Mounting evidence from exercise science indicates that women are physiologically better suited than men to endurance efforts such as running marathons.
We have a lot of marathon data. There is a large, consistent difference showing the opposite. This article is horrendously unscientific, so many claims, assumptions, and over summarizing and simplifying
they make claims and assumptions to address it, they dont really cite anything. Shit like this “The inequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports.” is a hypothesis, but it is not being stated as one, it’s being stated as fact. It’s a testable hypothesis, they could have controlled for the variable of pace setting runners that they bring up by only looking at statistics of running events that do not have this variable.
And like, the whole premise could be true, that women were also hunters, modern runners with modern sports medicine arent ideal evidence, that kind of endurance might not have been needed for their hunting, women are still humans and humans have the greatest running stamina of any animal. But besides capability, ancient humans also could have had roles determined by sex, it’s at least prevalent in other apes like gorillas. Either way is possible without more solid evidence and it’s pretty crazy to say one way or another is scientifically true.
I actually dont think testing this hypothesis is as easy as you think. You can’t just control for social biases when analyzing marathon data because these social biases are longitudinal. At a young age, women quickly learn from modern society that they are physically inferior to men. Because of this, the best bet for testing this hypothesis is to look at ancient societies, because these societies are largely independent from our modern society.
I mean, it’s also unlikely to be true. The difference between male and female bodies is the equivalent of years of high end steroid use.
If you wouldn’t let a man who had taken steroids for a decade and still takes them compete with other men, then you already acknowledge the biological advantage men have over women at physical sports.
I mean we also see a lot of what I would define as “outlier behavior” from men more generally. We see crazier olympic world records being set and broken, we see higher rates of suicide and violent crime, that sort of shit, which I’m personally kind of interested in figuring out the reason for. If you took some theoretical “average” man and some theoretical “average” woman I think they’d probably be a lot closer in terms of strength and stamina and shit than comparing athletes of different sexes to one another, I think the gap would be smaller.
If you took some theoretical “average” man and some theoretical “average” woman I think they’d probably be a lot closer in terms of strength and stamina
They would not. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
The difference between the average man and the average woman is the same as the difference between a man who’s been taking steroids since he was 12, and an average man.
Estrogen is also a hell of a drug… It’s actully a point in the article that people give testosterone too much credit and estrogen not enough credit when it comes to how they affect the physique.
Your argument being founded on the effects of testosterone is not a good one…
For example I am an average height and weight guy. I had never gone to a gym in my life, but at 25 decided to start powerlifting with some friends for fun. Within 3 months I was already lifting nearly as much as the world record lifts by women in my weight class.
I started going to my university powerlifting competitions, having lifted for less than a year, and was definitely lifting poorly compared to the other men, but I out-lifted every woman there most of whom had been training for years.
I don’t think you understand the average difference in strength between men and women, it’s rather large.
This article is not scientific, its simply an opinion piece and should be treated as such. And honestly I don’t even think it was a good opinion piece. And why is it hosted on Scientific American?
This article is not scientific, its simply an opinion piece and should be treated as such. And honestly I don’t even think it was a good opinion piece. And why is it hosted on Scientific American?
I can’t read the article so unfortunately don’t have the grounds to agree or disagree with you. But I’d be carefull voicing my option like this when your only source is Wikipedia and isn’t speaking about the claim you are trying to disprove.
Edit: incase anybody is interested in reading some more real evidence instead of Wikipedia, this study goed deep into mens vs womans endurance and highlights a few problems with research focusing on males as the baseline.
Men are faster than women in a marathon because they can maintain a pace for longer without slowing, that’s called endurance.
I can’t believe the superior endurance of men can even be up for debate, but clearly no one does enough exercise anymore for the self evident to reveal itself.
Endurance is not speed.
If I can go 4 hours at 5 miles per hour before I have to take a break to rest and you can go 2 hours at 10 miles an hour before you have to stop, you’d be much faster than me in a 2 mile race.
But that doesn’t have anything to do with endurance.
Why are you changing 2 variables. Endurance is your ability to perform at a certain level for a period of time. Kipchoge has more endurance than me because he can maintain my 800m pace for 26 miles. Speed is literally only a consideration for sprinting. As soon as you’re performing past that, it’s all endurance. And when we look at all tests of endurance; iron man, ultra marathon, military fitness, triathlon, etc etc. Men come out on top.
We have a lot of marathon data. There is a large, consistent difference showing the opposite. This article is horrendously unscientific, so many claims, assumptions, and over summarizing and simplifying
Author does address this, btw. I still think it’s a bad argument. I just couldn’t fathom that they would say this and not further clarify.
they make claims and assumptions to address it, they dont really cite anything. Shit like this “The inequity between male and female athletes is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes but of biases in how they are treated in sports.” is a hypothesis, but it is not being stated as one, it’s being stated as fact. It’s a testable hypothesis, they could have controlled for the variable of pace setting runners that they bring up by only looking at statistics of running events that do not have this variable.
