Can someone kindly point me in the direction of some facts/stats about the physical differences between men & women?

[kickassangel]

Apart from the obvious?

I'm sure I read on a thread here, that women are only weaker physically when considering upper body strength.

So, are women broadly speaking as strong as men in their lower bodies?

I've also heard, but not seen facts about, women being better at endurance sports beyond certain levels (e.g. races longer than a marathon).

Cos I'm thinking that
a) if 2 people (male & female) of same age, weight, fitness etc were compered - would they in fact be similar in strength/speed
b) I'd love to see the results of men & women raised equally to see if they in fact turn out to be more similar wrt height, weight etc.

But I have no idea where to start looking. Please help.

Yes Notthefullshilling there are political and economic purposes served by perpetuating the myths. And those purposes subjugate women. I don't see how you can separate the two or say that one isn't a deliderate outcome of the other.

Your second point harks back to what LRD was saying about men having long since defined strength. I am trying to dig up some research on this but I fear any research will have the "male gaze" on it. It will probably highlight women's perceived weaknesses rather than their strengths, and all in comparison to men. Strength of women has always been in comparison to men, rather than on its own merits. Men being the default and all.

I would argue they subjugate the poor, men women, and children. Being poor is not genderd. The experience of being a poor (sic) woman is different from men and children but the point of the subjugation is power and wealth.

I do not see how saying that the body shape of PEOPLE not just women seem to be changing and that might offer a different perspective is to define things in the same predefined male way. I cannot believe you ae saying that in acknowledging women s new found freedom to take part and excel in endurance sport is a bad thing because men did it first.

But I do not want to purely argue with you on this thread so let me ask when do you think men became the default?

Being poor is gendered, though. The majority of people living in poverty are women.

I agree that women are not the only subjugated group, of course. But I think focusing on power and wealth and removing sex from the equation misrepresents the situation. The power and wealth of the patriarchy results from (among other things) exploitation of women.

Oops, posted too soon.

I'm not sure I get the second bit of your post - this bit 'I do not see how saying that the body shape of PEOPLE not just women seem to be changing and that might offer a different perspective is to define things in the same predefined male way'

I want to know what you're getting at, so not being snippy, just I don't follow.

Mention by other posters of women having the edge over men in endurance but men outperforming women with speed turns my attention to the male-centric measures of success in numerous sports. For example, the premier event of track athletics is the men's 100m (who can run fastest), not some hypothetical women's 200km road race (who can run longest). These are value judgements of the "male is the norm" variety that should be questioned.

Perhaps their cultural value is influenced these days by the demands of television coverage often favouring short duration (male speed) events rather than long duration (female endurance) events. However, time considerations don't prevent live TV coverage of 5-day men's cricket matches.

UNESCO say 70% of the 1.3 billion people in extreme poverty are women and girls, which looks quite gendered to me, notthefullshilling.

I'm going to trot out the old thing about the word for 'man' in some languages being etymologically related to the words for 'strength' or 'courage'. 'Andros' in Greek is 'man' but also means 'brave' or 'strong'; 'vir' in Latin is man and is cognate with the word for courage or strength (and gives rise to the English 'virtue', which historically meant 'power' as well as 'moral strength'.

I think the association of men with certain moral or physical attributes that are not biologically more 'male' than 'female' is very old. It's the shades of meaning that convince me we have a problem here - you could perhaps overlook the fact that the words for 'man' and 'strength' are the same by going down that 'ah, but it is biology' route', but throw in the fact that the same word covers courage, and you have to posit that men were evolved to be more reckless than women, and throw in the fact that it also has moral implications, and it becomes harder and harder to swallow. Would anyone seriously try to argue that men are inherently more inclined to moral rectitude than women? I hope not. So then, for me, the fact that these words have developed sets of connotations that reinforce each other becomes suspect entirely.

Sorry you misunderstand what I meant Notthefullshilling. I am not saying it is a bad thing at all that women can do sport and some sports better than men. That is fantastic. I think I have misunderstood what you were trying to say. I was referencing the first part of your point 2 up to where you said about women finding acceptance. What I meant was the fact that women can be better than men over very long distances, but there is no real recognition for that is because strength is perceived from a male perspective. I also think that constantly comparing women's strength to men's makes men's strength what we strive for. And LRD pointed out a very good example of strength that women have alone, that I certainly didn't know about and isn't really valued or explored. I don't really understand how the second part of your point ties in with the first part, though, so like LRD I'd like to know what you mean.

Male is the default in everything, God, animals (in narrative especially but also in how the animal kingdoms are viewed - all from a male perspective); how we do business is geared for men, clothes - women can wear male clothes e.g. trousers etc but men don't wear skirts, dresses etc; political views, films, radio programmes etc all cater for men in the majority and of course sport, which is what we are talking about. I think that this default has been forever and a day but became more marked when men started educating each other and not women. (I am sure that the anthropologists amongst us may question or correct me on the latter, it is just an opinion).

