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Who is the Stronger Sex?

© Nancy Coulter

For as long as I can remember, men have always been considered the stronger sex. I'll honestly admit that when I need help carrying a large piece of furniture, the first people I think of are my brothers. In fact, when I moved into my apartment, one of my brothers was right there moving all of the big furniture. (Of course, there were 3 women also helping with everything else, but we won't worry about those details)

The question really is - are men truly stronger than women? Or is is just that we have grown up in a society where men have more power and therefore are seen as being stronger, even if they aren't. Or, maybe neither sex is really stronger. Is it possible that both men and women are equal in strength? Each sex having some who are stronger than others, and having some who are weaker than others.

On April 7th and 8th, the US National Institutes of Health, Pain Research Consortium sponsored a conference on Gender and Pain. This conference focused on how men and women deal with pain. Specifically, there was a study on women and men who had arthritis to see how each sex coped with the pain. This study came to the conclusion that women tended to have a keener sense of pain than men, but that men were more apt to let their discomfort sour their mood.

So what does all of this mean?

According to the study, when women are in pain, they will find some way to distract themselves from the pain. They recognize the fact that they are in pain and will take steps (IE: medication) to stop the pain, or lessen the pain. Men, on the other hand, follow the old adage of "grin and bare it". Men also reported to be in pain 40% less than women. So this either means that women are in more pain, or that men won't fess up to the pain - maybe because it doesn't seem like the "manly" thing to do.

In this study, women also used something which is called "emotional coping". This is when women engage in distracting activites, vent their emotions, seek the support of others, or even find support in prayer. For the most part, men didn't use such coping skills. Instead, they would carry the pain with them throughout the day.

This might not seem like a big deal. Women and men simply cope with pain differently. Nothing wrong with people doing things differently. However, the problem is that since the men carry this pain with them throughout the day, they also carry a negative mood with them. At the end of the day, women who have coped with their pain feel better. With men, they normally are still in some kind of pain and are grumpy because of the negative mood that they have had throughout the day.

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