Why women are not the “weaker sex”

Not that far back in our history, women were openly referred to as the “weaker sex.” Today, you can still find plenty of people who say that men are stronger and women are weaker. Typically, people won’t just openly say women are the weaker sex out loud, but the implication is certainly there. Is it true? Are women weaker?

In a word: no.

Absolute vs. Relative strength

Hmm…

Who is taller?

Men are, in an absolute sense, stronger than women. On average, a man can lift more weight than a woman. On average, a man can build more muscle than a woman. So, on average, so the logic goes, men are stronger than women. And it is true that men are, absolutely, stronger than women.

But what about in a relative sense?

If you’re not sure what those terms mean, allow me to give a simple example. If you have an empty room with two lamps in it, one with a 60 watt bulb and one with a 40 watt bulb, the 60 watt is going to be brighter. In an absolute sense, a 60 watt bulb is brighter than a 40 watt bulb. Easy.

Now, let’s say we have a warehouse that’s 500 feet long. On the far end of the warehouse is the 60 watt bulb; on the end of the warehouse where you are standing, there’s the 40 watt bulb. If you want to read a book, which bulb is brighter? It’s the 40 watt bulb. In a relative sense, the 40 watt bulb is brighter.

An absolute comparison is taking two things and directly comparing them without regard to the situation they are in. A relative comparison is taking into account the situation of the test.

So, if you take men and women and directly compare them on strength of, say, squats, men will be stronger in an absolute sense on average. Men will also, in an absolute sense, be taller. Height correlates directly to average muscle mass. Taller people simply have more muscle, not because of anything special, but just because they have more space for muscle to go.

If a man is 6 feet tall and weighs 180 lbs, and he gains 1% more muscle, he’ll weigh about 181.8 lbs. If a woman is 5 feet tall and weighs 100 lbs, and she gains 1% more muscle, she’ll weigh about 101 lbs. Both people gained 1% muscle mass, but the man put on nearly 2 lbs of muscle, where the women only put on 1 lb. The man is absolutely stronger; but in relative terms, they are equal.

Does it follow, then, that this is what we see in the real world?

Are women the stronger sex?

According to Greg Nuckols at Stronger By Science, it sure seems pretty damn likely. Since Greg couldn’t find a meta analysis that compared men and women’s strength and muscle gains, he said, “I’ll do it myself.” You can read the article for more details, but it’s the results that are relevant here:

In the areas of overall strength gains, youth strength gains, and upper body strength gains, women out performed men. In all other areas reviewed, there was no statistical difference. In more simple terms, women were at worst equal to men when it came to gains.

Admittedly, there are limitations to an informal meta analysis, among them the limited data on trained vs. untrained lifters. However, what Greg was able to work with made it very clear that there’s not much difference overall, and in many cases, women gained strength substantially faster.

This seems to fly in the face of what we’ve all heard. Men have more testosterone, and therefore build muscle faster. That’s just science…right? Nope. Men do have more testosterone, but what that seems to directly affect is your base level of muscle. When young men go through puberty, they put on more muscle naturally due to testosterone. But the advantage ends there. Testosterone, at least according James Kreiger who wrote a thorough analysis on the topic, has “minimal impact on your relative gains.”

You might point out that anabolic steroids are based on testosterone, so that must mean that muscle is built by testosterone, right? When you consider that testosterone sets the base level of muscle built, it follows that injecting extra testosterone will increase your baseline. When people stop taking anabolics, they tend to rapidly shrink. While testosterone may change the baseline of what you can achieve, it’s clearly not the only part of the puzzle.

To add further fuel to this fire, did you know that estrogen builds muscle too? So, all those boys calling people who eat tofu “soy boys” because of the estrogen-like hormones in soy were actually not just wrong, but very wrong. Even ignoring the sexist misinformation, it’s very clear that women, even with lower testosterone levels, can build strength and muscle at least on par with men.

Sexist boys vs. actual data

Boys and men will continue to call women weak no matter what the evidence says. That’s the sad reality we live in. They’ll laugh about how weak women are while high-fiving and calling other guys cucks or whatever other emasculating insults they can come up with. They will resist this idea that women are actually strong with tooth and nail.

So, let’s make it worse for them.

According to this research paper, women are more fatigue resistant than men. That means, in a weight lifting world, they can lift more weight for more reps than men. They also recover between sets faster than men. In a more aerobic/cardio sense, women are able to push harder for longer and have better outcomes from this kind of training. They also recover from said exercise more easily.

In short, women are better at getting stronger and fitter than men, and that’s backed by a growing amount of research. Now that women are actually being researched in science, it’s changing a lot of preconceptions on women and women’s health. We’re finding that, by ignoring an entire half of the population, science has been doing women an unforgivable disservice. It also turns out that, perhaps, it’s men that are the weaker sex.

The one, ONE, area where men have an actual advantage is their lack of menstrual cycle. The luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, much like the Wu Tang Clan, ain’t nothing to fuck with. In more practical terms, it means that women will have more difficulty recovering from exercise, and may struggle to exercise if cramps are a particular problem.

The problem is, however, that women, even considering the menstrual cycle, still outperform men overall. If you are a cynical person, you could take that to mean that men work about as hard as women do during their luteal phase. In other words, men are as good as women are at their worst. I would like to be cynical.

Don’t just lift to make the boys feel bad (but it’s cool if you do)

Look, just because you can go make better strength gains than the boys, that doesn’t mean you have to. It doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do so, just to spite the boys. It is, however, very funny, and I highly encourage it.

It’s a better idea to lift heavy stuff for your current and future health, for osteoporosis prevention, and plenty of other health reasons. This kind of exercise is ideal for mental health as well, something many of us are struggling with these difficult days.

But if you also get to make some boys look bad in the process? I mean, that would motivate me at least a little.

Wanna get strong?