Are Women Equal to Men in Every Way?

It is very different. Over and above the differences that are physical, there are the ones that are culturally acquired, the ones we learn as children. Girl babies are handled more gently and delicately by their parents, and, as they grow, are told that certain movements (such as sitting with their knees apart or taking large strides) are too unladylike, too boisterous. Boys are encouraged to be manly—to move with a sure, assertive purposefulness— and any rough activity they engage in is shrugged off, since “boys will be boys.”

A woman friend of mine who enjoys jogging and other athletic pursuits was striding down the street enjoying the spring air, when a man passing by said, “Looks like one of those typical libbers.” This is a good example of a kind of totally artificial distinction between men and women made real by cultural conditioning.

Another example of a culturally conditioned sex difference shows in the way most women throw a baseball. Part of the reason most women can’t throw as far as men are that they’ve been conditioned to feel that moving the arm from the elbow to the shoulder too far away from the body is an unladylike gesture—so they tend to throw from
the wrist and lower arm. (And how often do you see women sitting with their hands clasped behind their head? That, too, involves moving the upper arm away from the body, and so, to many women, feels “unfeminine.”)

Still another example of a culturally determined body language is the way in which homosexuals of either sex tend to parody the body language of the other sex. But one thing always missing from the impersonations is the unconscious use of gender signals.