Typing "sexual dimorphism" into google scholar woul be a good place to start OP.

You may not be able to read full articles, but you'd be able to get an idea of findings/general view of the field from the abstracts.

Actually, sexual dimorphism humans would be a better search.

In one of her books, Catharine MacKinnon concluded that the phrase
"women are different from men" is not the same as "men are different from women".

The first refers to the usual situation, where women are measured against the male-defined standard. The second refers to the very rare case where men are measured against a female standard.

There's not much of it, is there? Sexual dimorphism in humans, I mean. We're not really one of those species where there are big obvious physical differences between men and women.

Cross-post - vesuvia I love that point!

No you are right LRD. I suspect if we all went around wearing the same clothes and the same haircuts then it would be quite difficult to tell the sexes apart.

Human sexual dimorphism is not as great as many other species. For example, the female Hawaiian garden spider can be more than three times larger than the male.

The thing is though LRD if you accept that life evolved, then there must be evolutionary explanations for everything that has a genetic basis (including how human beings respond to the environment).

How else did these things get replicated in our genes (and different things got replicated in the genes of ants, orang-utans etc..)?

This doesn't mean any particular evolutionary explanation should be presumed to be right. But we don't need seperate evidence that each thing about us evolved. They all did!

So scientists look at an aspect of 'phenotype' - e.g. body morphology, ability, disease, behaviour, sexual dimorphism etc... and try to work out how much of it is heritable and how much is down to environment (and how much due to the way we react to environment).

If you find that something is part of the genotype then it evolved. The question is how? Was it an adaptation that promoted survival and reproduction of our ancestors? (vision). Did it evolve through sexual selection and competition? (big brains). Is it the vestige of something that was once useful but isn't anymore (appendix). Is it something useful in some contexts but not in others (being a carrier for sickle cell anaemia). Is it the result of an evolutionary pathway (the blind spot in the eye) or is it just a random variation with little environmental pressure in any direction (eye colour).

There seems to be an assumption on here that saying something has an evolutionary explanation = saying it is a good thing.

This is a fallacy - the same one promoted by people who use evolutionary explanations to justify injustice. It is a myth.

Yes, I accept there must be evolutionary explanations for everything genetic. But where you and I differ is:

1. Do we know the explanation yet? Can we back it up?

2. What is actually genetic, and what is social?

I accept you start by limiting your statement with ref to genes. But then straightaway you're saying 'But we don't need seperate evidence that each thing about us evolved. They all did!'. Well, no, they didn't. Loads of things that huge numbers of men and women do have bugger all to do with evolution.

I didn't evolve to associate salt and vinegar with blue. I do that because it's the colour pack Walkers crisps come in. It is conceivable that, in picking blue, Walkers tapped into something that can be traced back to evolution. No one I think would deny that it'd be possible to research this. So, if you so chose, you could observe that we can see in colour, and that's why crisp packets come in colours. And if we'd evolved to see only black and white, or if we were all red/green colour blind, things would undoubtedly be different. However, this does not - to me - mean it is sensible to trace my association of salt and vinegar with blue back to evolution, ignoring all social factors. And it seems that when people cite evolution, they very often do ignore social factors.

Darn, my cunning theories fail.

It did occur to me as I was writing it I've no real clue as I don't eat crisps, but too lazy to check.

Actually most brands it's blue but walkers are different

So if there isn't that strong an argument for the differences, then women are able to go into war zones, construction work etc

I know that this is starting to happen, but I bet that many women interested in such things are put off by thinking it's too manly for them.

There also is a strong perceived correlation between physical attributes and sexuality. It's assumed that a man who is effeminate is gay, and a woman who's butch is a lesbian (and a gay man is effeminate etc). But that's not true at all as far as I can tell

We were discussing this at work, that there' s a difference between sex, gender roles, gender identification, sexuality and gender achievements.

Kickassangel -

Yes women can and should be able to go into combat and construction roles.

You don't need to be Usain Bolt or the Worlds Strongest Man to do these jobs, just a reasonable level of fitness (combined with other attributes)...when someone recommends a builder they don't talk about how many kilos they can bench press, but whether they got the job done well, to schedule and tidied up the mess etc....

It doesn't depend on there being no difference in average strength between men and women.

So if there isn't that strong an argument for the differences, then women are able to go into war zones, construction work etc

I know that this is starting to happen, but I bet that many women interested in such things are put off by thinking it's too manly for them.

Yes - in exactly the same way as women can go into the traditionally male enclaves of maths and physics.

The only paid employment in the course of history I can think of which is 100% biologically determined is wetnurse.

himalaya, what do you mean by 'average strength'?

grimma - sperm donor? Tricky for women, and apparently lactating is technically possible for men.

LRD - I doubt even the most enthusiastic wker could make a living out of that - and anyway women can also donate gametes so that's even.