[tempposter]

Posting this from an alt because I've almost gotten in trouble for mentioning this. But the overlap is not that big:

> Hand-grip strength has been identified as one limiting factor for manual lifting and carrying loads. To obtain epidemiologically relevant hand-grip strength data for pre-employment screening, we determined maximal isometric hand-grip strength in 1,654 healthy men and 533 healthy women aged 20-25 years. Moreover, to assess the potential margins for improvement in hand-grip strength of women by training, we studied 60 highly trained elite female athletes from sports known to require high hand-grip forces (judo, handball)

> 90% of females produced less force than 95% of males. Though female athletes were significantly stronger (444 N) than their untrained female counterparts, this value corresponded to only the 25th percentile of the male subjects.

> The results of female national elite athletes even indicate that the strength level attainable by extremely high training will rarely surpass the 50th percentile of untrained or not specifically trained men.

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17186303/

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Yet there are hundreds of female rock climbers who will kick my ass on any crag in existence. We're not like spiders where the males are super tiny and easily eaten by the females, or even cardinals where the male has really colorful plumage. The differences are not super significant.

[Evolution314]

This is comparing two entirely different things. Rock climbing is a very complex sport in which the physical advantages that females have, such as flexibility are of similar importance to strength. Being able to get a high foot will give you much more leverage on the stronger muscles of your legs which is especially important when your forearms are screaming at you. Female climbers are also usually more efficient than male climbers which is needed as they are on average less strong. The difference between female strength and male strength in climbers is still significant, but the difference in performance less.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I'm fairly certain Alex Puccio will kick my ass at any sport you care to name, and I'm sure that goes for the vast majority of men.

[empthought]

Luckily someone already did research into this (the other commenter linked it) and it’s likely she’d only be able to kick half of men’s asses at best.

Which would still be pretty impressive and unlikely.

This whole “actually there’s a big overlap” misconception is easily defeatable by noting that no women play in the NBA, NHL, MLB, or MLS. If there is a big overlap in physical capability, why haven’t women started going for the millions of dollars available in these open leagues? Are they too lazy, or too stupid?

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I'm going to need a citation on that. I very much doubt even 25% of the men in the world could do what she does.

The big overlap is with the rest of the population. Of course little advantages in a population are going to be exaggerated if you only sample the top 1% of people!

[empthought]

You managed to reply to a whole comment thread without reading the existing citation, why do you need it repeated?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17186303/

> The results of female national elite athletes even indicate that the strength level attainable by extremely high training will rarely surpass the 50th percentile of untrained or not specifically trained men.

The data from this study is helpfully visualized here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/4vcxd0/alm...

You said "in any sport" and not bouldering, so this finding will apply. You can also consult the rest of the literature such as it is. Or spend some time in a mixed-sex group strength training program and just observe.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7253873/

> Results indicate that untrained men have greater upper and lower body strength than trained women athletes in terms of both absolute and relative strength.

[fennecfoxy]

I thought we did science on here. Pointing out specific examples in a population when the topic is about the average is counter-productive. Kind of a logical fallacy there.

There's a reason that sports are separated by sex. There's a reason why men are the perpetrators and victims of most crime.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

And women are more nurturing on average, which is why they should stay home and take care of the kids. It's genetics.

Suffice it to say, I don't buy that this is all a good argument for why people shouldn't be allowed to transition.

[fennecfoxy]

Nobody said it was an argument for that thank you very much.

But it is bad science to point out individuals in a population as the rule rather than exceptions to the rule.

[tempposter]

You are talking about "safe spaces". A woman's ability to rock climb better than a you doesn't make her much safer. If you were in a locker room with a woman, even if she was better at rock climbing, chances are, if you attempted to physically assault her, she would easily be overpowered.