The advantages of being female

[ReineD]

I'll make a list.

The plusses:

• We get to be happy in our gender (just as cis men are happy in their gender).
• We get to cry when life overwhelms us, although too much sniveling gets frowned upon.
• If we are pretty, men admire us and pay attention to us (just as girls admire and fawn over gorgeous men).
• We do have a wider variety of fashions to choose from.
• We get to be moms (just as men get to be dads).
• We definitely get to bond emotionally with other women (I think in different ways that men get to bond with other men).
• Workplace opportunities are increasingly open to us, and pay scale differences between men and women are narrowing.
• If a physical task is too difficult, we get to ask a man to help and usually he will oblige if the request is reasonable.

The minuses:

• If we are pretty, sometimes we receive unwanted attention.
• If we have focused our youth on being pretty, as we age it becomes increasingly time consuming and expensive to keep up the illusion. Many of us hate to age, since it is hard to ignore impossibly high media standards for feminine beauty.
• Unlike men, who can be very attractive with no makeup on, thinning hair, or a thickening waistline, if we go out like this we are seen as being unattractive by many men. This is a minus mostly if we are single and looking.
• Monthly menses, post-partum depression, and menopause wreak havok on our emotional well-being for many of us.
• Since pay scale differences are not quite caught up, we cannot always afford the fashions & accessories we would like especially if we have kids and we are single.
• If we have kids and devote a significant number of years caring for them, we often lose our sense of selves and it can become challenging to get it back and refocus our lives elsewhere after the kids are gone.
• If a physical task is too difficult, sometimes we need to pay to get the job done especially if we are divorced and there is no man around we can ask. Or we mess up our rotator cuff by attempting to do the work ourselves.
• We don't feel safe when we are alone, in many of the places and situations that men who are alone can feel safe in.