And like, the whole premise could be true, that women were also hunters, modern runners with modern sports medicine arent ideal evidence, that kind of endurance might not have been needed for their hunting, women are still humans and humans have the greatest running stamina of any animal. But besides capability, ancient humans also could have had roles determined by sex, it’s at least prevalent in other apes like gorillas. Either way is possible without more solid evidence and it’s pretty crazy to say one way or another is scientifically true.
I actually dont think testing this hypothesis is as easy as you think. You can’t just control for social biases when analyzing marathon data because these social biases are longitudinal. At a young age, women quickly learn from modern society that they are physically inferior to men. Because of this, the best bet for testing this hypothesis is to look at ancient societies, because these societies are largely independent from our modern society.
I mean, it’s also unlikely to be true. The difference between male and female bodies is the equivalent of years of high end steroid use.
If you wouldn’t let a man who had taken steroids for a decade and still takes them compete with other men, then you already acknowledge the biological advantage men have over women at physical sports.
I mean we also see a lot of what I would define as “outlier behavior” from men more generally. We see crazier olympic world records being set and broken, we see higher rates of suicide and violent crime, that sort of shit, which I’m personally kind of interested in figuring out the reason for. If you took some theoretical “average” man and some theoretical “average” woman I think they’d probably be a lot closer in terms of strength and stamina and shit than comparing athletes of different sexes to one another, I think the gap would be smaller.
They would not. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
The difference between the average man and the average woman is the same as the difference between a man who’s been taking steroids since he was 12, and an average man.
Estrogen is also a hell of a drug… It’s actully a point in the article that people give testosterone too much credit and estrogen not enough credit when it comes to how they affect the physique.
Your argument being founded on the effects of testosterone is not a good one…
It’s nothing compared to testosterone.
For example I am an average height and weight guy. I had never gone to a gym in my life, but at 25 decided to start powerlifting with some friends for fun. Within 3 months I was already lifting nearly as much as the world record lifts by women in my weight class.
I started going to my university powerlifting competitions, having lifted for less than a year, and was definitely lifting poorly compared to the other men, but I out-lifted every woman there most of whom had been training for years.
I don’t think you understand the average difference in strength between men and women, it’s rather large.
It took me literally less than a minute to google and disprove that claim in this ‘article’:
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathons_at_the_Olympics#%3A~%3Atext%3DIn_2020%2C_both_the_men's%2Cby_Tiki_Gelana_in_2012.?wprov=sfla1
This article is not scientific, its simply an opinion piece and should be treated as such. And honestly I don’t even think it was a good opinion piece. And why is it hosted on Scientific American?
Because if you say things like this enough, people believe you
Men tend to be taller, so I’d think longer limbs are an advantage. I don’t pretend to know anything beyond that.
1.Wikipedia is not a scientific source.
I found this study that seems to support their point.
“Men Are More Likely than Women to Slow in the Marathon”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263585668_Men_Are_More_Likely_than_Women_to_Slow_in_the_Marathon
I can’t read the article so unfortunately don’t have the grounds to agree or disagree with you. But I’d be carefull voicing my option like this when your only source is Wikipedia and isn’t speaking about the claim you are trying to disprove.
Edit: incase anybody is interested in reading some more real evidence instead of Wikipedia, this study goed deep into mens vs womans endurance and highlights a few problems with research focusing on males as the baseline.
Sex Differences in VO2max and the Impact on Endurance-Exercise Performance
Men are faster than women in a marathon because they can maintain a pace for longer without slowing, that’s called endurance.
I can’t believe the superior endurance of men can even be up for debate, but clearly no one does enough exercise anymore for the self evident to reveal itself.
Endurance is not speed. If I can go 4 hours at 5 miles per hour before I have to take a break to rest and you can go 2 hours at 10 miles an hour before you have to stop, you’d be much faster than me in a 2 mile race. But that doesn’t have anything to do with endurance.
Why are you changing 2 variables. Endurance is your ability to perform at a certain level for a period of time. Kipchoge has more endurance than me because he can maintain my 800m pace for 26 miles. Speed is literally only a consideration for sprinting. As soon as you’re performing past that, it’s all endurance. And when we look at all tests of endurance; iron man, ultra marathon, military fitness, triathlon, etc etc. Men come out on top.
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In the longest ultramarathon, which is 3,100 miles, men have beaten women by days every single year: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Transcendence_3100_Mile_Race
TLDR Male 40 day 9 hours, Female 45 days 12 hours.
they’re the ones that specified marathons!