Almost any woman knows ...

I'm still reading Side Jobs by Jim Butcher, the collection of short stories set at different times throughout the other Dresden Files books. One of the reasons I like the series, aside from the theme of magic, is that Butcher writes pretty good female characters - Karen his cop friend, Molly his wizard apprentice, Susan his girlfriend - they're written as people (not "women"). Anyway, in the story I'm reading now, Karen ponders a difference between men and women ....

Almost any woman knows that almost any man is stronger than she is. Oh, men know they’re stronger, but they seldom actually stop to think through the implications of that simple reality - implications that are both unnerving and virtually omnipresent, if you aren’t a Martian [a man - as in women are from Venus and men are from Mars]. You think about life differently when you know that half the people you see have the physical power to do things to you, regardless of whether you intend to allow it - and even implied threats of physical violence have to be taken seriously.