nearly as extensively as they are here. 99% of brick layers, carpenters, stone masons, plumbers, and roof tilers are male, the majority of firefighters are male, the majority of soldiers are male, the majority of personal trainers are male, the majority of miners are male… I think you get the point. This is no new concept though, society has functioned this way since the dawn of mankind, the men are expected to do the physical labor due to overall strength differences between the sexes, and so it plays a large role in our way of living. Unfortunately, unless our biology undergoes dramatic transformations, trying to push for an exact equalisation in these industries’ employee demographics will only reduce our efficiency and ultimately waste our time. That’s not to say that women shouldn’t be striving for these kinds of occupations, as there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with that, but arguing that it’s a result of tyrannical social pressure only is demonstrably false, as social norms naturally form for a reason, and this is one of them that doesn’t seem to pose any threat to our society.

2. Size

Size is another factor that has much more of an impact than most people actually think. There are numerous different sources for height, but it is fair to say the average height for a male is approximately 5’9, and the average height for a female is about 5’4. This can vary by a fair amount depending on the country, but most western cultures share a similar statistic to this. Also, generally speaking, men tend to carry less body fat, and the body fat is usually located near the abdomen, while for women, it is situated more around the hips and thighs. This difference in size and stature provides us with different roles in society, and different expectations. For example, if any sort of physical danger was posed to a man and a woman (Dangerous animal, human intruder/burglar, natural disaster), the expectation would be for the man to sacrifice a level of his safety in order to ensure the protection of the woman. Some argue that this gender role should be avoided, since just because men are taller, faster and stronger than women, it does not automatically make them ‘better’, and so the expectation shouldn’t be forged. However, this is obviously foolish, because a similar irrational argument could respond that since women are being protected in that instance, they’re clearly the ones with the higher value, and so men sacrificing themselves in that example is a sign of inferiority. Are either of them true? No, both are completely illogical. The difference is, one is popularised, the other is not. Men are usually expected to fight to protect a woman because of their biological advantage in combat, which leads to a higher probability of survival for them both. It doesn’t mean one is ‘better’ than the other, or somehow physical weakness corresponds with being a weak person overall, that definitely is not the case. With that being said though, the difference still exists, and should be considered when discussing the disparities between the sexes.

3. Personality

With the hundreds of people I have discussed this subject with, it seems to always come as a shock to hear that men and women differ personality wise. The common response I get to this is something along the lines of “The only reason men and women act different is because of society!”. At first glance, it seems a somewhat reasonable possibility, but it’s completely nonsensical, because if it was true, how did society form their norms that drove this personality difference in the first place? The physiology of humans plays a huge factor in that. Even if it did somehow happen to be only due to society that these differences are present, it does not counter the fact that those differences exist, and they affect the way the world works. On average, men tend to score higher on traits such as assertiveness, aggressiveness, insensitivity and self esteem, while women generally score higher on orderliness, dutifulness, agreeableness, and anxiety. While these traits alone do not cause notable discrepancies, the combination and the effect it has on how we interact with each other is worth the mention. Assertiveness and aggressiveness in men likely stems from the increased testosterone, size and physical strength differences, while anxiety in women stems from metacognitive beliefs about the uncontrollability of worrying, and so they tend to worry about worrying more than men, and their agreeableness most likely comes from men’s increased aggressiveness, which causes this yin and yang nature that allows men and women to be well-suited to work together.

One thing that should be mentioned is a specific aspect of life that is pivotal to our society’s functionality; finances. More precisely, the pay gap between men and women. Psychology professor Jordan Peterson actually mentions this in an interview with Cathy Newman, but the substance of the argument he made was that gender discrimination makes up such a small percentage of the pay gap that exists between men and women, and one of the larger factors that contribute heavily to it are the personality differences, especially ones such as agreeableness in women, which is obviously a counterproductive trait to possess in abundance in the workforce when aiming for a high income. It also has a snowball effect to other reasons for the disparity, including the decreased likelihood of asking for a pay rise, less hours worked, behaviour during work, which all lead to women getting paid less than men on average. Some people don’t realise this at all, and so if you’re a woman in this society, there’s no reason you can’t overcome the ‘barriers’ you were given by being the gender you are, and make far more money (For example) than any man you know. The same concept applies to men in other facets of life, if you’re willing to identify the differences between men and women, how that influences your chances of getting what you want, and therefore how you can take action against these dilemmas, YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL. No matter how difficult it may seem being in the position you are in, there are people out there who have been in your situation (Or worse), yet have pushed through to achieve excellence. There are also people in that position who have done the opposite and accomplished nothing in their lives, but which route do you wish to take? The choice is yours…

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