so where's the girl stuff? - Page 5

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if you think many top female athletes train as much as their male counterparts, yet still retain a smaller physique.

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Yes but that's usually only after or during puberty and an isolated year here and their isn't going to radically thicken or lengthen the bones.. Now show me a girl who spent her whole youth climbing trees and getting it to fights with boys. She may have a better chance of competing on an equal footing. Even if most women never reach the top band I don't think that's a huge issue. Most boxers never reach heavy weight it doesn't make them less accomplished boxers. In ether event I feel it would be fairer.

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As a thinking adult I see no reason why "because I say so" should be a valid reason to prevent me taking any course of action.

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I would like to think I could give my children a better reason for my deeply held convictions.

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If you can lie naked with a woman without letting your body get the better of you then good for you, admittedly my only attempts have been with the girl I love which skews the balance. I cannot think however of any reason why I would find myself in that situation without feeling some sort of romantic or sexual attraction to the woman in question, thus complicating the matter.

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Who said anything about a lack of sexual attraction. I believe you can find a friend sexually attractive with out that having to make the friendship anything other than platonic.

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I'm not really sure if anyone is "good" with signals, one of my female friends naturally acts in a way that many would consider flirtatious, but she means nothing by it.

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I'm told I can be a bit like that. The more comfortable I am with my female friends the more flirty I am. Oddly the girls I've actually liked I've been too nervous to flirt with. I just make eyes at them lol.

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I'm starting to think that CW stands for CromWell . You better watch out, I think people will be less impressed these days if our monarch becomes a head shorter (unless of course it's Charles (though that would continue the naming tradition)) , and if you took more chunks out of the artistic stonework in churches and cathedrals you'd have the national trusting hiding in your garden with heavy arms.

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The monarch? I think we'd start with the cabinet. Any way I'm more in to building churches.

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The idea that anything is just girls stuff or guys stuff is ridiculous, but with most of the examples I've given (for the female side of this argument) the majority is so great that I can think of only one case of a guy discussing make-up with female friends (he wore a bit of eye-liner for no apparent reason), and the same generally holds true for sorting out hair before a party or something, there probably are a few guys who hang out with their female friends during this period, but not very many. Partly through to disinterest, and probably partly due to the fact that the girls don't want the guys around while they get dressed, and they seem to put on make-up and get dressed simultaneously, preventing guys from being there at the time.

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Well I don't wear make up but I'm happy to discuss it at length if need be. Lol maybe I'll learn something, plenty of people seem to think I could do with some beautification. Also as I said I'm not used to communal nudity but I don't get how it's so much worse to dress around guys than girls. Yet quite a few girls seem to enjoy having girls help getting dressed. Seems rather odd to me. I suppose it might be that they are afraid a guy would find them attractive naked but then they all seem to really like being found attractive in clothes. Maybe they fear their guy friends would start to think of them as sex objects. If so they really ought to give us more credit I feel. Maybe they fear their guy friends would stop finding them attractive if they knew what they really had under the clothes. I could understand that a little better. It's why I'm not comfortable disrobing around guys. Not totally confident and comfortable in my own body. But I imagine if you know some one well enough it doesn't matter so much. Good friends have a way of making you comfortable.

I suppose there is some truth to the statement that a girl who is more of a tomboy does tend to have a more athletic physique, my gf for example has more solidly built legs than most of the other girls I know (much to her annoyance now she wants to be more of a girl than a tomboy), because when she was younger she tended to join in with her brother and cousin.

I would however disagree about the fact that no women reaching the top band is a problem. Most women would think it more sexist to do things the way you are suggesting than to have a separate set of bands for men and women. It would be like letting fully able bodied and disabled athletes compete together (not that I'm suggesting women are disabled, just that there is enough physical difference that there is no chance of a fair event). especially as I mentioned with the 400m runner whom I could have beaten aged 16. I think female professional athletes would be severely put off competing if the top bracket of female athletes were competing in the same league as (a fairly lazy and indifferent) 16 yr old male athlete.

