Could women ever be as physically strong as a man or has society limited their potential?

Question

I had an argument with a girl who claimed that women can be just as strong as men. I disagreed and said the strongest man is still stronger than the strongest woman. Even during puberty, boys grow bigger muscle mass than girls do. What do you guys think?

Answer 1

I am a woman, and a scientist. Here is the deal for any one confused.

Boys and girls are made different. Apart from the (ahem) primary physically differences that allow for reproduction there are the "secondary" sexual signals and differences that have allowed specialization for two roles in our species.

More or less Men's bodies were designed with shoulders that are wider for greater leverage for more strength in throwing. With a larger rib cage, to allow for larger lungs, to allow for greater oxygen capacity, for all the running he will have to do after he throws something at someone. According his hips are efficiently narrow for the previously mentioned running.

More or Less Women are designed to carry a baby as long as possible, then spit it out before the head will no longer fit through the birth canal. Which unfortunately is situated between the hips. Which necessitates them being wider apart, which (in general) makes walking/running efficiency of the female skeleton about 15% less as good as the male. Fortunately it provides a nice shelf to carry the kid around on once it is born. Women also have greater body fat since it is incontinent to starve at a crucial moment when two lives may be at stake, as well as the fact that women are not able to get pregnant when that fat reserve is not available, proof that the body will not commit to pregnancy unless it is optimistic it can be completed.

Interestingly enough the male and female BRAINS may even be physically different. More or less, the guy is designed to Hunt, and does better with focused tasks, and can find his way by distances better. More or less the female brain is designed to Gather, doing better juggling multiple priorities, and finding her way best by landmarks.

Our species in not the only sexual dimorphic one.
There is in fact an entire classification for species where the male and female are so different that they were originally thought to be 2 separate species. This is the most common in underwater environments.

In the aquatic species often the male is reduced to a living "sperm packet" which attaches to the female for her to keep until she decides to fertilize.

Some species do not have a gender until the run into another of the same species. There is a tube worm that the gametes are sent into the water, and as the filter down their gender depends on where they land. If they land on the female (about 12" high) they become the male (sperm packet like) if they land on the ground they become female.

In short: I do not think the human female can be physically stronger than the male, nor do I think the male can be physically more flexible than the female. It is a shame some people are so insecure they have to compare themselves to someone else. The prejudice is in her head you see? She sees the "Male" attribute of "physical strength" as the yardstick. Instead of seeing all the qualities of excellence in herself.

You like apples? How bout' dem apples?

Answer 2

That is the male chauvinist in you speaking.I had witnesses wrestling matches between female vs male sportspersons the female invariably downing the male. The male athelete would sheepishly excuse that the wnderful phyhsique of his opponent lulled him. May be true. If yes the attraction is after all a physical force and the lady stands over hier opponen.

A woman is geneally descrbed as 'powerless' by men. The eipthet has become a synonm for a woman. It beguiles the male of the species. A simple Christan even claimed that the very fact that Adam was created first is proof of male seniority. God forgive him.

The deciding argument in the matter is the phenomenon of conception, growing the embryo within her and the final world-shattering(with its wailing)cries of the infant Do you know the stark physical truth that if men were to conceive etc. most of them would die within the first childbirth.I knew at least one woman who had delivered eleven bonnie babies and yet maintained her youth.

Answer 3

A woman COULD be as strong as a man, but that would not be the norm. Men are generally stronger than woman, and that's biological, not societal. Society has NOT reduced a woman's strength, rather, biology has. When she said "woman can be just as strong as men" she did not say "A woman can be as strong as A MAN (not men)." Since she is talking about a general trend and not a special case, you are correct.

Answer 4

While there are certainly some women that are stronger then some men, on the whole women have less body strength then men and that won't change anytime soon. Male hormones (testosterone) builds and develops muscle mass and men tend to have less body fat percentages then women over the whole. Women do have other advantages over men such as in flexibility. Bottom line: we're all different.

Answer 5

Crystal Violet has really the only answer worth reading.

What you have to be careful with is your context. When the girl you argued with said, "as strong as men", did she mean physically? If she did, then ok, fair enough. If she didn't, I'd consider it quite possible you just took it that way - and it's probably somewhat indicative of how the male and female brains work.

Look at one of the early answers, defending women's alternative strengths. My male brain says, "well that's fine, but you're blindly defending women out of context," because the question was physical strength.

Of course we have strengths and weaknesses. But when it comes to physical strength, men (as a generalization) have more.

Could it change? It would take a long time, but eventually it probably will. Modern lifestyle with technology is so sedentary that you have to wonder how much less strength we'll have in the tens of thousands of years to come. We may be equal, but we'll both be less... :)

Answer 6

Umm.... what if neither of your options are answered correctly with a yes??? You shouldn't have an 'or' between them. Some women CAN be strong. But not most. And it has nothing to do with society, everything to do with biology. Personally, I think that the girl you argued with should figure out that women don't have to be as strong as men to be worth just as much.

Answer 7

Let's check Sydney Olympic (2000) Weightlifting results:

Men's 69kg final

Group A final:

1. Galabin Boevski (BUL) 357.5kg (162.5 - 195.0)

2. Georgi Markov (BUL) 352.5 (165.0 - 187.5)

3. Sergei Lavrenov (BLR) 340.0 (157.5 - 182.5)


Women's 69kg

Group A final:

1. Weining Lin (CHN) 242.5 (110.0 - 132.5)

2. Erzsebet Markus (HUN) 242.5 (112.5 - 130.0)

3. Karnam Malleswari (IND) 240.0 (110.0 - 130.0)


The Men's top position is more than the Women's top position by 1.47 X for the same weight (69kg) category.

You can monitor this for future Olympic competition and see if the gap is narrowing. Given that every contestant is out to achieve his or her best, we can see that there is still a 47% gap between the sexes, at least for this game. One can try to account for this 47% difference to biology.

Answer 8

You are mistaken. My late wife was stronger than I was. Women can be very strong, and just as mean, violent, and unfaithful as men are SAID to be. In my experience, more so. Don't think me weak. I was a martial artist for many years, and had a physically challenging job. Just threaten a woman's child and see what happens to you. You are in for a big wake-up call, my friend. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," also. REMEMBER that.

Answer 9

I think it depends on what kind of strength.

I'd argue women are more resilant emotionally through a lot of things, but men are always gonna be able to beat us up if they want.

A bit of trivia: those who are studying the evolution of the marathon may soon be shocked to see that the fastest woman's time is only a couple minutes behind the fastest man's time. The men are levelling out while women are improving quickly and it's not out of the realm of possibility that a woman will have the record by 2025.

Answer 10

In general men will be stronger than women due to their biology.