My husband and I have had this discussion. He just laughed kindly and said women could never handle the amount of violence even the most weak man is capable of on a daily basis. The fact that men just hold it together every day when they could... not. We'd all be in trouble.

I think a lot of women have zero idea how much stronger and therefore more capable of violence the average man is than the average woman. All women need brothers, it's hard to grow up with a delusional mindset about differences when you have one or multiple around the same age.

My brother and I (we're 15 months apart) laugh about this one time... I don't remember the context, but he had been picking on me, so I charged him and pushed him onto the couch and was hitting him. I was furious, and he sat there laughing, hysterically. Now I'm 5'3 and he's 6'2.

Part of the reason why I believe my brother and I are good friends is that we were never led to believe we were the same. Both important, but different. I had a different curfew, my parents didn't allow me to work on projects for school alone in the basement with boys, etc.

At the time we had different standards I was angry, now I understand my parents were just protecting me as a teenager. My brother could protect himself by then.