I read somewhere lately a blogger express frustration about the whole feminism thing, and she said (something to the effect of): Equality is not sameness. I’m grossly neglecting her actual words here so if I can find it again I’ll enthusiastically link to it, because it echoes what I have often felt.

Men have some physical advantages over women, sure, but aside from that I used to be of the belief that anything boys could do, girls could do just as well or better. Hell, that premise was the underpinning of the first twenty plus years of my life!

But it was Bullshit. Pure bullshit, based on fear and insecurity.

Body strength, opportunity, emotional support, financial means… all things being completely equal between male and female, there will always be some things that men can do better naturally than women can do with tremendous effort. And vice versa. This has absolutely nothing to do with equality, and everything to do with the beauty and balance of female and male bodies, as well as feminine versus masculine (which is completely separate from the body differences).

I have had this discussion with a favourite friend of mine many times, and he often structures it around an analogy that hits home with me. Imagine that a child is out in the middle of a field and mortal danger (wild dogs, bandits, whatever) is rushing toward him. Males will charge out headlong and meet an attack in order to protect others, to the death if necessary. Females, on the other hand, will stand their ground and use themselves as a shield to save their loved ones. Men will always be better at going forward to agressively battle an enemy, and women will always be better at standing firm and sheltering others.

Think about this for a second. Think about individual people you know, what they’ve done in the name of love, and how they’ve done it. Think about the sacrifices both sexes make on a daily basis, and let’s quit trying to declare a winner over who sacrifices more than whom.

Both the man who rushes out to meet the danger and the woman who covers the child’s body with her own are being brave. Both are coping with the situation using a method that is instinctive to them. And both are getting the job done, just in different ways. To ask a man to cover the child and the woman to run forward with a sword wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t. And any person who goes against their instincts solely to try and prove a point? Well, it isn’t brave, it isn’t heroic, it isn’t proving anything except that you’re reckless and stupid.

Am I saying that women shouldn’t be in the military and men shouldn’t be at home with the kids? No. Nononononononono. NO. But what I am saying is that men and women aren’t able to do the same things and act the same way in the same situations, because they’re NOT the same, they are – and I hope always will be – very different. And it thoroughly frustrates me that males, for the most part, understand and accept this without question whereas many females are hell-bent on proving otherwise, even at the expense of others.

(from a draft dated over four years ago! holy overdue housekeeping, batman!)