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The Strength of Men and Women
A few weeks ago, @joepas posted about his friend who took great offense at the notion that men were stronger than women. I found this absolutely astounding, because it seems that abundant evidence of this fact is everywhere and easily experienced. But apparently, somehow, this basic truth has now been turned into an opinion in some quarters. I came across this today: Transgender track athlete wins CT state championship, debate ensues.
Apparently, two transgender men who identify as women just came home with a bunch of blue ribbons after competing in girls’ track and field. This predictable outcome is not the topic of this post, however. And, in truth, what more needs to be said?
But, here is some of the “debate” (italics mine)
“You have some people who believe men are stronger and faster so I can understand if an athlete is born male but identifying as a female and compete as one, some females will feel a particular way about it,” Clinton Baker said.
“If she identifies as a girl then I think she should be able to run in the race because she can use the ladies room, she can wear a skirt, why not run and stay active,” Natasha Morgan said.
“The cream rises to the top,” Baker added. “Athletes now will tell you if you put UConn women on the court with men, UConn men might lose. It’s all in the spirit of competition, hard work and heart.”
I don’t know who this Clinton Baker is — I’m assuming he’s not the friend of @joepas — and if he isn’t, more than one person in the world thinks that males’ superior strength is merely a matter of opinion.
Where on earth is this coming from?
I first suspected that some gender studies professor somewhere was the culprit, and did some brief searches on the web for “women stronger than men.” Interestingly, the top search results all blared the headline that science has now proved that women are the stronger sex. But. of course, the study referred to from January 2018 did not refer to feats of physical strength but to the fact that women live longer and survive “extreme mortality hazards,” e.g., famine, better than men. I can believe that. I also find we are much more functional with head colds than men.
So, yes, depending on how you define strength, you could say that women are stronger than men. But unless there’s an extreme famine, I don’t think I’ll be seeing the UConn Women’s basketball team beating the UConn men anytime soon.
Published in General
It’s a test of your willingness to believe and of your worthiness. If you can’t, then you really don’t belong in the cult.
They want us to love Big Sister.
Back when Pat Summit was the coach of the Lady Vols, who were perennial national champs, they practiced against a pickup men’s team. At first they beat the men, because they were used to playing as a team. When the men learned to play together, the Lady Vols stopped winning.
And people thought ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ was just a fairy tale.
With expanded sports betting, it might get easier to part fools from their money.
For added perspective on this topic, @ejhill authored … Identifying As A Champion.
From world champions to humbling defeat against Under 15s side… World Cup-winning USA women’s team suffer 5-2 loss against Dallas academy boys
What happened to girl power? Australia’s national women’s soccer team the Matildas lose 7-0 to an under FIFTEENS boys’ side
Uh, I find exactly the opposite at work. I do some Urgent Care work and far more women come in with colds then men. And many of the men who do come in say ” my wife made me come in”.
Really? I would have pegged the opposite.
Do you remember the study that had men using a labor simulator to show how much pain women go through in childbirth?
I always thought it was cruel and unusual punishment because they didn’t flood the men with oxytocin first.
Women have a natural pain reliever in their system during childbirth. Sure, it’s not enough to remove anywhere near all the pain, but it is enough to not make it as painful as un-medicated would be. I would like to see a reattempt after measuring the oxy levels of women in childbirth, administering a comparable dose to men and then do the simulator.
These were men who weren’t college level players. She used men to toughen them up because they were bigger, stronger and faster. Part of the men’s problem was getting over being physical with a woman. I’ve played against a few women in my day and many could really ball but I never quite went all out on boxing them out or posting them up. I’m a gentleman after all.
Childbirth is kind of a special situation. Men don’t have much experience with it.
I have witnessed some really funny scenes in the delivery room.
I recall an old Joan Rivers bit where she advised men :
”To give you some idea of what childbirth is like, take a firm grip on your upper lip…
Now pull it up and over your head!”
Disclaimer: Evidence gathered from the Gossamer Cat household and circle of friends is not a scientific sample..
Nice write-up, and thanks for the shout-out. You’d be correct in assuming that Clinton Baker is not my friend. That’s probably for the better.
Mine isn’t either but it’s over 30 years of experience in ER and now Urgent Care.