My parents deeply held conviction came from their faith, so basically it was "because the bible says so". To anyone who believes in Christianity it's perfectly acceptable, but to those who don't it holds no sway over them, as with me in this case, I broke no law and I love the girl, so I've done nothing wrong.

Your attitude confuses me slightly, most relationships start on the basis of finding someone who you feel you could be good friends with but also find sexually attractive, it's what the thinking and animal parts (respectively) look for in a mate. There does seem to be more to it than that, but generally this develops during the course of the relationship. So lying naked with a good friend whom you find sexually attractive would be a bit strange, especially as to most people the fact that they were naked around you would suggest to most people that there was more than friendship being offered. I would add that I think most of this defunct while already in a relationship, but when I am single, what I look for is a girl I get on well with and that I find physically attractive.

I know what you mean about flirting just as a general way of making conversation, and also freezing up around girls you like (I think the later is a general part of being British). I tend to find that's the way things work for me as well.

You come out with some of the most amazingly contradictory statements. you don't like public changing rooms but you don't see why male and female friends should have any problem getting changed to go out in front of each other. I think the thing is, women don't want guys to see them getting changed because they aren't totally confident about their bodies, but they want help from their female friends to cover up and best dress up the bits they dislike to disguise and "improve" them so they will be found more attractive. There are also little tricks that they don't really want guys to see, I've been going out with my gf long enough to have seen her getting ready, so you find out stuff like the fact double sided sticky tape is a necessity with some tops and things like that. There does also seem to be some thing with not wanting the guys to see the end result, and also just if you not actually helping the procedure along, then you should get out from under foot.

There's so much to discuss here I'm lost as to where to start, also I don't have much time to sit on the pc. At the moment I'm sitting here typing while my two year old daughter is in the bath (my PC is on the landing next to the bathroom, so I can watch her while I catch ten or fifteen mins on line while she plays, but not much more thatn that.) Its difficult for me to say everything I want to because I have spent a long time reading back what has already been written. My ten year old is now standing by me asking me to do stuff with her so I can't stay here and say what I want to. You can't tell me women and men are equal. When I can't even fid the time to reply. Going to deal with the kids be back later when they are in bed to discuss this equality of the sexes stuff.(if I'm not too tired!!)

There is some equality of the sexes, just it is mostly in mental capacities and skill capacities. we can never be the same on a physical level because of hormone levels changing how we develop and also differences like pelvis shape changing the way we move. There is also the age old question of whether there is a closer link between children and their mother as she is the one who bears them and then the only one who can feed them for the first months.

I agree with allot of what's being said.

I think that CWs mentality reflects the change in allot of men's attitudes in recent years that show we are also realising that men and women need to be closer and not let the difference in sex get in the way of communication or relationships.

But it will take a long time before things are totally equal.

In thousands of years of history women have only in the last 100 odd years been recognised as equal citizens. And that's only in more civilised cultures. Some countries still treat women as objects and commodities.

So it wont change overnight. I wish it could. And the idea of culture shock is good. But in order to have that you need to have people in power and people with influence to believe exactly how you feel CW.

If like CA says, we teach our children to see how we do, then one day they might have that power and influence and be able to affect a change like you suggest.

However, I feel that while there needs be equality, there also need to be difference.

It is a fact. Men and women are different.

For whatever reason we have been created this way I have no idea. Some will give a scientific explanation, others will say its the will of a Creator, and others will come up with yet another explanation.

But the fact still remains, women and men are different.

I think that in cultures that are more advanced, you notice less of a difference in the sexes, as opposed to more primitive ones. You have men who are sensitive and dont have to be 'real men' and woman who can have interests that are traditionally considered part of the male domain without being shunned or ridiculed. (I know pople will want to argue that point. But that is more about the issue of culture, not equality. ) And men and women can actually get together and communicate very well on the same wavelength.

