Thank you very much for your answer. I’ll try to expand on some point a bit.

Think about if one of those earlier male-sexist studies about man as hunters and women as gatherers, that the article is critiquing, started talking about movies about male-dominated hunting and referencing the portrayals in the movies and how good it is that the movies are getting it right. See how weird that sounds? To me that would sound out of place and irrelevant and sort of indicate an agenda on the part of the writer.

But that’s not the point they are making. The way i understand it the argument is this:

Males dominate society. The ideas about who and what men and woman are, biologically and socially (gender and sex) are dominated by a male perspective. Since the science is also done by males that means there is a significant bias there to frame theories in accordance with gender and sex perceptions that are dominant in society. If we are looking at the present and how these theories are questioned, it is worth noting that the perception in society has, also, started changing. In fact the very fact, that the discourse has opened up enough to allow portraits of female hunters, shows that rethinking the evidence we have in this new framework might make sense (preferable with an open mind tough). Since this is an intersection of the societal issue of how we see gender and archology it makes sense to “zoom out” a bit and see how those perceptions have changed.

Since the studies about man-hunters are not using this sociological angle, sure it would feel out of place if they started talking about movies. But for the angle the article is taking it makes sense, in my opinion.

Also, to me you want to get the basic facts of, what is the biology and the anthropological history in a factual sense, and then build on it into this kind of wider critique and cite examples from all different fields and how they tie together. But to me, they haven’t proven the central fundamental points, and so trying to skip past them and start on analysis and implications and contrast with some other related issues from other fields offends me a certain amount, since I disagree with their underlying factual claims.

This i agree with, that might have been a better approach.

I was talking specifically about the idea that nutrition and athletic training and performance has been unstudied in females. “Science” as a whole, is extremely male focused yes (I talked in some other comment about the really horrifying way this sexism impacts medical studies, where they do do exactly this). But we have female Olympic athletes, female professional sports players, people who don’t have the luxury of just bobbling along with whatever theory they happen to feel like espousing. If I can be a little blunt, I think sexism in academia has a something of a safe haven to fester just because of the nature of academia, where a lot of times you can say theories and become well respected only because people are convinced by your theory. The people who make their livelihood at sports can’t just rely on other people agreeing with them though.

Thanks for clearing this up. I did a tiny bit of a deep dive and it seems, contrary to your believe, that females are indeed not studied very well in regards to many topics that are sport-related (with is relay just a specific field of medicine, btw.). Here are some quotes from studies or articles about the topic:

Overall, female physique athletes are an understudied population, and the need for more robust studies to detect low energy availability and associated health effects is warranted.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31141414/

The problem? Experts say there are huge gaps in the understanding of female physiology within the context of physical activity and sports, and there isn’t enough evidence-based research to provide concrete recommendations.

https://www.physiology.org/publications/news/the-physiologist-magazine/2021/july/the-gender-gap?SSO=Y

Female athletes have long been excluded from exercise participation, training and performance research due to the complexities associated with natural hormonal fluctuations. Consequently, the menstrual cycle (MC) and the degree to which it impacts the athlete remains understudied.

https://www.jsams.org/article/S1440-2440(22)00285-7/fulltext

Female athletes are more susceptible to sport-related concussions (SRCs) and experience worse outcomes compared with male athletes. Although numerous studies on SRC have compared the outcomes of concussions in male and female athletes after injury, research pertaining to why female athletes have worse outcomes is limited.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7366411/

Considering the anatomical differences between male and female athletes, the lack of data and – in consequence – specific guidelines, puts women in disadvantage and may lead to suboptimal training, rehab and prehab plans. This is particularly important in the pelvis and hip area, which are very different in men and women.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/female-athletes-sports-research

To me it’s nuts to say that a women’s pro sports team, or the trainer for a female Olympic athlete, just wouldn’t have it occur to them to treat the females on the team, who need to perform physically, any differently or try to figure out accurate nutrition. Like I said, all it would take would be one coach who knew what they were doing and their female athletes would start dominating anything they took part in because their training was better.

But on what would that coach base their approach? There is no scientific data to use. Thats the point. The only way how to “know what they are doing” is by using the knowledge that has been acquired from male athletes and hope that it translates to females.