Who Has It Easier In Life, Men or Women?

I heard this question during an event in college. It intrigued me so much that I decided to ask some of my classmates and close friends the same question just to see how they would react and answer.

Asking around, I noticed how different their answers are. Different in such a way that they are all speaking from experiences — knowing some of their personal stories — and their observations to the society. It is interesting because you can see that they are putting out portions of themselves as they try to explain their answer.

I then decided to collect their opinions and try to come up with a discussion. I gathered 20 individuals with an equal number of each gender.

Six out of 10 male answered that men have it easier.

Seven out of 10 female asked answered men have it easier.

Here are three most mentioned topics:

Physical Aspect of Gender

Most of the male respondents answered men have it easier. The reason behind this is because they know what women go through physically. It is as if it's their automatic answer that pops up their mind when asked.

Putting their shoes onto the other and try to deal with menstruation and pregnancy is what they mean by saying men have it easier. Not to mention the efforts they make to properly present themselves to the public just to oblige to what seems to be a mandate by the unspoken standard of beauty—quoting from one answer.

Those who answered oppositely also reasoned the same thing above but focused on the different side of it. Knowing that women have to go through this physical needs involuntary, people tend to favor them as a sign of caring and love. Making their lives much lighter and easier.

Society: Gender Role and Double Standards

Female respondents often add that men have it easier because women have a long list of gender standards than men. That, the public is more likely to expect women to follow these standards.

You could argue that men also adhere to this kind of gender standards—where men are to act masculine all the time. A respondent put it simply by explaining that men are to follow these standards only as a guideline and women are to deal with theirs for sake of image and reputation.

Career-wise, respondents mentioned that women are more likely to get attention in a workplace setting. It was explained by one of the people asked that the reason for this is because females are more expressive and easier to approach.

On a personal note, it differs from circumstance and the demographic location. Say, for example, in U.S., women are proactive in promoting equality in every aspect, especially in a workplace manner. Whereas in eastern countries like Japan, women are being respected in their workplace and gender is hardly an issue.

Relationship

As one of the heavily discussed topic by female respondents, they argued that women are more capable of handling relationship-related stress. Mentioning that they are more comfortable voicing out their frustration among peers as a way for them to relieve stress.

Male respondents have a different view on this side. Although most of the respondents’ answers are more focused on the physical aspect of gender, they say that they just have a different way of handling relationships.

Putting it in a metaphorical sense; a man’s brain consists of different boxes with different categories which they open individually. Personal, sensitive boxes are at the balcony hidden from prying eyes.

As for handling their relationship, of course, every relationship is different. Discussing and comparing them with each other is way out of the line. Gender should never be an issue in a relationship. Especially now where people are becoming more proactive in promoting equality.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article is not to establish who’s who and who’s not but to encourage a healthy discussion among peers with hopes of triggering their thoughts about how they see others.

But why do we need to discuss this?

Simply because it's 2017. Taking the idea of how Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau answered a question about his cabinet members during one conference.

Of course, there are a lot of circumstances and topic to consider, and that gives it a furthermore reason to discuss it, giving us a more personal understanding of our society and differences.