Ah, but why do women have less strength, and men have more?
I’ve seen one source claim that people of the same size with the same training will end up with the same strength. The book I’ve gotten it from shows signs of a lot of research (who knew there’d been so much research on sex differences in throwing?), but I’ve got the claim filed under “very interesting if true, wait on more evidence”. And of course, there are average size differences between men and women.
I have no idea whether height differences are a result of arbitrary sexual selection. It’s fading a little, I think, but there’s a cultural assumption that in couples, the man should be taller than the woman.
Again, it’s been faded somewhat, but there’s been a strong cultural assumption, not just that men and women are mentally different from each other, but that they should be different, that men and women should be fairly close examples of ideal types. This means that some fraction of behavior is going to be the result of cultivation rather than genetically forced.
I haven’t seen any discussion of why men and women aren’t more different than they are. As species go, humans are only fair-to-middling sexually dimorphic.
People of the same size with the same training do not end up with the same strength; look at the scoresheet for a powerlifting meet. A 135-pound man is stronger than a 135-pound woman who trains exactly the same way. Hormonally, men are set up to have a higher percentage of muscle mass. I don’t know enough biology to describe it in more concrete detail, though.
Edit: I assume everyone knows enough stats to understand that this does not mean a female athlete can’t outperform most men. I’m also not saying that women shouldn’t challenge themselves athletically. I like the general thesis of “The Frailty Myth” and I think women could be better off training a lot harder than they generally do at present, and that a certain amount of female physical weakness is self-imposed. But there’s also a biological difference.
I’ve seen one source claim that people of the same size with the same training will end up with the same strength. The book I’ve gotten it from shows signs of a lot of research (who knew there’d been so much research on sex differences in throwing?), but I’ve got the claim filed under “very interesting if true, wait on more evidence”. And of course, there are average size differences between men and women.
I have no idea whether height differences are a result of arbitrary sexual selection. It’s fading a little, I think, but there’s a cultural assumption that in couples, the man should be taller than the woman.
Again, it’s been faded somewhat, but there’s been a strong cultural assumption, not just that men and women are mentally different from each other, but that they should be different, that men and women should be fairly close examples of ideal types. This means that some fraction of behavior is going to be the result of cultivation rather than genetically forced.
I haven’t seen any discussion of why men and women aren’t more different than they are. As species go, humans are only fair-to-middling sexually dimorphic.
People of the same size with the same training do not end up with the same strength; look at the scoresheet for a powerlifting meet. A 135-pound man is stronger than a 135-pound woman who trains exactly the same way. Hormonally, men are set up to have a higher percentage of muscle mass. I don’t know enough biology to describe it in more concrete detail, though.
Edit: I assume everyone knows enough stats to understand that this does not mean a female athlete can’t outperform most men. I’m also not saying that women shouldn’t challenge themselves athletically. I like the general thesis of “The Frailty Myth” and I think women could be better off training a lot harder than they generally do at present, and that a certain amount of female physical weakness is self-imposed. But there’s also a biological difference.