Sorry about the generalisation in the thread title.
Why is it that most men can throw a ball overarm, and most women cannot (personally I have only ever met one that can). When women try, they tend to use a ‘shot putting’ action.
I think it must just be practice/conditioning; as a red-blooded male, try throwing with your left arm (or the right one if you’re an evil leftie) and it’s nearly impossible not to ‘throw like a girl’.
I’ve never met a woman who can’t throw.
As to a possible answer… gee… maybe women, as young girls, were pushed into playing with Barbie dolls instead of learning the practicalities of sport? Maybe dimwit sport teachers didn’t bother teaching them?
All humans can throw. It’s a matter of learning the right action.
Max.
I think it’s just practise. There are plenty of girls who play throwing sports (Softball etc etc) who throw perfectly.
Either the women you know throw funny, or you’ve never watched shot put.
As the others have said, it’s practice. Toss a four-year-old a ball, and s/he’ll throw it back to you underhand. It’s a more “natural” motion, I think, even though overhand has its advantaged once mastered.
I think it has to do with boys being reared towards sports at an early age. Fathers love to teach there boys how to throw and catch a ball early on.
How come most cant spit either? I always thought it odd that this most basic of actions, the removal of some substance from the mouth, is something that doesn’t come natural to girls.
As for the throwing, I think it has to do with our prehistoric roots. The way we killed food was by throwing something at it. Not only are our muscles designed for this, but our brains are probably hardwired differently when it comes to physical activity. While anyone can be taught to throw, I disagree that that is all there is to it. Take a boy, say age 10, who has never played baseball and ask him to throw something to you he will most likely do it overhand, and not lead with his elbow like a girl would. Regardless of sports, boys just naturally pick up rocks and throw them at things. It is what we do.
Throwing things, running, and those kind of activities are not as interesting to girls as developing social relationships so they do not practice them.
Does anyone remember the Saturday Night Live skit many moons ago about the “Run, Throw, and Catch like a Girl Olympics?” Totally hilarious.
I agree that most woman use the 'shot putting’action to throw the ball. They try to ‘push’ the ball instead of swinging their arm. However when I try to throw with my left hand I tend to use the same motion. I would say this would be the motion you use until you learn to throw properly through practice that most women do not get.
I think girls are encouraged to play sports more in recent years so this is probably not as true as it once was. My sister is very athletic and can throw properly, but I still tell her she throws like a girl when she makes a bad throw 
Not only my SO can throw a ball overarm, but she can also throw you around like a hay stack. 
nice stereotype…
I know that when I throw with my left arm, I throw ‘like a girl’. I know what I am doing wrong and how it feels to throw ‘properly’ because I can do it with my right, but I just can’t seem to get the muscles to do what I want them to. The problem is that I just don’t practice.
When I throw with my right hand, my elbow is well behind my hand and, in fact my body, when I wind up, then start the throw with my elbow and finish the throw like a whip with my hand finally passing my elbow as I release the ball.
When I attempt to throw with my left, my elbow tends to stay in front of my hand during the wind up and I can’t get any decent power transferred to my hand. Even if I try to mimic the action that I use when I throw with my right, I can’t seem to coordinate the movements to make a fluid completion to the throw resulting in an inaccurate and weak throw.
I guess you have to go through a Rocky Balboa type training to learn to throw southpaw.
Actually, I read somewhere (I forget where) that women’s arms and arm joints curve differently than men’s, which was why women throw differently (not “improperly”).
In my experience, girls can’t throw balls, but if i come home rolling drunk “She” will mysteriously be able to throw all manner of hard and pointy objects with unnerring accuracy.
I don’t throw properly because no one ever showed me how to throw properly. I did not play any team sports as a child. In PE I mostly tried not to have to touch the ball in any game we played. The only athletic activity I enjoyed was running which (if done properly) doesn’t require the ability to throw.
I think that reason many girls don’t throw “properly” is because they have never learned how. Obviously they can learn because women who play sports throw the same way men do.
Well, I thought this was the case too, and ran off to do a little googling to find cites.
Instead, I found this and this, which state the opposite.
So I can no longer blame my lousy throwing skills on biology.
Rats.
What I have always observed and heard is that women have a different body motion than men when throwing. Men tend to lead with their shoulders, while women tend to lead with their hips. This has to do with differences in center of gravity, muscle concentrations, etc.
If that’s not what you mean and you are really asking why some women can’t throw further than ten feet, it’s because they have never been taught when young. And you will have a hard time teaching them when they are older, just because it’s often difficult teaching older people new physical motions.
Best not say say anything about old dogs and new tricks, just in case “She” is watching
It’s practice and nothing else.
Anyone who has played softball with experienced female players knows this. On my co-ed team we have six women. Five have played a lot of softball and they all throw VERY well; they’re all very capable defensive players. The one who has not played much ball throws, well, like a girl.
In an exhibition game last year where my team was combined with another, I was the first baseman and the third baseman, some woman named Tara, had probably the best arm I have ever seen in a game I was personally involved in, man or woman. Every throw was like a bullet and hit me right in the glove. This wasn’t some butchy tomgirl, either - an ordinary looking girl, maybe 130 pounds, and she threw like Cal Ripken. Perfect release and footwork and astounding power. I would say, without a moment’s hesitation, that she had as good an arm as the average major legue infielder. So with practice, women can definitely throw.
Does that mean that I’m female because I’m more interested in the latter than the former?
What I’m talking about is the arm motion. Many women push the ball like a shot putter, which of course results in the ball not going very far. As Mangetout notes, it is a similar effect to when a man tries to throw with their ‘wrong’ hand.
When I say that most women “can’t” throw overarm, what I mean of course is that they don’t know how to. I believe that they could learn, but for whatever reason they haven’t.
Most people here say it’s simply down to not being taught or not practising. That may well be true, but if in my experience it was as clear cut as that I wouldn’t have asked the question. I can’t recall being taught to throw overarm, either by my parents or by PE teachers. I think it just came naturally.
I have had the same upbringing as my sisters. Our parents were keen to avoid indoctrinating us with gender stereotypes. My sisters are probably better at sports in general than I am, yet I can throw overarm, and they can’t.
I don’t see that there’s anything at school to explain it. Boys get to play cricket, but girls get to play rounders. There’s plenty of opportunity for both sexes to practice.
The curvature of joints idea is interesting, but would that mean that the women who can throw have a “man’s” joint curvature? (Sorry, Archergal, for some reason I couldn’t make your links work).
Women who can’t throw were not taught to throw at all. There are people (including a coach in California) who can (and do) teach women how to throw in an hour, just by breaking down the mechanics of a proper throwing motion. and drawing analogies to more familiar activities.
The thing is that most people who throw well don’t know how to throw – they just do it.