[agent_fish]

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The difference between short men and ugly women is that for women the pressure is coming from everywhere. Every magazine cover, every commercial, every movie, and from a young age they are brought up thinking that being attractive is their number one goal, because no one likes an ugly girl.

The other difference is that a 5'9 man is generally not going to have emotional problems because of his height because he's average, but an average looking girl is very likely to, a 6'4 guy isn't going cut himself because he's not Yao Ming, but the pretty girl who's not a beauty queen just might.

Like I said, guys don't understand the kind of pressure women are under.

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boo fricken hoo.

women have it easy in the West compared to men. There, I said it and I'm not going to take it back.

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Not knowing firsthand how men do or do not have it, I can't really say whether Dominic is right or not. I would assume that Dominic likewise does not have firsthand experience of being female, although in these days of sex-reassignment surgery, well, who knows....However, from my firsthand experience of being a woman and from observation of men, I can say that I personally would choose to be female, if I ever had a choice. My principal reason for making that choice is not that one sex or the other has it "better" (it seems to me that on the whole just being human pretty much sucks), but because men are biologically precluded from what I have found to be the most profound experience of life--pregnancy and childbirth.

Obviously there are cultures in the world in which women are severely repressed (an example would be Saudi Arabia),and if I had lived my life in one of those cultures, I would likely not choose to be female.

But in the cultures with which I am familiar (the US and northwestern Europe), I would say that from my POV the combination of nature and culture gives being female the edge.

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If I had a choice, I think being female would be preferable because women do not have to deal with constantly thinking about/wanting sex and the problems associated with this. Also, in our current culture women retain advantages from their past perception as the weaker sex, but are treated as equals (as they should be) for the most part in areas that matter. Example: Women are not required to register for the draft, but can join the military if they choose to.