Women Are Wimps
This is as basic as stereotypes get. Guys are bigger and stronger and traditionally are thought of as the more badass of the sexes. Women are frailer, smaller and prone to the sniffles at the slightest injury.
The one exception, of course, is childbirth, when even the weakest woman is an Amazon warrior when it comes to tolerating labor pain that would make a grown man whimper like he just took a paintball shot to the nuts. So call a woman frail, and she'll reply that if men had to give birth, the human race would have died out a long time ago.
What Science Says:
Women do have a lower pain threshold, but it has nothing to do with toughness. Men simply don't feel pain the same way women do, and what they do feel, they feel a lot less of. Women have more pain receptors in their skin for starters, amplifying their exposure to aches and pains.
Researchers believe it might be tied to the presence of GIRK2, a nifty little protein that not only affects pain threshold, but how well morphine and other painkillers work to block the pain once it's been inflicted. The next time you tell your girlfriend to walk off that cramp she got trying page 46 of the Kama Sutra with you, try to show a little compassion, she may just have less GIRK2 than you.
Ultimately, a woman's body can require more than double the amount of painkiller to get the same amount of relief.
The exception is when they are pregnant or have just delivered a baby. Endorphins and a cocktail of other feel good chemicals build up over the pregnancy, ensuring that mom can deal with the delivery and likely explaining the real reason expectant women have that special glow.
So, to recap, yes women have crazy strong pain thresholds right around childbirth, but any other time of their lives their capacity to endure pain is far less then men's, due to the way their nerves are wired up. Either way, be nice when her lady-days come.
Cracked.com - http://www.cracked.com/article_18529_6-absurd-gender-stereotypes-that-science-says-are-true.html#ixzz0pRNt6pm5
