I am glad to hear it. Yeah for however it may have sounded, I was making a sincere effort to engage with the topic. Trying to at least.
But this preprint (!) from 2023 suggests that, even with equal participation numbers, men still outperform woman.
Well, slightly. Not by much. I looked over the study and it seems like it would definitely imply that above 50 miles, when you correct for the number of participants, it’s pretty similar. I can buy that. So yeah maybe I was wrong to poo poo the ultramarathon thing (or at least potentially wrong).
While there are real, uncontroversial mean biological differences between females and males, the differences that give females an advantage are not only regularly ignored but also understudied. Because of this, science poorly understands female athletic capabilities in terms of strength, endurance, and fatigue. Until this uneven understanding is rectified, our reconstructions of past sexual divisions of labour will be biased and limit the likely broad repertoire of activities females participated in during our evolutionary past.
All this, I agree with. Actually I would amend “understudied” to “deliberately downplayed.” But yes I think this all is 100% accurate.
In regards to your question why movies and gender roles are part of the article, i would like to ask why this seems to be problematic for you?
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.
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.
What the fuck is this I feel like I’m taking crazy pills
Why? What is the crazy part to you? Do you disagree with the statement that science has been extreme male focused? As far as i can tell it indeed has been and still is. What’s crazy in pointing that out? Or do you disagree?
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. 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.
Yes! I absolutely agree. None of their three chosen examples showes any female dominating in any category, neither once or “regularly”. It is bad practice to make such a claim. I wouldn’t label it as sexist. It’s just really bad science. And it invalidates a lot of the very sensible and very much proven point the authors make. And I agree with you: It is not a good thing when anybody does this, regardless of agenda.
Yeah. They took a pretty compelling case and a valid insightful point and then ran way too far with it and included a bunch of specific claims that seem to me to be totally nuts. Which is fine if they had backed them up factually and made a solid case, but to me a lot of the time they’re just throwing stuff out there.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I feel like the second part isn’t true anymore. I actually think in modern academia, the feminist perspective dominates, case in point being this article, where there are some extremely strong claims that are seemingly fine to present, whereas I feel like if it had the mirror-image claims then it’d a huge big deal and a problem.
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.
Ooooh… so, I actually for whatever weird reason was looking at this through the “academic paper” lens, like it was an article that was about a new anthropological paper that these two authors had submitted. It’s not that. It’s just a magazine article. So, I think some of my criticism about stuff that shouldn’t have been included was 100% unfair. I don’t know why I was looking at it that way but talking about movies and pop culture in addition to the evolution and anthropology is 100% fine for just an article. I have no idea why I thought that but I withdraw that complaint.
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:
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.
So two reasons why I * can* agree with you that there’s still a blind spot in academia about female exercise physiology, but it’s not as big a deal to me:
There’s a whole galaxy of knowledge outside of academia. I do agree with you on a certain only-study-the-males bias in academia even now. I just don’t think that translates to an overall human lack of knowledge about how things work and how to train athletes of any gender, e.g. by the ones who are doing it for a living. In terms of where they get their knowledge, it’s like anything; it’s a mix of academic theory, personal experience, observation of what’s working for other people, folklore, and judgement. And crucially the chance to put your theories to a not-up-for-debate test.
I don’t feel like it’s necessary to understand gender differences in physiology in a ton of detail in order to draw anthropological conclusions. The example of hunting with dogs in the article is a great one; you don’t need to understand the physiology to understand that example or draw the conclusions that the different authors draw from it. You do need to be able to look unbiased at the evidence in front of you, and I think that’s important for all authors concerned to be able to do. Besides that, athletic physiology in prehistorical societies is dramatically different from either athletes’ or lay people’s physiology in the modern day (I say that based on reading accounts of modern people who lived with prehistorical-culture people and experienced their daily physical life). I’m not sure that learning about the latter prepares you to be real qualified about the former whether you’re doing it gender-unbiased or not. But like I say I’m not convinced it’s necessary.
