# Are there any sports women are equal to, or have an advantage over men? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 20, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793 "2014-02-20T15:19:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Bellhorn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Bellhorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bellhorn)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/81 "2014-02-21T23:25:36Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > … > There are a few woman record holders, but the vast majority of the record holders are men. Women are competitive, but the difference in the popular routes (such as the English Channel) is there. … But the point is that some women have held the English Channel crossing record (I think Lynne Cox is one of them), so that points to equality in some respect. No woman is ever going to run the fastest mile or fastest marathon record, even for a day. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/82 "2014-02-23T09:47:18Z")
Wet T-shirt contest. (Sorry!) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/83 "2014-02-23T16:23:28Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > [QUOTE=standingwave] > But if the women are as good as the men, why not open competition for the big bucks? Well, that’s exactly the point; they aren’t. [/QUOTE] Again, not exactly, as I and others have said: > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > The outliers in the male ability bell curve are simply more so than the women and as it is from this freakish end of the gene pool that we get our champions then it is unlikely to be a woman (not impossible though) Sports are not comparing men and women. They are comparing the “freakish end of the gene pool”, the very best performing men and women. And the fact that men produce more extremes means that men are going to win out there almost always, regardless of if men as a group and better at the task in question than women as a group. > [@Malacandra](#): > > _shrug_ If there’s anything to the popular view that women are better than men at multitasking, perhaps this is a counterpoint: chess at the top level requires intense unitasking. Quite plausible actually, there are [major differences](http://today.uci.edu/iframe.php?p=/news/release_detail_iframe.asp?key=1261) in how male and female brains work. And male brains do seem better built for excelling at a single specialized function. > [@](#): > > In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of – or connections between – these processing centers. > > This, according to Rex Jung, a UNM neuropsychologist and co-author of the study, may help to explain why men tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing (like mathematics), while women tend to excel at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions in the brain, such as required for language facility. These two very different neurological pathways and activity centers, however, result in equivalent overall performance on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as those found on intelligence tests. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/84 "2014-02-23T16:48:40Z")
> [@DataX](#): > > My guess is horse sports are more evenly matched due in part to weight requirements. The riders need to be close to the same weight (or will be after extra weight is added to them). Actually apart from racing weight cloths aren’t used. In Eventing, Dressage, Hunter/Jumper, Endurance etc there is no weight requirement or limit and it really is skill vs skill. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/85 "2014-02-23T17:07:01Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Sports are not comparing men and women. They are comparing the “freakish end of the gene pool”, the very best performing men and women. And the fact that men produce more extremes means that men are going to win out there almost always, regardless of if men as a group and better at the task in question than women as a group. If that wasn’t pretty much what I wrote then it is precisely what I meant. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/86 "2014-02-23T17:32:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Sports are not comparing men and women. They are comparing the “freakish end of the gene pool”, the very best performing men and women. And the fact that men produce more extremes means that men are going to win out there almost always, regardless of if men as a group and better at the task in question than women as a group. > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > If that wasn’t pretty much what I wrote then it is precisely what I meant. All you’ve done is show that it’s mathematically possible for the average woman to be the equal or superior of the average man at Task X, provided the male variance is greater and their average not too low. Mathematically it’s at least as plausible, however, if not more so, for the large imbalance at the top end to be the product of a generally higher average combined with a comparable (or possibly greater) variance. Where’s the data on the averages? And I thought I saw earlier on in the thread an apparently serious suggestion that “average” male performance should include the performance of all the men who don’t participate at all, including those who don’t participate by reason of being dead… which I can’t help finding silly. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/87 "2014-02-23T17:51:15Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > And I thought I saw earlier on in the thread an apparently serious suggestion that “average” male performance should include the performance of all the men who don’t participate at all, including those who don’t participate by reason of being dead… which I can’t help finding silly. That was me. And it’s not silly; I was making the point that any realistic attempt to declare men as a group superior needs to take in to account the fact that men are more prone to be sick, mentally or physically disabled or dead. Literally from before birth; more males are conceived than females because a higher proportion of males never make it to birth. If you only include the very best men or even just exclude the worst off then you are skewing the comparison between the genders drastically. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/88 "2014-02-23T19:11:01Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > All you’ve done is show that it’s mathematically possible for the average woman to be the equal or superior of the average man at Task X, provided the male variance is greater and their average not too low. Mathematically it’s at least as plausible, however, if not more so, for the large imbalance at the top end to be the product of a generally higher average combined with a comparable (or possibly greater) variance. Where’s the data on the averages? I think there’s some confusion here. Let me state clearly. Given an athletic task x. The average woman may be better than the average man. However, we do not get our champions from that part of the ability curve. The higher outliers (and lower outliers) are likely to be male and so more likely to the world/olympic champions. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/89 "2014-02-24T00:23:40Z")
There are quite a few High School athletes, so many that we’re no longer talking about the freakish end of the gene pool. Is there any High School sport where the girls would be competitive with the guys? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793/90 "2014-03-08T14:04:18Z")
In gymnastics, women and men also vault. Both use the same equipment. It was a big deal how high Mikayla was vaulting, almost as high as the men, and higher than any other girl. Ice skating, if measured on jumps will go to men. Men are pulling quads, it’s almost required now, while women have only landed a couple quads in competition. Plenty of male figure skaters have grace and balance and coordination and fluidity and all of that. Plus, you’re in the subjective realm of judging. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-sports-women-are-equal-to-or-have-an-advantage-over-men/681793.md?page=4)