Better Off Dead?

I’ve begun reading a wonderful book called Still Failing at Fairness: How Gender Bias Cheats Girls and Boys in School and What We Can Do About It, a revised and updated edition of Failing at Fairness. I’m only a little ways into it, but this paragraph really caught me up short:

“When adolescent boys and girls were asked what it would be like to be born a member of the other sex, how do you think they responded? As you might suspect, girls saw some enticing possibilities if they were born male: wealth, strength, political power, and athleticism. Boys were repulsed at even the idea of being born a female, or living in a female body, or facing female life choices. A significant percentage of the boys said they would kill themselves, that they would rather be dead than female.”

Maybe when men beat and kill their wives and girlfriends, they think they’re doing us a favor…