Interesting real life stats on boys/girls sports

On a different note, according to this www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323085#typical-testosterone-levels from age 10 onwards boys already have up to 3-4 times as much testosterone as girls.

I would echo the comments on social factors, with boys being encouraged to be more active. This increases the talent pool for boys essentially.

In chess they did an analysis to see why men are ranked higher. In some countries (note, not all) the difference can pretty much entirely be ascribed to a difference in talent pool. Talent pool being how many boys vs girls even begin to play chess. If you take a random 1000 boys and a random 10 girls into any particular exercise, chances are plenty of boys will be better than the top girl.

I think fitting in has a lot to do with how much kids conform to stereotypes. Ds could be me as a kid. Spoke and read early and fluently, head in clouds, disorganised, gentle, rarely angry, scruffy.

Dd aggressive, competitive as fuck, non reader.

But. Ds more drawn to marvel etc. Is that cos his dad is and he wants to please his dad?

Dd wants to wear makeup, but hates brushing teeth and hair. Has hsd a string of boyfriends in rotation from year 1.

I have always been at great pains to get rid of stereotypes at home and 11yrold ds can spout it all back, but kids do tend to conform with social norms.

WarriorN, it was funny when mine started school. It was a bit "raised eyebrows" as my DD happily played with the boys without being interested in the boyfriend bit, DS's best friend was a girl. He was very caring of others as a child and is in a caring role as an adult all 6'3" macho him. His sister did a STEM subject at uni, did some caring work in uni holidays and hated it, all 5'2" petite feminine little her. She was never interested in dolls, he loved playing fantasy games with small figures. They make me smile as they fit bits of stereotypes and defy others.

Interestingly I have 2 older ones who went through nursery/school and fit the male stereotype perfectly.

Is it them, is it me or was it outside influences?

Ancient gran, it's been interesting watching my eldest, who preferred played with girls at nursery, (role play games rather than chasing and pushing) slowly morph into a "only play with boys" at school. And the girls he played with at nursery and how they've changed. Poles apart.

Yet when she last came to play, (ages ago now sadly due to the pandemic) they slipped back into an equal way of playing which was lovely. He also has a friend through friends who is a girl a year younger he plays with beautifully we see occasionally. We've been on holiday with them so he's close.

Playgrounds do impact a lot. Bills New frock is a brilliant book to read with year 3 for that.

I'm a bit sad that I'm currently unable to take my toddler out and about to toddler groups to meet other children and see how he plays. He plays closely with one boy at nursery but i don't know how he plays.

Of course you can't but neither should you discount observable differences between the sexes at a very young age

Many of these differences are subject to confirmation bias though.

One of mine was very gender neutral as a toddler. Short hair, wore trousers and tops.

I found if I took them to the park in “boy” colours, people would admire their bravery in climbing to the top of the frame, encourage them, and tell me how I had a typical boy and I must be exhausted running around after them all day.

If I took the same child in a pink top or a dress, as she climbed the frame other parents would ask if she need help, or step in to help. They’s look round for me to check it was on, or ask her where her mum was. Lots of “ooh that’s very high, be careful”. If she played in the sandpit others would tell me girls were so good at entertaining themselves and they were so much easier as you could leave them playing.

People saw what they want to see. They saw what confirmed their own opinions on gender.

I once had an old lady laugh at me and tell me off in the street because I’d allowed my little boy out in his sisters clothes. That sort of thing should stay at home. She absolutely would not believe she was a girl and clearly thought I was crazy. Because she was running and jumping alongside me like a boy, and didn’t have long hair (her hair just did not grow. Still doesn’t.)

I home schooled mine for a few years, we went to home school groups where boys and girls always played equally. When my kids started school at 9/10 they found it really difficult to understand the "rules" about what boys and girls could do and how they should interact e.g. my DD got into hot water for talking to someone elses boyfriend. She had no idea that 9 year olds were in "relationships" and you got in the middle at your peril.

Those are your kids though. You cannot extrapolate to all boys and girls are like that. They aren’t.

Of course you can't but neither should you discount observable differences between the sexes at a very young age. If you had told me before that boys were different, I would have pooh poohed it and said it must be nurture driven. However, that was not the case with my two and I don't believe it was merely a difference in personality.

What a great thread!
Here's the new research about teenage girl footballers having twice the risk of concussion than boys:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56894240

Predictably research in this area was all based around boys, despite the fact there were big differences in the way boys' and girls' bodies responded to head injuries and the way they were managed . Interestingly girls are told to sit out less than boys after an incident.

Pleased to see that the FA recognises the dearth of sex based research and wants more research into the impact of head injuries and concussion in the women's and girl's game.
Maybe they can have a word with the idiots in England Rugby currently demanding that women team up with men in women's teams

Those are your kids though. You cannot extrapolate to all boys and girls are like that. They aren’t.

I don't think anyone is saying that. We all know it isn't true, many of us may not have been that way ourselves. I do think though that many are surprised when they have their own kids and observe them, and their friends and classmates, and they are much more divided by sex at what seems a pretty basic level.

I was somewhat surprised with my own kids - there were some things where they didn't seem to follow strict gendered norms, like shiny sparkles, that they all liked as kids, and my second daughter was less into dolls than my son, though my first liked them a fair bit and my youngest is obsessed.

But n other ways, particularly physicality, there was a difference, and educationally they followed pretty standard male/female paths around language acquisition and reading. (And no, I didn't avoid talking to the boy.)

The real question though is whether there is a difference at a population level.

