Obviously this is a big topic. But I’ll deal briefly with a number of points that might be helpful to you.
There are many things about girls and women that are the same for boys and men, even though that isn’t generally recognised. For example, we all know that girls and women are concerned about their bodies: their size and shape, how they look. As discussed earlier, the same applies to boys and men.
With girls and women this concern often leads to big emotional problems.
It’s the same for boys and men.
Girls and women often are nervous about relationships, have mixed feelings about sex, lack confidence in dealing with the other sex.
Sound familiar?
In general girls are more likely to talk about relationships and be interested in relationships, are more likely to look for compromises and creative solutions, are more into language, and are more turned on sexually by touch than by sight. But there are so many exceptions to these that it can be quite dangerous to make any generalisations at all. For instance, I’m a male but I’m heavily into language. The idea that women are turned on more by touch might be a social thing, caused by centuries of pressure on women not to have sexual thoughts.
One danger with generalisations about women and girls is that young men might read them and think, ‘Oh no, I’m like that too, maybe I’m a girl, or maybe I’m gay.’
These are irrational thoughts.
I’ll take the risk though and make a few more comments about girls and women.
For one thing they often have very different relationships with their mother and father than do most boys. For another they often pay more attention to the presentation of their school work. For a third they use their spare time differently.
Again, it’s hard to know how much these things go automatically with being female, and how much they are a result of social pressures.
Men and boys often place great store by achievements that can be measured, counted, weighed. So for instance they love to score a century in cricket; considering 100 to be far, far better than 99. They like making money, not necessarily because of what they can do with it, perhaps more because it represents ‘points’ that they’ve scored.
A man in a small town in Tasmania told me once that he had 19 children. ‘That’s amazing’, I said. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘the bloke on the next farm had 18, and I was determined to keep going till I beat him.’
Women and girls are often more interested in the true nature of the achievement than in the number of ‘points’ they get.
They certainly use the language of feelings more, but again this could be the result of social pressure. A lot of males would love to talk to a sympathetic listener about their feelings, but they are scared to do so, or they lack the words. When they do talk about feelings it is usually to a female.
Physically girls and boys are very alike until puberty. Puberty can start for girls as young as eight or nine, although that is still unusual. Ten through 12 is average. The first signs are the gradual development of the breasts, starting with breast buds. Breasts and nipples grow. As they grow they can be sore at times, especially if knocked or bumped.
A lot of primary school boys, and even secondary school boys, tease girls about their breast development, or lack of it. Adults may tease them too, and girls may tease other girls. This teasing is extremely dangerous – as it is when boys are teased about their bodies – since it can cause long-term emotional damage.
Many of the people who do this teasing are anxious about their own bodies, or excited or nervous about the appearance of breasts in the girl.
Breasts come in all different shapes and sizes, as do penises, noses, hands, feet, ears, eyebrows; every part of the body.
Boys’ genitals change and grow through puberty, and so do girls’. The ‘crack’ that you see in little girls if you are looking at them from the front widens. It becomes clear that there are in fact two lips which get bigger and more obvious as puberty continues. If you are with a partner who enjoys having you play with her genitals, you’ll find that if you part those lips there are two smaller lips inside, between her legs.
At the point where the smaller lips meet at the top of the genitals is a little lump called the clitoris. It has a hood partly covering it. The size of the clitoris varies greatly but the average size is a couple of centimetres. It’s often described as a sort of little penis, because it gets stiff when excited, and grows in size. It can give a girl fantastic feelings. In some societies where women are not supposed to enjoy sex, the clitoris is actually cut out from little girls’ genitals. This mutilation is called female circumcision, although it’s really halfway between circumcision and castration.
Quite a way below the clitoris is the urethra, a tiny hole through which urine comes out. Below that is the much bigger hole, the vagina. The vagina is where the penis enters for sex, where blood comes out during the girl’s period, and where babies come out. So it sure is stretchy.
There’s a piece of thin skin partly over it, and that’s called the hymen. In olden times, and even today in some countries, having an unbroken hymen was a big deal. It was supposed to be proof that the girl was a virgin. As proof it wouldn’t get you far in a court of law, as most girls have holes in their hymen even if they are virgins. This can be a result of exercise, masturbation, petting, horse riding, using tampons.
The tearing of the hymen is traditionally supposed to be a cause of great pain, with lots of blood. It can be like that, but for a lot of girls it isn’t, and all the stories and jokes can make them unnecessarily scared. However, the first few times they have sex mightn’t be terribly enjoyable for some girls. The vagina can take a while to get used to accommodating a penis. If you’re a good guy you’ll be very patient and careful with a girl who’s not used to sex. You’ll make sure she’s having as good a time as you.
Another change at puberty for girls is of course the beginning of periods. These start about two years after the breast buds appear. They mightn’t start with blood; they might start with a few pale-coloured spots. Gradually the girl settles into a regular cycle.
Every month she’ll produce an egg, which buries itself in the lining of the uterus, waiting to be fertilised by the sperm. When she has her period she’ll shed less than 30 grams of blood, but it isn’t just blood: included in the blood is the egg that wasn’t fertilised and the broken-up lining of her uterus, which also wasn’t needed that month. Out of every 28 to 35 days a girl will bleed for three to five days.
Girls who bleed heavily will probably use a sanitary napkin: a pad which is kept in their underwear to soak up the blood. Most girls these days use a tampon, which is pushed up into the vagina. A string hangs from the tampon so that the girl can easily remove the tampon when it’s time for a new one.
Females don’t have periods under the following circumstances:
1. If they’re too young or too old.
2. If they’re pregnant.
3. Early in adolescence a girl may go for a while without having a period. This just means her body is still getting used to menstruating.
4. Girls who are in full training for sport sometimes stop menstruating.
5. Girls in institutions sometimes stop menstruating. It’s almost like with no chance of getting pregnant, the body knows there’s no need to menstruate.
6. A girl who is in physical trouble (for example, anorexia), or is on drugs, or on certain medicine, may stop menstruating.
A girl who is about to start her monthly bleeding, or is having her period, can become depressed or bad-tempered or unusually sensitive. This is the famous PMT – pre-menstrual tension. If you’re fooling around with one of your friends, and she suddenly snaps angrily at you or runs out of the room crying at something she would have laughed at a few days ago, it may be that she is having her period.
You should be sympathetic in those circumstances, but at the same time she doesn’t have the right to insult you just because she’s having her period.
Other changes of puberty are similar to the ones guys go through: growth in height and weight, growth of hair, deepening of the voice, the appearance of pimples, greater interest in sex, new ways of thinking, new ambitions.