It's what everyone says, and I'm sure it's nearly always true.
But you find me in a contemplative mood this week, with gender on my mind.
Short of drastic measures, we can't do anything about being born male or female. But what it means to be eit
her one changes as we go through life.
As I've said before, I was schooled in feminism at university. The feminist position could often be summarised thus: Life is harder for women, and it's all men's fault.
But in the university of life, I've begun to come towards a different conclusion: Life is harder for women, because their natures make it so.
Take motherhood.
As if it weren't stressful enough, childbirth is mired in the sort of competition and bossiness that makes men feel very tired.
If I was expecting to suffer extreme pain (and don't women report that childbirth is painful beyond male comprehension?) then I'd happily take whichever drug was on offer, provided it was safe.
And yet this curious martyrdom creeps in over the epidural and other anaesthetics, as if childbirth without pain is somehow cheating.
When the baby's born these pressure only intensify.
But don't take my word for it. Ask Rachel Cusk.
When she published her memoir,
A Life's Work, she found herself lambasted by other, female, writers for what they saw as a negative portrayal of motherhood.
One reviewer wrote: "Believe it or not, quite a few people enjoy motherhood, but in order to do so, it is important to grow up first."
Because of her refusal to conform to the ever-cheerful ideal of motherhood, Cusk had a rougher baptism than most into the sea of other mothers' disapproval.
The father's problem, on the other hand, is low expectations.
I have two books about early fatherhood, featuring similar photographs of the authors on their covers.
In each case he holds the baby aloft, gurning at the camera with an expression of comic bafflement, as if the baby's arrival has taken him entirely by surprise and he's no idea what to do about it.
The title of one of these books is
A Good Enough Dad.
Would a similar title be suitable for the female market? I suspect not: "good enough" wouldn't be good enough.
Despite all the noise about equality, men in our culture are expected to be incompetent in domestic matters.
Just look at the TV ads for domestic products, in which the man is invariably humiliated by his own ineptitude.
This is the modern man's predicament: He's expected to do an equal share, but he's also expected not to measure up to feminine standards. Doomed to be cast as a bossed-about incompetent, he at least has the consolation that not much is expected of him.
Which is something no mother can ask from her own sex.
Cusk writes: "I remain uneasy in the public places of motherhood - the school gate, the coffee circuit - where the skies can unexpectedly open and judgement rain down on one's head. I find that I like women less than I did ... It used to be incomprehensible to me that women of the time attacked early feminists so violently. It isn't any more."
I believe this is an excellent time to be born a girl. But I'm still glad I'm not one.
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