Great Uncle Fred? I got a telling-off from my teacher because I said "he" when I was talking about a British soldier. She said that I should say "he or she". But most soldiers are men, aren`t they? And not many women want to be soldiers, do they? She says that women are just as good at being soldiers and women can do everything that men can do. Is that true? Are there differences between men and women? If so, what are they? (Hugo, Spring 2008)

There is only one difference between men and women but from it come many many other differences, some of them unavoidable, some of them made up by society. The difference, of course, is that women have babies and men do not have babies. As you know, a woman needs a man to have a baby and it is because of this that women make themselves look as they do. But their appearance does not count as a difference: it has changed a lot over the centuries and might change again. Men, it is true, are generally stronger in the arm than women but this hardly counts as much of a difference especially when most people of both sexes hardly need to use their strength. However, if you look out of the window, any window in this country, you will see evidence of work done by men, not women. Is it because men do not have babies that they build all the roads and the houses, plant the trees, till the fields? Yes, I think so. Also, men are not capable, as women are, of sitting around all afternoon chatting and eating chocolate. Because of babies? Yes. Whatever a man does, whether he is leading the country or flying to the Moon or winning Wimbledon, nothing can begin to compare in importance to bringing a new life into the World. So, in my possibly old-fashioned view, everything does come back to that basic unarguable difference and the different responses each gender is liable to have to the fundamental family situation. Many people would disgree with my opinions on this matter. I am a man, after all. P.S. I have just shown this answer to a Grandma, Jennifer, aged 60-something, a mother, Elizabeth, aged 30-something, and a daughter, Alice, aged six-and-a-half. I do not think that any of them were very happy with it. Here are their comments: Jennifer: "What Great Uncle Fred says is true, but it has been used to keep women in chains!" Elizabeth: "There should not be any differences apart from the obvious biological ones, which cannot be undervalued and should be celebrated. But we still need to work hard to counteract the effects of centuries of social conditioning and acknowledge, as we increasingly do nowadays, that EVERYONE is different." Alice: "Boys try to scare girls by picking up frogs, snails and slugs and waving them at you. Girls don`t do that."

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