IDK, I don’t think there’s a huge gulf between our viewpoints. And thank you for the ultramarathon study in particular; it was really interesting.
IDK, I don’t think there’s a huge gulf between our viewpoints. And thank you for the ultramarathon study in particular; it was really interesting.
While we still have somewhat different viewpoints I have to say that I enyoed the exchange. It’s nice to see interact with people that are open to overthinking their position and I have some angles to consider that I have not been are of before. So thank you for that :-)
I am glad to hear it. Yeah for however it may have sounded, I was making a sincere effort to engage with the topic. Trying to at least.
Well, slightly. Not by much. I looked over the study and it seems like it would definitely imply that above 50 miles, when you correct for the number of participants, it’s pretty similar. I can buy that. So yeah maybe I was wrong to poo poo the ultramarathon thing (or at least potentially wrong).
All this, I agree with. Actually I would amend “understudied” to “deliberately downplayed.” But yes I think this all is 100% accurate.
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.
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.
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. 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.
Yeah. They took a pretty compelling case and a valid insightful point and then ran way too far with it and included a bunch of specific claims that seem to me to be totally nuts. Which is fine if they had backed them up factually and made a solid case, but to me a lot of the time they’re just throwing stuff out there.
Thank you very much for your answer. I’ll try to expand on some point a bit.
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.
This i agree with, that might have been a better approach.
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:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31141414/
https://www.physiology.org/publications/news/the-physiologist-magazine/2021/july/the-gender-gap?SSO=Y
https://www.jsams.org/article/S1440-2440(22)00285-7/fulltext
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7366411/
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/female-athletes-sports-research
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.
I feel like the second part isn’t true anymore. I actually think in modern academia, the feminist perspective dominates, case in point being this article, where there are some extremely strong claims that are seemingly fine to present, whereas I feel like if it had the mirror-image claims then it’d a huge big deal and a problem.
Ooooh… so, I actually for whatever weird reason was looking at this through the “academic paper” lens, like it was an article that was about a new anthropological paper that these two authors had submitted. It’s not that. It’s just a magazine article. So, I think some of my criticism about stuff that shouldn’t have been included was 100% unfair. I don’t know why I was looking at it that way but talking about movies and pop culture in addition to the evolution and anthropology is 100% fine for just an article. I have no idea why I thought that but I withdraw that complaint.
So two reasons why I * can* agree with you that there’s still a blind spot in academia about female exercise physiology, but it’s not as big a deal to me:
There’s a whole galaxy of knowledge outside of academia. I do agree with you on a certain only-study-the-males bias in academia even now. I just don’t think that translates to an overall human lack of knowledge about how things work and how to train athletes of any gender, e.g. by the ones who are doing it for a living. In terms of where they get their knowledge, it’s like anything; it’s a mix of academic theory, personal experience, observation of what’s working for other people, folklore, and judgement. And crucially the chance to put your theories to a not-up-for-debate test.
I don’t feel like it’s necessary to understand gender differences in physiology in a ton of detail in order to draw anthropological conclusions. The example of hunting with dogs in the article is a great one; you don’t need to understand the physiology to understand that example or draw the conclusions that the different authors draw from it. You do need to be able to look unbiased at the evidence in front of you, and I think that’s important for all authors concerned to be able to do. Besides that, athletic physiology in prehistorical societies is dramatically different from either athletes’ or lay people’s physiology in the modern day (I say that based on reading accounts of modern people who lived with prehistorical-culture people and experienced their daily physical life). I’m not sure that learning about the latter prepares you to be real qualified about the former whether you’re doing it gender-unbiased or not. But like I say I’m not convinced it’s necessary.
IDK, I don’t think there’s a huge gulf between our viewpoints. And thank you for the ultramarathon study in particular; it was really interesting.
While we still have somewhat different viewpoints I have to say that I enyoed the exchange. It’s nice to see interact with people that are open to overthinking their position and I have some angles to consider that I have not been are of before. So thank you for that :-)
👍🏻 ❤️