PREACHING TO THE CHOIR:

He Harms/She Harms: A Distinction With Real Difference (DINITIA SMITH, 3/06/04, NY Times)

When David Williams, a psychologist at the University of Westminster in London, was deciding how to construct a pain machine, he realized a kitchen scale would do the trick. He attached a guillotinelike device to it, though he hastens to point out that the edge was "really blunt, not as sharp as a razor." It was designed to hit at the fingernail's half moon, where one can inflict pain without doing serious bodily harm.

He was trying to figure out what influences the perception of pain. What he discovered was that both men and women were willing to take more pain from a woman than from a man.

Amen, brother.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 6, 2004 8:51 AM