Whilst men and women each have their own struggles to contend with, there are certain advantages in life for each sex. Recently, one user on r/AskReddit wondered what these were and asked, "What is easier to do if you're a woman?"
There are some surprising answers, including ones where we'd never imagine that the physical difference gives them the upper hand. There are also a few that bring up some interesting points about how men are considered in society compared to the ‘fairer’ sex. Check out the best answers that we've collected below.
#1
Work with children.
As someone who works in early childhood education I've had the cops called on me three times when I took my kiddos to the park. Thankfully I know the beat cop quite well so it has never caused me any real issues, but the fact that people see "Adult man...interacting with children???" and assume I'm a violent predator honestly hurts a lot.
My team is all big, burly, heavily tattooed men, but we are all insanely qualified to do our jobs, but that all means nothing to some random Karen who sees scary-looking me give piggyback rides or do a girl's braids. I had a bad childhood and just want to care of the little ones, kindly [screw] off.
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294points
By no means do women have it easier than men but there are a few unique points that stand out. If we look at the answers more closely though, they also raise some questions about why some situations are like this.
With “being able to ask for help” or “show emotions” as a couple of the answers given, we need to look at why these are difficult for men. Maybe it’s due to the societal pressure that’s put on them. The prevailing idea of what a man should be is self-sufficient and steely, so the answers mentioned don’t go hand-in-hand with that image.
#2
Get support from others.
I tend to feel completely alone in my suffering, most times when I talk to someone they just wanna tell me to "tough it out" and "be a man".
Sorry, I'm in grief from my son dying in my arms and my chronic illness has taken a turn for the worse this year and I'm just [freaking] depressed all the [freaking] time.
Yet everyone wants me to continue my life and my job as if everything is honky dorey.
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189points
Men are expected to keep up unrealistic standards which are especially damaging in the long run. What’s worse is that it’s not an idea that comes completely from within — it’s the result of other men perpetuating it too. We know it best as 'toxic masculinity' and it goes on to affect women too.
#3
Changing babies in public. Many men's rooms do not have baby changing stations.
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177points
#5
Physical contact? If I feel like it if I need a hug, I can just cuddle with my girlfriends. I don't think it's that easy for guys...
160points
#7
Small thing but telling what a lotion/deodorant/body wash/shampoo smells like by the label. Women’s is just labeled like vanilla or lavender but men’s get dumb names like wolf hawk or champion.
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153points
#8
Compliment any complete stranger. As a dude, I have to very careful complimenting strangers. I will actually tell my wife, “check her hair out, it’s super cool. Will you tell her?” And she will, and it made that stranger’s day. Just wish I could do that more often without being seen as creepy.
This especially applies to children. It’s a big no-no for a 41 year old guy to compliment a child saying they look super pretty. Woman - no issue.
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148points
#9
Consoling a lost child in public (more to the perception of male threat, no matter how unfounded)
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133points
#12
Fun answer - Its easier for women to learn how to rock climb. Men will use their upper body strength as an early crutch and muscle their way up a wall, while women have to develop correct form and technique to do as well when first beginning. This leads to much better climbers from my observation.
Sad answer - physically abuse the opposite sex. Many times if a man is in a physically abusive relationship others will assume he isn't or can't be abused. There are numerous videos where actors has shown women hitting men in public and at best no one helps, some will even laugh. Switch the roles and everyone comes running to help a women being physically abused by aman.
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116points
#13
BEING A SINGLE PARENT: my parents have been divorced since i was 6 (i’m 19F now) and my dad has always been the more stable parent in the situation so my siblings and i always lived with him and travelled with him as kids. TSA would always look at us weird and interview us kids about who we were traveling with, making sure we weren’t being kidnapped? or something? idk. people would look at our family weird in public every time we went anywhere. it’s hard to be a single dad these days for some reason but it makes no sense to me bc men are just as capable of parents as women are. one other example i can think of is the fact that a lot of men’s bathrooms don’t have changing tables for babies… like wtf? it’s honestly astonishing that society basically assumes that men are completely incapable of caring for a child smh.
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107points
#14
Sit down on a chair without accidentally sitting on yourself.
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101points
#15
Apparently women fighter pilots handle g-forces better than men, mainly due to being shorter and their heart not having to work so hard to pump blood to their brains (short men also handle g-forces easier for the same reason).
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90points
#16
Tons of martial arts throws. Female center of mass is lower down in the body than male center of mass, even before accounting for height differences, and it's absolutely crucial to certain martial arts throws.
Like, you know that one throw you see all the time in movies where someone grabs a person from behind, and that person just leans forward and rolls them over their shoulder? Yeah that's almost impossible for most men to do unless the stunt person grabbing them is helping with it. But for your typical woman it's literally as easy as leaning forward, it takes basically no strength, it's all leverage.
I'm a man who practices mixed martial arts and four times out of five when I'm sparring a woman and I lose against her, it's because she threw me.
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84points
#17
Binaural Hearing. Using headphones, play different recordings per ear which each contain mostly gibberish with the occasional intelligible word thrown in.
Women are consistently better at recognising the words, particularly when two intelligible words are played at the same time. Men have more difficulty with this.
The reason this experiment is fascinating and repeated many times is that cis women and trans* women perform just as well as each other, with trans* men and cis men together doing generally worse. We don't know why.
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79points
#18
I'm not afraid of getting accidentally hit in my private parts. It can hurt, but not nearly as much as men I believe.
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74points
#19
Here’s a fun one! Women are generally better at conserving air while scuba diving. I teach scuba and 95% of the time my female students could stay down twice as long on their first dive than their male counterparts.
It’s a big pick me up for so many tiny women who think all the heavy gear is going to set them back from the big muscular guys.
70points
#20
Find nice pieces of clothes full of colours. It is so hard being a man in many clothes stores. Next time you wonder why men are not interested in shopping clothes, look at the choices we have and the minimal amount of variety and fun in men clothes compared to women !
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68points