by Demola Rewaju

We’re different from women in every area but difference isn’t a sign of superiority. They don’t communicate as directly as we would like and they like to leave us guessing but that’s just the way they are. Some of them take time to be ready for sex but some of us consider driving from my place to her place as foreplay but that doesn’t give us license to cheat.

It was a lesson learnt at the table of men in latter years that all women are inferior to men and should be thus treated but drawing from my own experiences, I recall that I had two girls as nemesis when I was much much younger. In my primary school days, it was Joke Osinaike who always managed to trounce me to second position in any subject and in overall first position. I’d learnt to get used to the usual prize-giving day ‘humiliation’ of being called out just before the ultimate winner but I never could stomach the taunting of my parents who would accuse me of losing out on the big prize yet again to a girl.

In church, it was Bunmi Oluwatuyi who managed to come first in all exams. It was only when she went to boarding school that I ever came first but as soon as she came back for the December break and wrote the Sunday School exams, I took my natural second position as always.

These experiences led me to question the assumptions that I would hear at most men’s table and which I still hear sometimes – that women are inferior in every way to men and so I decided to check the evidence recently and came up with some very interesting results. Personally, I do not think men are superior to women in any way other than the ways which society has permitted over the years. For those who would bring up religious evidence and proof, I would remind them that the Bible refers to women as the weaker vessels, not the weaker sex. Vessel simply refers to the container – their physical bodies and the evidence confirms this.

On the average, males are stronger and taller than females, females have shorter heads and legs but longer trunks than men. Women however have larger stomachs, kidneys, liver and appendix but smaller lungs than men which is one of the reasons why women get physically tired more easily than men. Physically, women are inferior to men and in the ages past where strength was a question of survival, women came to be seen as inferior in all ways since they could not withstand the strength that men possess. Women also carry out three basic bodily functions that the male body does not: menstruation, pregnancy and lactation (breastfeeding). If a woman menstruates for five days in a month, it means she bleeds for two months out of twelve every year.

As men are physically bigger than women, male brains are also larger but that is not an indication of superior intelligence as women show a higher level of activity in the prefrontal cortex where decisions are made in the brain and in the part of the brain that retains memory longer but as scientists point out, this doesn’t mean that one sex is more intelligent than the other (on the average) but that men and women have different mental approaches to issues.

It is in the area of emotionality that women are again said to be inferior to men and that holds true on the average but women have a surprising ability to recover from their past lovers than men. A man is several times more likely to call an ex for sex than a woman (if she calls you, know that she took a very big risk and had a huge argument with herself before she did). Even when a man claims to hate his ex, he’s still holding on to her somehow. Women get emotionally attached faster but pull away quicker. Men get emotionally attached slowly but pull away very slowly – it’s not a matter of which is better but different approaches to emotional issues.

We’re different from women in every area but difference isn’t a sign of superiority. They don’t communicate as directly as we would like and they like to leave us guessing but that’s just the way they are. Some of them take time to be ready for sex but some of us consider driving from my place to her place as foreplay but that doesn’t give us license to cheat. I think they’re better cheats though – they can hide it more successfully than us because society frowns on theirs but gives backing to ours. Women get jealous when they see us bonding with another woman emotionally – that’s why she gets angry when she sees you talking to another girl and expect us to get jealous when another guy talks to them. A man’s jealousy is however spurred by anything physical – such as dirty dancing in the club or a lingering hug after church service. The danger is really with that guy that listens to her because that’s how women bond.

Traditionally, most cultures promote the assertion of male superiority and everyone of us often has to play the role but some of us brothers take it too far. Men aren’t superior to women in any other way than physical – we’re just different. The problem is that we have judged women using a template developed by men and which therefore gives men an unfair advantage over women. Yet, wise men have often benefited from the strength, counsel and friendship of a woman. Every great man knows how to harness the feminine energy available to him and it is as nature as designed it, that both male and female should operate in harmony – none superior to the other in every way.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.