Comment by bardworx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bardworx | Hacker News Reader

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I’m not 100% sold on your statement. One simple argument you’re making is that men are stronger than women, which is currently true. But why?

From googling for a few min, I found some interesting stuff; For example, women were not allowed to compete in Boston marathon until 1970s [0]. And times within the some groups of runners, since women began competing, is displaying a trend that men vs women times are getting closer (same article).

So this begs the question: since women haven’t been allowed to compete in sports for thousands of years, what will happen to their bodies when they are allowed to compete? In other words, on a long enough time scale, I believe that certain sports will have equal competition (running is one).

There are also clear cases and valid reasons for men being stronger/more fit but the main culprits, in at least endurance sports, is total body fat and hemoglobin [1]. I’m not 100% certain these factors cannot, over time, be diluted into equilibrium.

I’m not a scientist and don’t study such things but my guess is that male dominance won’t always be as pronounced as some folks think. One totally unscientific reason for my hypothesis is that there are just too many edge cases in sports that proved people wrong. The most famous ones, I can think of are: sprinters shouldn’t run standing up (Bolt). NBA players not shooting Free Throws underhand (Berry).

[0]: https://www.outsideonline.com/2386436/are-women-closing-men-...

[1]: https://www.outsideonline.com/2336111/defining-upper-limits-...

> Since women haven’t been allowed to compete in sports for thousands of years, what will happen to their bodies when they are allowed to compete?

I believe the effect here would be mainly in terms of training, recovery, and nutritional science targeted specifically for women evolving over time to increase the caliber of female talent overall.

You also need the recruitment programs, marketing, and prize money to more successfully identify the potential number 1 top females for specific sports, and convince them to devote a lifetime to training for it.

It’s not an evolutionary (gene pool) thing, it’s an environmental thing.

I would assume certain sports lend themselves more toward selecting for physiology that both men and women are equally likely to develop (e.g. hemoglobin) and others will tend to benefit from testosterone or muscle mass that men will always hold an inherent biological advantage, meaning the sports should maintain distinct biologically male and female playing fields.

In my opinion, you’re spot on. There will be areas of a unified sport field while other sports are simply impossible (boxing comes to mind).

> since women haven’t been allowed to compete in sports for thousands of years, what will happen to their bodies when they are allowed to compete?

I am not sure I get it. Are you suggesting that the reason men dominate almost all sports is not due to their undoubtedly greater physical capacity, but due to some societal discrimination?

Also, are your suggesting that evolution works such that appreciable biological differences show up in just a few thousand years?

Based on data, some sports are showing that women are becoming as competitive as men, within a very short timetable when they were able to compete.

I’m making a statement based on data not a weak held opinion.

My opinion that in some cases, I do believe that with time, women and men will compete at the same level. Will it be boxing, American football, or Rugby? Most likely not. Other sports, however, may converge on a unified field.

With regard to biology, again based on the data, it seems that women and men are converging to a level playing field.

Also, if you took the time to read both articles, I did try to have a balance view showing there are physiological superiorities in male athletes.

In endurance sports, it seems fat and hemoglobin are the male superiority (less body fat + larger bodies and hemoglobin count). Question I pose is will this trend continue into eternity or will there be a time when such differences are mitigated via sports science?

> Based on data, some sports are showing that women are becoming as competitive as men

Which sport? I know that they can compete in shooting and some other dexterity based competitions, but other than that men outclass women in every sport I know. Men just have more energy and power per body mass in addition to having more body mass, so for everything where you have to move around yourself or something else men have a huge advantage.

Were men hunters and women gatherers because of gender norms?

No. Women are a more valuable resource and hence had to be protected.

If most men die, we can repopulate if there is a large population that is able to birth young. If most women die, resources are diminished because of time consideration.

Men go to war because they’re expandable. Why are you bringing in gender norms into the equation?

I don't give clicks to rags like outsideonline.com, sorry.

On another note I'm always amazed how confident HN posters are about any subject, even when they admit all their knowledge comes from a few minutes of google searches and articles.

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