How dare I call women physically weaker than men? How dare I not say that women can do anything that a man can do? These girls, many of whom were taking anatomy classes, seemed to truly believe that women could be as strong as men. At the same time, they had a deep seated jealousy in regards to the teen boy athletes at school, complaining about how those boys got ripped so quickly doing the same workouts they were doing, and in a shorter amount of time.

As a teenager, I definitely remember feeling outraged out the physical strength difference thing. I think I knew it was true, but something about saying so, acknowledging it, seemed so demeaning. I thought that basically the polite thing to do would be to pretend that strength was equal, even if it wasn't, because I felt like nothing could be worse than admitting this unsurmountable inequality.