Interesting real life stats on boys/girls sports

[Ozgirl75]

My 8 year old son recently competed in a cross country event. This was for around 25 schools, each of whom did their own cross country at school and then sent the fastest 5 runners to compete in this event.
This is all primary, being age 8/9, 10, 11 and 12.
I received the results today. I would have assumed that because the 8/9 and even 10 year olds were well below puberty, that boys and girls were similar speed runners.
Well they weren’t at all.
My son came 54th in the boys, running 2k in 9minutes 24 seconds. In the girls race this would have put him in 7th place.
The fastest boy was 40 seconds faster than the fastest girl. And this is 8/9 year olds.
This is relevant as the top 15 runners go on to trial at another event where the fastest runners of that run for the state and then eventually, Australia (obviously the pool gets smaller and smaller!)
My interests firstly are, why? Why are Pre pubescent boys significantly faster runners than Pre pubescent girls? For example, my son isn’t really even a runner, he’s just an all rounder and plays lots of sport, but he would have finished one place behind a girl at his school who already runs for NSW (and obviously runs and trains pretty hard).
And secondly - wow. If this is the difference before puberty, what will the difference be like after? (Rhetorical question). It makes me see even more strongly before that sport should be segregated for the absolute protection of girls’ sports and scholarships.

Perhaps I was particularly naive, but a lot of the narrative surrounding 'girls can do anything' glosses over the physical differences

I never felt it did.

Yes boys/men are physically stronger, no once is saying they are. I did a lot of sport and while I was physically more able than many boys, when it came to the ones that did similar training to me there was no question. Centre of gravity is different, everything is different. Didn’t stop me trying to beat them though!

The whole “girls can do anything” for me was more of an antistereotype message. Girls can play football, nothing is “for boys” or “for girls”. Girls don’t have to like babies and drawing, they can prefer joining in with building cycle jumps and tree climbing if they want. It’s exclusive to stop girls joining in or assume they’re inferior at something purely because they’re girls. Or boys.

Physical differences are something we cannot change. We can change the stereotypes. Unfortunately from being a child in the 70’s where child specialists were actively encouraging dismantling of such gender stereotypes, we’ve now gone the other way where so many people seem to be buying into “innate” pink brain or blue brain as the thing we can’t change.

To add- i always find it interesting that liking balls and football is a “boy” thing in the Uk. It demonstrates blue brain, a natural affinity for running around, being active and playing ball games, because boys have better hand eye awareness for co ordination with the ball.

Yet move to the US, and that same sport is now a girls sport. Dads don’t want their boys playing it, because it’s sissy, wet, and a demonstration that their boy is weak and not tough enough for “real” (american) football. Girls “naturally” are better at the non-contact aspect and the technical skill needed....

I think what is happening to womens sport very clearly shows that people do not appreciate the extent of the physical differences between men and women. Don't forget, it is not just men throwing away womens sport because they don't care. We have elite female athletes opening the door for self identified women (and throwing the next generation of women under the bus). We have female academics solemnly declaring that women are underperforming at sport because they don't try hard enough!

Where women start overhauling men is in the ultra-long endurance events that take place on venues like remote hillsides and in the dark because they take 12+ hours. Less featured in the Olympics.

I've kept coming across references to this in the past few weeks!
Here's a few bits:

Female ultra runners are faster than male ultra runners at distances over 195 miles. The longer the distance the shorter the gender pace gap. In 5Ks men run 17.9% faster than women, at marathon distance the difference is just 11.1%, 100-mile races see the difference shrink to just .25%, and above 195 miles, women are actually 0.6% faster than men
runrepeat.com/state-of-ultra-running
www.5280.com/2020/01/women-are-closing-the-gap-in-ultrarunning/

Are women better ultra-endurance athletes than men?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49284389

I find boys are a lot more into sport than girls. My 14 son plays football , golf and cricket like his life depends on it. My 19 daughter runs and lifts weights but that's just to keep her looking good in a bikini. My 16 daughter see sports as some sort of medieval torture.

The barrels thing is just one aspect of the world being designed around adult men, their size, strength and conformation. It's in everything from mobile phones to cars. For women, it's a bit like being left-handed in a right-handed world.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/41104077-invisible-women

@bluebluezoo

It may not be purely physiological. Boys are often encouraged to spend more time doing sport from a very young age and to participate in more physical activities - throwing, running, jumping, swimming. Even for young girls, their play can be less physical - pretend play with dolls, hair and make-up, drawing and colouring for example. And girls clothes are often styled in ways that are less practical and less comfortable for physical activity. Add to that, girls are not encouraged to be competitive and may receive censure for wanting to be the best. So from a very young age, boys get the message that it is good to be sporty and physical, whereas girls internalise the message that they need to be careful and that doing sport is embarrassing

This.

Boys are usually encouraged to run around, play football etc. Even if girls are encouraged to be physically active it’s one ballet or gymnastics class a week, which won’t help with running fitness, so the difference between them and boys who are running around everyday playing football will be huge.

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 suspect that school sports are designed to showcase boys' physiological strengths and downplay girls'. Likewise most high profile sporting events and competitions

I really don’t think so. Spectator sports are meant to showcase the fastest, strongest and most agile teams or athletes. It’s nothing personal.

In fact, e-sports could be a venue where women could really thrive in a mixed sex environment—but for the moment most ‘women’ are TW.

Also, I’ve heard that maybe men (particularly East Asian) have better hand-eye coordination? So that’s why they’ve dominated e-sports.

I think school playground tend to be more geared towards one sport too. Any kid not into football gets to stand around on the sidelines and risk having a ball booted at them. Lots of little boys get shunted into playing football early on, so naturally, they are the ones who play. They get better at it, so don't let the other kids play. There are more girls playing football, but I'm not sure they play at lunch time. The boys are still the gatekeepers.

Ive not thought about it, I just always assumed boys where naturally physically stronger than girls. The boys in my DCs school tend to be faster than the girls with the exception of my DD who has regularly beaten all the boys in her year group. Although they all play football out of school there are only 2 boys that I’d consider are really athletic and she still beats them. She loves sport but not particularly disciplined in it, she just loves to run and win.

@Spidder

I think school playground tend to be more geared towards one sport too. Any kid not into football gets to stand around on the sidelines and risk having a ball booted at them. Lots of little boys get shunted into playing football early on, so naturally, they are the ones who play. They get better at it, so don't let the other kids play. There are more girls playing football, but I'm not sure they play at lunch time. The boys are still the gatekeepers.

God yes this. I hated PE and organised games as a kid but I was definitely an agile and fast child....I just would have preferred tree climbing and building dams etc. Playing on a muddy field or hard gravel yard was my idea of hell.

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

*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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

@Flywheel

That's a very good point about the barrel size. However the experience was still eye opening. Up to that point I really believed I could do anything the boys could do, and had forged a career in a male dominated field. I suppose the physical differences need to be acknowledged first, before they can be catered for with design. Perhaps I was particularly naive, but a lot of the narrative surrounding 'girls can do anything' glosses over the physical differences. The petite female superheroes beating the shite of men twice their size also feeds in to this.

I really came face to face with this when I joined the army. There were different physical standards for some tests, but other were the same for men and women. Very often a fit woman would go all out to pass these tests while a rather pudgy and not very active male would not really even have a problem.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.