Which to me, suggests that as time goes by, if humans are able to keep progressing then the gap in difference will decrease.

By this I mean the "mentality" of humans.

We will start to think similarly, and maybe one day we will have an 'equal" mindset: a sort of androgynous way of seeing the world.

This would be very cool.

And yet at the same time I hope that we will also be able to celebrate the differences between men and women.

In a similar post, I suggested the difference between men and women could have the beneficial side effect of making us better at communicating, since we all want to be around the opposite sex, and in order to do that, alot of compromise is needed to get along. This helps us better ourselves in communication and getting along with one another. (As humans. Not just men and women.)

So I see a society where men and women dont exclude one another or discriminate against one another, bringing the positive aspects of each sex together into a kind of "bi sex" idealism and way of thinking. But at the same time celebrating the fact we have two very beautiful and very different kinds of being in the same race.

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Most women would think it more sexist to do things the way you are suggesting than to have a separate set of bands for men and women. It would be like letting fully able bodied and disabled athletes compete together

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But you wouldn't let a wheelchair bound man compete against a man with a prosthetic leg either. In disabled you match people up based on the characteristics of their physiology that can be shown to directly affect performance. Having ovaries is clearly not a 'direct' factor. Frankly if I was disabled I probably wouldn't compete either. I'd always be measuring my self against abled bodied competitors. I believe at least some women can compete against men and if I were a women I would want the opportunity to try. What surprises me is that more women don't feel this way.

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Your attitude confuses me slightly, most relationships start on the basis of finding someone who you feel you could be good friends with but also find sexually attractive, it's what the thinking and animal parts (respectively) look for in a mate.

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To my mind it's much more than that. I've known girls who I found very attractive physically and who's company I have enjoyed but I wouldn't describe my feelings for them as romantic. I've also known girls for whom simply being near them seemed to make my skin tingle and vibrate and my heart jump like a rabbit. Weather infatuation or love this is clearly a whole other level to mere physical attraction. I can have perfectly platonic friendships with girls who are just physically attractive. I couldn't with the sort of girl I felt romantic love for. It would always end up being something more on my side.

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You come out with some of the most amazingly contradictory statements. you don't like public changing rooms but you don't see why male and female friends should have any problem getting changed to go out in front of each other.

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I don't see why the sort of girl for whom getting dressed seems to be a communal social experience shouldn't be comfortable including boys in this. I don't think they should have to be they ought to, if you take my meaning. Of course I'm sure there are plenty of girls who wouldn't have female friends in the room with them when dressing either. I respect that and as I've said I feel the same my self.

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I think the thing is, women don't want guys to see them getting changed because they aren't totally confident about their bodies, but they want help from their female friends to cover up and best dress up the bits they dislike to disguise and "improve" them so they will be found more attractive. There are also little tricks that they don't really want guys to see, I've been going out with my gf long enough to have seen her getting ready, so you find out stuff like the fact double sided sticky tape is a necessity with some tops and things like that. There does also seem to be some thing with not wanting the guys to see the end result, and also just if you not actually helping the procedure along, then you should get out from under foot.

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Ah well that's the thing. Much like mister cromwell I want things 'warts and all'. That includes my girls both for friendship and relationship. Both physically and emotionally. The sort of really open honesty that you get with really close friendships is for me a prerequisite for a proper (romantic) relationship.

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You can't tell me women and men are equal. When I can't even fid the time to reply. Going to deal with the kids be back later when they are in bed to discuss this equality of the sexes stuff.

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Sorry you're so busy. I was looking forward to your input. I was in fact holding off posting for it.

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So I see a society where men and women dont exclude one another or discriminate against one another, bringing the positive aspects of each sex together into a kind of "bi sex" idealism and way of thinking. But at the same time celebrating the fact we have two very beautiful and very different kinds of being in the same race.

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I will soon be posting a related topic under the girls stuff section with specific examples.