I can take any amount of pain – my natural reaction to strong pain is to go into shock, in which I faint and have very vivid, pain-free dreams. Most women stay awake in labor, which definitely makes them the weaker sex.
I have never understood why some women object to being called the weaker sex. It seems as though many feminists glorify strength, very strange.
Ah. That explains it. Something must have been wrong with my oxytocin gland. All four freakin’ times.
Feminists don’t value womanly virtues in women. They only value manly virtues in women and womanly virtues in men (Oh, he’s soooo sensitive!). Therefore we all have to lie about the comparable strength of the sexes, among other things.
Leftism is a mental illness.
Men have already been fired for daring to suggest that men might be better at advanced mathematics than women — even if the evidence backs them up. So if we’re going to decree it a thought crime to believe that there might be any statistically significant differences between men’s and women’s brains, then it seems but the next logical step to extend that to our entire bodies.
This no longer surprises me given how many people (even including conservatives) now support sending women into combat.
That is a very good point.
Running a 12.66 in the state championship means these are extremely slow boys.
The winner on the boy’s side ran a 10.79, finishing basically about 15 meters ahead of them.
Or for comparison sake, not in this picture. Actually, to the left of your browser window.
Oxytocin comes from the posterior pituitary gland, it is nearly identical to vasopressin (antidiuretic hormone, aka Pitressin) with which it has overlapping functions. Pitocin is synthetic oxytocin used to induce or augment labor. I have seen near catastrophes result from well-meaning ER Docs giving Pitressin in place of Pitocin.
From my experience in the delivery room ( as a physician, not personal !) I think women feel every bit of the pain, but the oxytocin causes them to have almost immediate amnesia. The transformation is pretty profound. I’ve seen lots of women screaming, cursing their husbands, saying ridiculous things like ” oh no this ain’t happening I’m leaving”, to immediately after the delivery having a look of bliss on their faces and telling their husbands how much they love them.
I’ve always thought (and/or experienced) that it was the combination of “Pain Stops” and “Baby!”
I remember (no amnesia here—labor remains vivid in my mind!) the incredible relief combined with the unimaginable joy…each enhancing the other, no doubt, but not quite the same as “I don’t even remember the pain I was in ten minutes ago!”
The last month of pregnancy was the part/pain I seemed always to forget—for which I kicked myself (metaphorically, since it became anatomically impossible). “Dang, I can’t believe I’ve done this to myself again!” as I attempt to sleep around a gigantic boulder, or felt a mouthful of swallowed food stop in my neck because there was no more room further down.
By the way, my grandchild-in-utero is a boy! And a darned lively little person too—I was invited to accompany the soon-to-be Mom and Dad to the sonogram. My son kept making faux-huffy remarks about how, teeny-weeny tackle or no teeny-weeny tackle, he wasn’t going to let some oppressive technician with a machine determine his kid’s gender identity…”they can decide for themselves!” etc.
As a veterinarian I have observed that it is invariably the man who has to leave the room at the sight of blood. Some might consider fainting at the sight of blood a sign of weakness but biologically in this respect men are far the weaker for obvious reasons.
Eh, I’m not so sure about that. When my daughter was about two years old, she fell against a cabinet door handle and got a very clean laceration just under her eye (almost no bleeding). As I watched the urgent care doctor try to match the edges of the cut for gluing, I started to faint and the nurse ended up taking care of me! I don’t consider myself squeamish, so this incident makes me think context is everything.
I know a combat veteran (male) who can’t change a poopy diaper without vomiting. He’s also a hunter of elk, which entails gutting and carving up the carcass to get it out of the mountains any distance on foot.
Men have always done dirty jobs. I don’t think they’re the weaker sex in this respect. I think revulsion is a very individual response depending on the situation.
I think a woman memory of the pain has to be modified, because if it wasn’t we would have died out as a species long ago…
You may have missed my point. In over 30 years of dealing with blood, open wounds it was far more often the man that got weak kneed. Filth, smells, and gross scenes effect men less than women. I don’t consider either a strength or weakness, only a biological difference. Most men however would consider fainting at the sight of blood a weakness. I know because as a teenager I fainted in my vets office. Only repeated exposure eventually helped me overcome my “weakness”.