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The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong
(www.scientificamerican.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry
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I absolutely agree with the thesis that both men and women hunted, but I think the claims of women's superior endurance are not represented in reality. The fastest marathon time for men is 2 hours 1 minute and for women it is 2 hours 14 minutes. These were in 2023 and 2019 respectively, so it's not like it was years ago with drastically different treatment of the sexes. Both runners were Kenyans too, so that limits non-sex based biological differences.
I don't buy that it is socialization. For one thing, the difference disappears in sports like shooting and horseback riding where physicality is not the determining factor. On top of that, when children compete at sports there are negligible performance differences until after puberty. The article mentions the record a woman holds for swimming across the English Channel. I think that women's higher body fat provides buoyancy that massively reduces the energy required to stay afloat for a prolonged time. We don't see the same supposed superiority in other endurance events.
This link touches on many of the same topics as the main article and adds some more info.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240731-the-sports-where-women-outperform-men
An under-15 boy's soccer team destroyed the US World Women's Soccer Team. That's just a random group of boys who aren't anywhere near their peak, vs literally the best female soccer players in the country. The physical strength, speed, and endurance differences between biological males and females is undeniable. Anyone who says differently is being intellectually and probably emotionally dishonest with themselves. Also, this purported evidence that women were the hunters is a very small sample size out of all of our anthropological evidence. Sure, some women hunted, and some women fought. Some cultures probably demanded that more than others. That doesn't mean that thousands of years worth of history and assumptions are wrong.
Men and women have about the same peaks but the floor is much higher for men.
Interesting rebuttal to evidence of peak female athletes getting bodied by fairly average high school aged males.
In terms of stamina and the ability to endurance hunt? It’s true. Peak female runners and peak male runners tend to average out in the marathon, the records being about 10 minutes apart. For bursts of speed needed to play Soccer and other sport? Men take the win easily. Also, these are not peak female athletes, they are just a “pro” tram from Australia.
Your arguments would be more convincing if you could read.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/australian-womens-national-team-lose-70-to-team-of-15yearold-boys-a3257266.html
Thought it was this one, my bad.
And you downvote me for being correct?
It must really hurt that reality doesn’t agree with you.
I’m not the one downvoting you
Oh, that was me. I think they're being unnecessarily unfriendly in an otherwise reasonable discussion. Bad vibe.