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From: purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Are the sexes the same?
Message-ID: <1860@reed.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 05:20:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: reed.1860
Posted: Wed Aug 28 05:20:48 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Aug-85 10:02:25 EDT
References: <132@ssc-vax.UUCP> <2738@ut-sally.UUCP> <230@uwai.UUCP>
Reply-To: purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva)
Distribution: net
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 47
Summary: 

In article <230@uwai.UUCP> luner@uwai.UUCP writes:
>> Sometime last year I [pooh@purdue-ecn.APRA] brought up the idea that 
>> many men and women are not aware that the opposite sex is JUST
>> LIKE THEM.
>
>More to the point, do you (out there) really believe that? I'd like to,
>but I can honestly admit that I never treat male and female friends
>(friends at the same level of intimacy) exactly the same. I try to, but
>there seem to be, for example, certain topics or activities that are reserved 
>for one group or the other that needn't be: career discussions, personal
>problems, personal views. 
>
>Any comments, or am I really just reacting to different levels of closeness
>in friendships.

	Well, it depends. If you mean genetically, then I don't think that
there is any difference between men and women, intellectually or
emotionally. There are of course differences physically - men are
generally stronger than women, women can take more pain than men, etc.
But I don't think that's what pooh meant. But socially, I would say that
generally, although there are exceptions, men are different than women.
What I mean by that is that because of the way children are raised
depending on whether they are male or female, they are taught certain
social traits, and those are hard, if not impossible, to get rid of no
matter how "liberated" you become later in life. Like I said  though,
there are exceptions. I've found myself to be more emotionally and
intellectually compatible with men than with women, in general. 95% of
my friends are men. My best friends have always been men. In fact, at
the moment I have only one, maybe two, women friends who I would call
close friends, besides my sister. The situation with most of my
friendships with women is that we know each other only on a very surface
level. If we try to communicate on any deeper level there is usually
either disagreement or just plain incomprehension. Don't get me wrong -
I certainly don't dislike women in any way. I thoroughly enjoy being a
woman and have never wished that I weren't (although there was one woman
who did make me wish that I were a man... but that's a different story.)
It's just that for some reason I don't become close friends with women
very often. So I think that although genetically men and women are not
different emotionally or intellectually, society molds most people
enough that you can't really say that there is no difference between men
and women. 

	cheers -

	elizabeth g. purtell

	(Lady Godiva)