# Are there any sports or activities women are better at?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-or-activities-women-are-better-at/718535>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [April 25, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-or-activities-women-are-better-at/718535 "2015-04-25T22:42:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-or-activities-women-are-better-at/718535/41 "2015-05-07T21:52:17Z")

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> [@Aspidistra](#):
>
> I noticed an interesting thing last night at my kids’ swimming lessons.
> 
> On the wall outside the pool, they have a list of club records in various events, split by age and sex, for a couple of dozen events.
> 
> For the under 11’s, the girls times were mostly shorter than the boys’ - about a 70/30 split in the girls’ favour.
> 
> After 11, that pretty quickly started shifting - 11yo’s had about 5 girls’ records to 20 boys’, you only had to get to 16yo’s before the boys were completely cleaning up.
> 
> I wonder if this pattern is repeated in other sports? Swimming is a fairly strength-based ability - I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the smaller girls holding their own with the boys, but I was quite surprised to see them consistently doing better.

Girls hit puberty sooner than boys, and so get their growth spurt early. It may be that many of the 11 year-old girls were bigger and stronger than their male counterparts.

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**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-or-activities-women-are-better-at/718535/42 "2015-05-08T16:29:40Z")

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> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> Girls hit puberty sooner than boys, and so get their growth spurt early. It may be that many of the 11 year-old girls were bigger and stronger than their male counterparts.

That’s my guess, too.

Around 5th grade, it’s not unusual to see a lot of girls who are taller than most of the boys. Just a few years later, almost all the boys are much bigger and stronger.

At 11, it’s not that strange to see girls who play Little League baseball or Pee Wee football as well as the boys. But by 13 or 14, almost none of them can keep up with the boys.

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**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-or-activities-women-are-better-at/718535/43 "2015-05-08T22:18:10Z")

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> [@Ethilrist](#):
>
> Uneven parallel bars.

True, but possibly misleading. (From [this link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uneven_bars).):

> [@Wiki](#):
>
> The uneven bars or asymmetric bars is an artistic gymnastics apparatus. It is used only by female gymnasts.

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