By Mule:
The reasons girls are superior to boys (at least between the ages of 6 and 12 – more or less – sort of).
Some of the reasons have already been given: the things society expects of children are based on the feminine traits rather than the masculine traits (see my list concerning grade school).
Girls can go either way: they can be in ballet class, and they can play softball and nobody cares. They can wear dresses or they can wear shorts or jeans and nobody cares. They can have long or short hair with or without ribbons and nobody cares. Put a boy in ballet class or put him in a dress or put pretty pink ribbons in his hair and he is ridiculed. It’s a dual standard: girls can be anything they want. Boys have to be boys.
It’s a fact, girls mature earlier than boys. Even staunch religions recognize this fact: a girl bat-mitzvahs at 12 a boy bar-mitzvahs at 13.
Girls mature physically faster. I have a picture of my cousin and me at age 9. She is a month younger than me and a head taller. She has since grown into a relatively tall woman (5’ 9”) and now I am taller, but at that age, she was a giantess.
Girls also tend to grow continuously while boys “sprut.” So boys lose whatever grace they attain while trying to grow into their bodies.
But the biggest reason girls are superior to boys at this age is that they form alliances easier. This is man’s downfall. No, not “us” man, but our cousin the Neanderthals. In a one-on-one competition, my money is on the Neanderthal. He’s tougher and better at surviving against nature. However, our cousins are extinct. Why? Because while as individuals they were superior, as a group they were inferior and rarely formed coalitions greater than an extended family. Homo sapiens went on to form tribes, city-states and nation-states.
In a not-so-much-more-current example, I can recall an incident at the playground. The girls were on the swings, a girl would not get off her swing until there was another girl waiting to get on. She would jump off, and hold the swing for the next girl, handing it to her. The boys never got a chance.
Boys compete, girls clan.
Some of this is stronger in other cultures. In Japan it is not uncommon seeing 80-year-old women toddling down the street together holding hands. They did the same thing when they were three. One of the cultural clashes between American GI and Japanese bride was that he came home at night to be with her. It interfered with her time with her girlfriends. How dare he check up on her!
Both sexes eventually grow out of it. They learn how to adjust to a so-called adult society. Maybe we would be better off if we still did at least some things “just for fun.”
Originally posted 2008-05-23 14:17:49.
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