Recently the New York Times magazine ran an article about how sports injuries in girls can be much more serious than in boys. To me the 1973 Title IX legislation is the single most important breakthrough for girls. It enabled them to be winners. I hate to think that there have to be limitations on their drive to compete. But I also hate to think of their bodies being abused by playing soccer, for instance.

For decades I have been arguing that as a feminist I am committed to achieving the social, political, and economic equality of women with men. In recent years, though, I have become increasingly aware of the factors outside of that commitment – the differences between men and women that should have nothing to do with equality. So in the case of girls’ sports I argue against more restrictions and for more scientific research into the ways young female bodies develop. For too long all medical research was done on males and adjusted by weight for females. We now know that women are not just small men, but there is a lot of catching up to do in terms of understanding how we are distinctive and how to care for the female body.

Differences shouldn’t involve comparisons, but sometimes I can’t help it. When I lecture, I tend to celebrate what is happening to women as we age, while putting down what happens to men – “We are going through a Second Adulthood,” I say, “while they are going through a second childhood.” This is a little cruel, because I also know that midlife men are one of the most depressed and suicidal groups in the society. The demoralizing loss of career definition and reduction of physical prowess, combined with the absence of life-enhancing friendships, make it hard for many men to discover the possibilities among the risks and challenges ahead.


I do think our collaborative instincts – which are reinforced by distinctive brain and hormone factors - and our both/and thinking are a great improvement over the male model of every man for himself. I point to the studies that show women don’t respond to stress and danger in the classic male-mode “Fight or Flight” adrenalin-rich style, but exhibit a more peaceable “tend and befriend” behavior that is oxytocin (the “cuddle hormone”) driven.

While I rejoice in such differences between women and men, I despair when the shoe is on the other foot - the evidence that we are still second-class citizens. We are in many more jobs than we were twenty or thirty years ago, but we are still way behind in salaries and promotions. We are pressured by societal expectations to take up the responsibility for caretaking our children or our parents, but we lose ground if we do. We are not represented in the media or in the halls of congress in anywhere near proportion to our numbers in the population.

Old-fashioned sexism is still with us. You don’t have to look further than the drumbeat of what British journalist Andrew Stephen called “gloating and unshackled sexism” surrounding the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The nutcracker – on sale in any airport - that is her head and two women’s legs is only one egregious example.

Even the most devoted egalitarian can find pockets of internalized sexism in herself. I was guilty of it recently. My daughter and I were driving along a highway when the traffic slowed for an accident. A car pulled onto the margin of the road and a determined looking woman got out and rushed through the traffic toward the crushed vehicle. “She must be a nurse,” I said to my daughter. “How terrific that she is here to help.” “Or,” the voice of a bred-in-the-bone feminist reminded me. “She could be a doctor.”