to think that all the people who have a problem with people using "girls" instead of "women"

[CartwrightMiss]

Should say "womanfriend" instead of "girlfriend"?

[gron]

yeah I was thinking of ultra marathons

I only know this because my 6' 3.5" male friend says he and most men are shit compared to most of the women who compete and he was mansplaining in really dull detail why women are better at endurance stuff

is a mad sport though, his next is 160 miles

Chaz

I very much doubt the time will change a significant amount in 90 years time, unless humans can evolve to run at roughly 20mph over the course.

Any improvements now will start to become very small, which presumably explains why men's times haven't improved linearly.

It stands to reason why men are better at some sports than women and why women are more equal in others.

Technotropic
I agree there won't be big changes now. What I was thinking of was that the gap might have shrunk to a point where men and women were competing equally in the marathon.

I think the major changes have been access to the sport and access to proper training for women. Men have run Olympic marathons since the modern Olympics started whereas women had to wait nearly 100 years to be allowed to do so. To some extent its a nature versus nuture argument, women haven't had equal access to the sport or the training for the same duration as men so comparing women and men's performance isn't always appropriate.

Plus, women had to wear daft clothes for sport ... I may not be too keen on women's contemporary volleyball outfits, but at least we aren't expected to do sport wearing several long skirts or (major concession) mid-calf culottes.

and women spent their lives being told they are second best.

hopefully not forever though.

Chaz

Maybe not competitively for a few years yet but for the rest of us it is perfectly feasible for women to compete with men in the Marathon. I would guess that 90% of female runners are already equal/better than men and this probably extends to a lot of sports. I think it's only when you start to look at the extremes (and obviously a lot of power sports) that the gap widens.

I think the trouble is access although we cannot deny that nature has given men/women very distinct biological makeups. This has helped and hindered humans throughout our evolution.

Since when did ability to run long distances be the measure of superiority?

I'm fucked then!

Quite. Please can I ask a question to get something straight in my own mind please?

People on here are saying than women are as strong as men? In an all round strength way?

There may be a lot of desk workers on MN because it's easier to post from a desk than from the cowshed?

Of course most women aren't as physically strong as most men. Are you saying that is why men are more likely to be Cabinet Ministers and MDs of blue chip companies?

Even non desk workers have computers nowadays

Seeker says most women aren't as physically strong as most men.
Anyone else on here agree with that?

[will answer the other part later this evening hopefully].

Well, women tend to live longer than men. Is that what you mean by stronger, Ilikethebreeze?

The last time I went for a job interview, I was pipped at the arm wrestling stage.

Ilikethebreeze I think that saying most women are not as physically strong (in the sense of lifting heavy things and punching harder, etc.) as most men is a reasonable statement.

Conflating that with men being "superior" is what I have a problem with.

Others have said that we may need to look at what we define as strength - if we automatically think of "strength" as meaning "what men are physically good at", then it becomes self-fulfilling. We would basically be saying men are better at being men.

In general, I believe it's true to say women have greater lower-body strength than men, more endurance and better pain tolerance. But I don't know if those are empirical facts.

Just as (yet another) sidetrack, clara, punching hard doesn't require much "strength". It's speed and technique.

Your average man could lift more than average woman, though. Good thing we've invented wheels and levers, eh.

Exactly Clara!

I certainly think within a single group with the same geographic ancestry, men have the capacity to lift heavier loads than women, if they exercise and eat appropriately to build this capacity. That seems to be a completely different thing to saying:

1. Lifting heaving loads is the same thing as long term endurance.
2. Lifting heavy loads is required in most of the male dominated occupations.
3. The jobs that do require lifting of heavy loads are more often done by men than women.
4. Men do most of the physical work.
5. Most men are capable of doing very physically demanding jobs.
6. The ratio of men:women who are capable of doing specific physical skills (fire fighter for example) is reflected in the actual number of male and female firefighters.

I don't think 1-6 are true.

I really don't get where this strength thing is going. Does anyone else?

No. I reckon I probably am stronger than most people, due to a combination of age, build and work. It came in useful when me and my (female) neighbour had to move a washing machine and some other heavy stuff, but I certainly haven't been given any great societal reward like a ceremonial hat or anything.

So far we have seeker, clara and thisis, who agree on the whole that most men are stronger than most women.
garlic disagrees. Wasnt sure froom Freyas post where she stood.

re strength. Yes, that is one area in which men are superior.

garlic, why arent women doing mining, agriculture, power industry, fishing,sewerage work, bin men and on and on?
If they are as able as men, why dont they go and do it?

Until women in significant numbers go into all or most of the industries that men are in[and I dont just mean the desk jobs in them], how on earth can they expect to be equal with men?

This may be my fault - I muddied the waters by responding to the point that men are stronger therefore superior by pointing out that the ways we measure strength are not unbiased. I only did that because I get a huge buzz out of the point about women's uterine muscles being so strong, because it's kind of cool and all. But there we go.

I agree it's a hilariously absurd criterion for making, let alone defending, the claim that men are superior.

But yeah.

On a side note, though, I have been working on racism a little bit, and I find it quite bizarre that all the arguments about women and strength have a horrible mirror image in some of the 19th century arguments about why black people in the US were inferior - apparently they were naturally stronger, so naturally more fit to be slaves while white people used their brains instead of their comparatively weaker bodies.

Just goes to show you can twist a bigoted argument any which way, can't you?

ilike, does that mean women are superior to men until we have equal numbers of men doing work like being cleaners, being nurses, or raising small children?

Are we superior and inferior at the same time, or is there something about being a fisherman that is somehow innately superior to being a cleaner (please don't mention Jesus).

I can row faster than most men who go to the gym and I am a thirty something women who is 5 foot 7.

I have stronger legs than most men and a better understanding of mechanics so am able to generate more power. I can beat twenty something 6 foot male eye candy. it does seem to leave them a little deflated....

society believes men are stronger than women equals all (or almost all) men are stronger than almost all women. in reality men are stronger on average than women - which means many women are stronger than many men.

They are doing it globally, Ilikethebreeze. I really don't know why you keep saying they don't.

There are certain occupations in the Uk (and some other countries) where women are under-represented. The research shows that sexist attitudes to women is the main factor.

In firefighting for example, many studies have shown that the public incorrectly perceive that women aren't strong enough to be firefighters, and that false belief is a barrier to women entering firefighting.