I think lots of this is social and psychological conditioning that men go through. Men in the West are bred from birth to not complain about physical pain, where as women aren't really pressured to not admit to it for fear of being called a pussy.
So, in this study for instance, the men might feel more pain, but they tolerate the actual pain that's there until it's unbearable, where as the women might have a higher threshold but admit that it hurts before men do.
If the study was measuring the minimum threshold for pain, another possible explanation would be that men are more likely to be familiar with the kind of pain the researchers would most likely use, and so just don't think the point where they physiologically show signs of pain is the point where it starts to be pain. Women get sheltered from pain moreso than men, who are encouraged into rough and tumble play and the like. I doubt the researchers were inducing cramps in the subjects, so being "used" to a slight level of pain might cause a difference. Perhaps a better example is people used to having their blood drawn/getting shots vs. people who rarely ever experience this. Or a beekeeper vs. someone who just had their first bee sting. I imagine they'd report a different level of pain.
To answer the second question, there's a book by Norah Vincent called "Self-Made Man" that chronicles her cross dressing and analysis of what it's like living as a man. She did this for about a year in a bunch of different scenarios. It's written largely from a feminist viewpoint, and it comes off as largely sympathetic to men, but sometimes I felt like she was going overboard and some things come off as patronizing. My biggest complaint about that book though is that none of her scenarios focus on a middle class white male viewpoint. She tends to stick to scenarios highlighting the lives of poorer or less average (she stayed in an abby for awhile with monks) men, which might be part of why she goes off on these woe are men soliloquies.
"Then you may as well do away with the idea of referring to the western world's poor as poor, because most people outside the western world are far poorer than them."
Poorer than the people in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver? Really? Sure, the average is higher in the Western world, but all capitalist countries have their poor.
If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done."Poorer than the people in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver?" - Ettina
What are the specifics on how poor they are? I don't dismiss poverty as beyond comparison to the 3rd world, because I do recall watching a program that said that after hurricane katrina, poverty in New Orleans was ALMOST as bad as the 3rd world. I'm inclined to doubt it gets that bad in part of a city reputed to be one of the nicest cities in the world.
The point it, while the western world has its problems, it's still for the most part nowhere NEAR as much of a mess as the 3rd world.
Men arguably have it just as bad as women in that respect, due to the pervasion of attitudes like Rape Is Okay When Its Female On Male and, to a lesser extent, Rape Is Funny When It Is Male On Male. Women may fall victim to rape more often than men do (in general), but male rape victims are less likely to tell the authorities about their ordeal... and far less likely to get any sympathy if they do.
edited 31st Jan '11 8:00:01 PM by TyeDyeWildebeest
No beer?! But if there's no beer, then there's no beef or beans!Well, from japanese surveys I have seen, I interprent that the men want to be women because Women have less responsibility in society, where man are raised to act tough and to take responsbility. It just shows that "better" is just the idea on where you want the fence to be, and frankly I think there are a lot of men who wants to engulf in fashion and just lay down and be passive like they tell the women to do.
Which I find interisting, because Japan is alien to us, they have a completely different culture. I guess it is also changing, mainly because their main stable of how society worked has already partially collapsed.(reffering to men taking care of the familiy, getting a house trough the job, etc)
In the "west" I guess we could give it another 50-60 years before we could attempt to redraw a conclusion on that we have equality, because we are close, but the stigmas of each generation needs to go before we will get anywhere.
Currently I would say men have it better, because of the little extra freedom society gives them. If they did not have that freedom, it would be equality.
"In the "west" I guess we could give it another 50-60 years before we could attempt to redraw a conclusion on that we have equality, because we are close" - diablo
I don't even think such geometric notions as "closeness" even apply to something so subjective; who has it better is a matter of priorities. Like you said, some men in Japan feel that women are better off.

"Not unless you want to argue that poverty is at the foot of a sliding scale, rather than being a broad category encompassing a range of people, some of whom are better off than others." - Bobby G
Then you would be implying that most people are poor including the lower-class of the western world, which if the whole world is your reference frame is like saying that everyone's poor except the richest of the rich. It depends on what you measure "rich" or "poor" in comparison to, in which case "the average of your reference frame" might be a start.