hey roach, no answer needed, but i'd value your perspective. i was talking to a friend about gender, and we got stuck. he said that statistically men are more common in certain manual jobs due to physiological differences - differences that are important to acknowledge in the effort towards true equality. i said that men and women are more alike than not, and if we focus on the differences that's all we see. is there anything you'd add to this? i respect your opinion, is all. have a lovely day!
men are more common in certain manual jobs largely due to HISTORICAL AND PRESENT DAY DISCRIMINATION AND RAMPANT UNCHECKED SEXUAL ABUSE OF THE WOMEN THAT DO SHOW UP.
like, yes, there's certainly a lot of women's jobs that don't involve manual labor, and arguably a lot of women work jobs that don't involve manual labor. but like so do finance jobs, programming, engineering, trucking, data entry, being a fucking CEO? which are male dominated, but are mostly done sitting down.
there's a lot of jobs thought of as feminine, like nursing and waitressing, that involve hauling ass all fucking day, and this is not thought of as hard manual labor, because women do them. similarly, keeping house? cooking, cleaning, caring for children, getting groceries, running errands: these are not sedentary tasks for weak little ladies. this is exercise.
it's like the low pay. women don't take low paying jobs. women are paid less than men, regardless of the job they take. women don't take 'easy' jobs that 'aren't physical'. they're considered to have easy, non-physical jobs because they are seen as weak.
i gained a lot of weight and muscle going into welding, because HRT made it faster and easier for me to get the benefit of the strength training i was deliberately putting myself through. if i had stayed a girl, i would still have become just as strong. it would simply have taken me longer. even now, five or six years in, i don't have the skeletal build for pronounced upper body strength, but i have the ass of a dump truck, and the thighs of two more dump trucks. i can lift whatever i need as long as i can use core strength to heft it, no manly biceps necessary. there's no reason i couldn't be doing the same thing as a woman. one of my friends who is a nurse hauls people around all day and they can pick ME up without trying and they've never done T at all.
tl;dr: women are seen as weak and therefore their jobs are seen as easy. neither perception is actually true.
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