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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 390054" data-attributes="member: 4937">Ahhh, what a great thread hijack.Are they?  First, I do not believe it is sexist to suggest that men are stronger than women.Secondly, since CON also represents resistance to physical damage and injury, there is not a strong correlation to superior CON in women.  I'm not sure what documentation you refer to, but I'm not convinced that women are more resistant to disease than men, but rather I suspect that reduced incidence of disease might well have to do women's superior tending of their own bodies (which is something I do know has been documented).  For instance, married men outlive single men for the reason of having superior daily 'care'.  Men just don't seem to think of these things and tend to (at least I tend to) treat my body as if it were indestructible and forget even to feed myself if not reminded by something.I certainly don't think that women have a higher resistance to poison than men, since poison resistance generally related directly to body mass as much as anything else.Thirdly, current average female lifespan in 1st world countries averages about 2 years longer in women than in men.  This is a reverse of the historical average, primarily because so fewer women die in childbirth thanks to modern medicine.  However, if you want to add two years to average lifespan and then do some math to work out how health care and average number of preganancies effects female lifespan in various cultures, be my guest.  I'd actually like to see that, though I doubt many people would bother to make use of it.To be frank, I don't think that there is clear evidence for some gaming advantage possessed by women that makes up for thier reduced strength, and that in general gaming systems are very generous in not imposing as much sexual dimorphism upon fantasy characters as actually exists in real life.  If you wanted to be 'realistic' about it, females get lower body mass, lower daily food requirements, the ability to reproduce, and lower maximum strength for any given body mass.  The evidence for anything else is scant.  But this is fantasy, so who cares. I'd personally be willing to give all females characters that wanted it -4 STR, +2 WIS, +2 CHR, not because I think that there is strong evidence for higher female wisdom and charisma, but that there is some sense in which we are willing to accept that women are wiser and more attractive than men.  I call this the 'Fairer Sex' trait, and you can take it for free.  However, just like the assertion that women are hardier than men, attractive as it seems, the assertion that women are more charasmatic than men tends to break down when we look at the broad picture of what charisma means.But by no means is belief in 'equality' between the sexes the result of some sort of equal trade between gamable attributes.</blockquote>

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