Women Can't Do What Men Can And We Need To Accept This Reality

This isn’t to say that women are inferior to men. Men and women are equal in dignity and worth as humans, but different in nature. In fact, in many areas where many men tend to lack a natural aptitude or ability, many women excel. Women tend to have a better ability to multitask and have a higher emotional intelligence, lending itself to being better able to empathize with others, communicating, and reading the room. The differences between the sexes complement each other, and we need to remind ourselves that is not a bad thing. While men are generally better able to protect and provide on a physical level, women are able to nurture on an emotional level and literally bring life into the world.

While this is a distinction that has persisted throughout history, our modern culture, art, and other media seems to be doing all in their collective power to throw it out the window and affirm that there’s little to no difference between men and women, and if so, women can easily make up the difference.

Life Imitates Art

In popular media, women are only deemed “cool,” “strong,” or otherwise “inspirational” if they successfully mimic men and/or manage to beat them at their own game. A prominent example of this is Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones, whose entire storyline basically revolves around sex: how much of it she has and with how many partners. Early in the show, she implies she’s given up on relationships and that it’s easier to just have sex “like a man”: meaning, according to her, devoid of attachment and emotion. She’s referred to in the show as an “inspiration” for this: She’s made it as a successful New York businesswoman who partakes in all the sex, pleasure, or debauchery she wants. It appears throughout the show that Samantha is highly content with this way of life, and even returns to it after giving monogamy a try.

Although more fantastical, the idea that women can be even stronger than men is present in numerous modern movies and shows. How many recent films portray a petite woman, weighing in at 120 pounds soaking wet with little to no muscle definition, physically apprehending a man (or several men) with 10% body fat and a notable height advantage? Some examples are Galadriel, from the recent fanfiction Rings of Power, and Tala from Kenobi, who slaps two armored stormtroopers to escape capture. I understand stormtroopers are notorious for having terrible aim, but such a scene manages to be more comical than anything else.

“Well, it’s just fantasy,” you may say. Not when the sentiments seen in pop media make their way into real life. Sex and the City has helped shape the culture so much that people are still writing about it and about Samantha Jones – defending her promiscuity and saying that her “slutty” behaviors are actually empowering and her friend Carrie is the worst of the bunch (although I don’t believe Samantha is a bad person). Even recently, the author of Sex and the City said that “women’s sexuality looks a lot like Samantha Jones.”

If that were really the case, would you really need to be trying to convince girls and women to have as much sex as possible, telling them that it’s not their fault when other girls and potential partners raise an eyebrow at the high body counts they were encouraged to obtain?

Aside from sex, and how it simply doesn’t come easily to most women to just have sex with anyone who gives them a smile and a wink, physical biological limitations – or rather disregard for them – is quite prominent in real life.

In many areas where many men tend to lack a natural aptitude or ability, many women excel.

The issue of sports is more and more prominent in political discourse, whether you ever followed them before or not. The reason being? Women’s sports is being opened up to allow transgender-identifying athletes, with no distinction between those that were given puberty blockers and testosterone as young children, and those that barely got a hormone prescription the day before. In the case of the latter example, natal women are placed at a severe disadvantage. Men are larger, have longer limbs, and have significant strength advantages, even if their female opponent doesn’t skip gym days. Even the old belief that women are faster is not wholly true: If you take a look at all the worldwide women’s speed records, they’re about 90% of the men’s in short, middle, and long distances.

Acknowledging these facts as reality will cause some activists and politicians to accuse you of transphobia, but ignoring these is causing harm to women in the form of extreme physical injury, more so than if they were playing against someone who didn’t have an excessive strength and size advantage, in the form of lost opportunities since women will often train to get into collegiate sports, and a top spot can easily be given to a trans-identifying individual. Moreover, girls are punished for expressing their discomfort at sharing a sex-segregated space with individuals of the other sex.

The same group that cried “If it saves one life, it’s worth it!” during Covid and that continually go on about the importance of consent, will ignore how uncomfortable young girls are made to feel while telling them their concerns are unfounded or unreasonable, as well as the risks that women athletes go through.

And at the end of the day, if you believe that women can be just like men, then discussion around those important points ends right there, doesn’t it?

Not the Weaker Sex

Just because women are generally physically weaker, does not make them the weaker sex overall. Women can be as smart, or smarter than a man, and bravery knows no distinction between the sexes. History is full of women who risked their lives or gave their talents, wits, intelligence, and ability to help and serve others and the greater good.

WWII sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko is credited with over 300 German deaths and regarded as the most successful female sniper; Harriet Tubman risked her life to bring around 300 slaves to freedom, despite suffering from narcolepsy; Marie Curie gave her life to help advance knowledge on radioactivity; and Hedy Lamarr helped pioneer new technology during WWII that would serve as a basis for WiFi technology.

Intelligence and bravery know no distinction between the sexes. 

These women are just some that quickly came to mind for me – there are certainly many more. But none of the previously mentioned examples relied on trying to mimic men because they thought they were weak or needed to compensate. In the case of Pavlichenko, she was a self-described tomboy as a young girl and had an affinity for sports and athletics. When she grew up, she went to university to become a teacher, and also enrolled in a military-style sniping school. This would enable her to join the war effort as a sniper. Despite her tomboyish nature, she never claimed to want to be a man, or that she was like a man. Time magazine wrote about her, “She insists, she is a womanly sniper.”

Meanwhile, Tubman and Curie dedicated themselves to efforts that went beyond themselves. You didn’t need to be a man to rescue slaves, you needed swiftness, cleverness, ingenuity, and stealth. Intelligence makes no distinction between the sexes, and Curie proved herself not just in her discoveries, but in also being the only person to have been awarded a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.

If so many women could make history without attempting to be a man, then it’s proof we’re not the weaker sex – just different.

Closing Thoughts

If you’re a woman, trying to be like a man will result in a lot of heartache and disappointment, and reality isn’t exactly known for letting people down easily. But why even try being like a man in the first place? Because pop culture tells you to? You don’t have to be a man to be an important person or to make a difference in the world. There is nothing wrong with the way you were born. If you’re a woman who likes more “masculine” things, that doesn’t make you any less of a woman, and it doesn’t make you “wrong,” no matter what gender activists or hyper-traditionalists say. If you’re a woman who’s more into stereotypically feminine things, great! Hedy Lamarr was a beloved actress and an inventor. Your preferences don’t limit what you can and can’t do, and although sex comes with physical limitations, there is more to humans than just the physical.

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