Biologically men are, on average, physically stronger than women, but this is not necessarily relevant to sexual equality. Physical strength is not a majorly important skill in today’s worlds. Obviously twenty-year olds, as a statistical group, are physically stronger than forty-year olds. No society, including America, considers twenty-year olds superior for that reason. There is most likely a racial difference in physical strength as well, at the least in height. But physical strength is just one facet of us as humans. We contribute to society in several different ways and physique, psychology, emotions, intellect, and empathy all matter. When all these elements are taken as a whole there are no difference between the sexes considered as statistical groups.

Unlike all the other groups (age-based and race-based) where too differences in physique are biological, when it comes to sex differences, society has long decided the difference matters. This has been used largely to restrict women to the private sphere, marked unfit for the sphere of public work. That women have other qualities equally important in the public sphere has been largely ignored. It is true there are biological differences between the sexes, making men better suited, say, for lifting heavy objects, but it is also true that these differences ought to matter far less than they did for most of history. By the mid twentieth century, after industrialization rendered sheer physical strength largely unnecessary, women were still blocked from actively participating in the workforce. No job should be gender segregated; it may be that in some jobs there may well be more men or more women statistically but that should be a natural outcome and not the product of cultural conditioning or bias.

I really liked this article! As I was reading, I initially assumed that this article was going to be talking about women’s weakness and men’s strength. I’m glad to have learned about our genes. Mother nature went and gave us a back up. It’s kind of how when my mother thinks about bringing extra clothes just in case of an accident. It’s also very interesting to learn that if there was an apocalypse, women would have more strength to survive it.

I am also tired of people believing that women are the weaker sex. Although we may not be physically superior, we can carry our own weight. I remember countless of times in high school there would be times when teachers would ask for volunteers to help carry textbooks. Many of the times, only the boys would be picked because the teacher believed the girls did not have the strength to help. In my opinion,despite our appearances we are quite strong.

Thanks for the interesting read!
You hit the nail in the head when you end the post with the fact that neither sex is physically superior, they each have pros/cons. I like to entertain the idea that the way biology has evolved is to make make each species resistant in the pairing of its male/female form. Biologically speaking, did men evolve to have more muscle so that hunting/providing/defending their group was easier and women evolved to be able to rear young by accumulating fat so that they could feed two people at a time by surviving the long, grueling nine month journey of conception to birth?
These two examples are very primordial though and they are not an excuse for a society that has evolved beyond hunting tribes to hark back to these days as a convenient way of propping one sex over the other.
We each have our physical strengths and weaknesses. But it’s our society’s culture that chooses which part of the body to focus on. Because we idolize athletes, we naturally tend to think of boys as stronger because for the entire male population, turning calories to muscle fiber is an easier endeavor thanks to biology. However, even female athletes have a hard time putting on muscle compared to their male counterparts. Despite this they still achieve pretty amazing results in the Olympics and World Championships.( side note: it would be interesting to see the study of female athlete’s production of testosterone compared against the entire female population and where they would fall in the bell curve). Ultimately, we should value each sex for what they bring to the table instead of forcing them into gender roles that we have come to define as sex in society.

This article does a good job or providing an unbiased and well rounded opinion of weaknesses among men and women. Society has somehow formed an opinion since the very beginning that women are indeed the weaker sex since we can’t easily build muscle to carry heavy loads or grow taller. However, one aspect that society has never considered is how bearing children makes us mentally and physically stronger and also how our genetic makeup and physical differences help us live longer. In fact, even in present day society it is commonly known that women live longer than men. From an evolutionary perspective, its interesting how women are built to be survivors since they are the only ones who can bear children while men are built more to be protectors and hunters. For this reason, society has found a way of forming stereotypes around each gender which prevents and shames them from crossing over to the roles of the opposite gender.

I read something how men’s narrow hips and pelvis is part to do with the advantage in regards to speed and why men on average are faster. It’s the only thing I can think of, as men have every reason to be slower and not as quick.