Having been brought up with sisters and then educated in girl only schools it was a real culture shock when I became the mother of girl/ boy twins. From the very beginning the differences were striking and believe me I had no time to treat them differently

Those are your kids though. You cannot extrapolate to all boys and girls are like that. They aren’t.

I have this discussion with dh a lot. He made a good point recently that even if boys are more inclined to fighting and rowdy behaviour, we’re a civilised society where there’s no need to physically fight opponents, and boys can learn to control those instincts.

It’s like saying men have an innate need for sex. Well maybe they do, but they can and should control that.

Interesting though that computing and programming started out as a “girls” job- it was considered akin to typing and secretarial work. Only when men realised the potential did they start to learn those jobs- and exclude women until it became a skill that we see today as a “boy thing” that girls are not interested in or good at.

Just heard on Radio 4 that girls playing football are, I think he said, nearly twice as likely to suffer concussion as boys playing football... from a study done in the USA. I am hoping it will be discussed in more detail before half six.

I agree SmokedDuck. Certain differences are surely due to the different reproductive roles and evolved tendencies in each sex.

Obviously we would do well to acknowledge these different tendencies while supporting boys and girls to play however they like, wear whatever they like and do whatever hobbies and activities they enjoy.

To acknowledge the truth of sex differences but not to restrict anyone nor push anyone onto any particular path and especially not to shame anyone for differing from the common tendencies of either sex is the balance we need to aim for in my opinion.

Having been brought up with sisters and then educated in girl only schools it was a real culture shock when I became the mother of girl/ boy twins. From the very beginning the differences were striking and believe me I had no time to treat them differently.

As far as PE - when I was at school one of the things that was really girl dominated was skipping. Really complicated stuff in some cases.

There doesn't seem to be nearly as much of it now, my older girls had none at their schools. Where my son who is younger is now, they do have skipping ropes, but he and one other girl are the only ones who use them He learned to skip in boxing so sees it as a great thing for boys too, but there is a notable lack of the skipping culture that dominated when I was at school.

And this was evident across the board. I remember being paired up with quite a small guy to do an exercise that involved carrying someone our over your shoulders - he was shorter than me, about 30, and whip thin, I was in my early 20s and as fit as I've ever been. I could barely carry him out, he had no problem carrying me even though I was heavier. I found myself feeling embarrassed, TBH.

I've always felt that the idea that socialisation, maybe using slightly different language for boys and girls, accounts for all the differentials in observed behaviour between boys and girls, is pretty crazy.

I mean, it seems pretty credulous when you think about how mammals work that you would think there might not be a different propensity to nurturing infants or small creatures in male and female humans, even if it is less pronounced.

Or the really maddening claim I've seen that boys act out more in the early school years because their parents don't expect enough of them and let boys misbehave. When many of the parents are tearing their hair out and you can see the poor little kids struggling to hold it together in the classroom.

The main thing that gets me about the constructivist claim is that it's not evidence based, it's ideological. People like Rippon will say it's difficult to prove nature or nurture in some limited areas, but that is not a positive claim that it is nurture. And she is not particularly representative of the mainstream view in her field and doesn't talk so much about things like hormones, or research on personality, ar plenty of other areas.

Great if you want to believe that particular ideology, it's not crazy or anything, but I'd hate to make my views on social justice dependent on it being true.

Outthrows!! Mind you they also outgrow girls at this age.

Just saw this on Twitter. USATF 8 and under records. Guess which sex ,well before puberty kicks in, outruns, outjumps and outgrows the other?

It’s not just women who have to accept physical limitations. In many different sports men’s physique (height, skeletal structure and muscle types) has an impact on what level they can get to.

Looking at me and my husband, our kids are unlikely to develop the physique to play high level basketball, rowing or rugby. I’d still encourage them to develop skills and be healthy and even train competitively in these sports if they enjoy them - but If training got time consuming, I would make them aware about the likelihood of performing at elite level.

Sometimes it’s easy to get v absorbed in your sport, and compare yourself to other male and female athletes. But take a step back and compare yourself to the population as a whole (who don’t usually train or just do stuff socially etc) and it’s actually pretty good.

The barrels thing is just one aspect of the world being designed around adult men

As likely to be an aspect of the world developed via spatial necessity and logistics.

*You can’t be for real here. Where I grew up (USA) girls are in sports teams very early on and have had a rigorous training schedule. It’s not just a dance class once a week 😤. We were also very competitive. I’m sure it’s only become even more so in the years since.

I don’t recognise these anecdotes at all*

I am for real. My dd is one of those girls in competitive sport, on team from early on, as you say.

However many parents simply don’t put their kids in sport until they’re older. Apart from one other girl who danced seriously my dd was the only one in her class who had training more than once or twice a week. One memorable occasion I was called “pushy” because of this.

Also many sports and seriously competitive activities are selective. Our local club has 400 members- 20 are on “squad” and train competitively, the rest are recreational and do the one hour a week.

My step dc dropped out of sport early on because their mum thought it was too much every day, and wanted them in doing homework as that was more important. My own mum forced me to drop out of a competitive team as a child because school is more important.

It may be different in the US, and I know aus culture is very different, but in the UK that has been my experience for many years, as a parent and a coach.

Except for a tiny window when an earlier girl's puberty allows some girls to outstrip some boys in height and strength, the average girl will be outrun etc by the average boy. Amongst my own children's friends of the same age only one girl was of a comparable height etc to the boys before they all hit puberty