–Discussions about authority and money –I remarked jokingly– will end when the “weaker sex” stops going toe to toe with the “stronger” one.

Dhamar turned all the way around to look at me, frowning. I was smiling artificially, baring my teeth like a monkey.

–Men are weaker –she countered–. They exaggerate their ailments, they get tired faster with everyday chores and they wouldn’t stand the trauma of childbirth. You can see it from birth: male babies get sick and die at a much higher rate than female ones; girls, from elementary school on, are more perceptive, quicker, tidier and more creative than boys.

–But as grown-ups, what then? –I asked–, men…

–Hold on –doctor Martín interrupted–. You’ve touched on a basic point of human relationships. Something fundamental, truly transcendent for the coexistence of man and woman.

–What do you mean? –I asked, confused.

–The key that will let you judge once and for all who is who in this world.

I raised my eyebrows, not quite grasping the doctor’s intentions; he leaned forward with evident exasperation, as if he had been handed the chance to say a vital truth.

–Dhamar is right. Women are stronger than men. Even in the sexual aspect. They’re capable of much longer and more satisfying intimate encounters without feeling worn out; they live longer on average, they get sick less, they’re more intuitive, they adapt and survive more easily; they are, potentially, far more intelligent and…

–Then why aren’t they the owners of the world? –I interrupted.

–Because of a very simple factor. Efrén, you have to understand very well what I’m about to tell you and never forget it. Something happens to those brilliant girls as soon as they enter adolescence; their bodies play a terrible joke on them: they start bombarding them, month after month, with powerful hormones that produce an endless emotional imbalance. When you’re married it will surprise you that your partner suddenly changes her mood, that she does incomprehensible things, that she cries over matters you’ll consider silly, that she gets emotional over details that seem odd to you, but you must never throw it in her face. Husbands call their wives unstable, crazy or hysterical because in three days they ruin everything built over a month, and they, unaware of what is really happening to them, accept the blame for their mistakes and keep feeding the serious inferiority complex that marks so many of them for having swallowed the absurd tale of being the weaker sex. But it’s a huge lie! They are not to blame for what happens to them. Successful women recognize that the secret of their triumph has been learning to control their hormonal crises; as soon as they sense one, they avoid their friends so as not to say “too much”, they play sports, they throw themselves into art, they shut themselves away in solitude, they cry and recover their strength so they can go on fighting in a world of hormonally stable men. A man would never dominate a woman, but hormones have. They have given them romanticism, the maternal instinct, extreme sensitivity, and with that they have left them at a disadvantage in the war for power. This may seem unfair; and yet it is a design of Nature, because only SUPERIOR BEINGS, like them, are suited to carry out the greatest task of the human being: to give birth to, raise and educate a child…

I saw my fiancée with teary eyes, smiling slightly. The doctor stood up and glanced at his wristwatch.

This is a fragment of a dialogue from Carlos Cuauhtémoc Sánchez’s book, Juventud en éxtasis.

Even if because of this we may now have to put up with them for a while (those of us who let their girlfriend, their sister, their mother… read the text), laughing at us, this is a very interesting opinion for trying to understand them a little better.