Is a female Mike Tyson possible?

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, sports, sociology, gender issues, women's issues, polemics

Korfball is a coed version of basketball that arose in the Netherlands in 1902. Each team sends four players on court. It is the only international coed team sport, so far.

At the end of The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us About the Power of the Female Body, author Starre Vartan presents korfball as an example of the possible, a truly coed sport. The primary sex-based rules of the game are that men guard men and women guard women, and that each on-court team consists of two of each. Other than that, both men and women pass the ball (dribbling isn't allowed) freely to team members of either sex, both men and women guard, both men and women shoot and score, and so forth.

This book drops right into the middle of the controversies over "men in women's sports," and the debates about why (or where) it might or might not be fair. Ms Vartan's thesis: give girls the same opportunities to learn sports as the boys have, beginning in toddlerhood, and we'll find out if they can compete on the same level. At the moment, systemic sexism is infinitely more prevalent than systemic racism (my language, not hers, but I think she'd agree).

Let me say that the great majority of those who "identify" as this or that "gender" are lying or insane. They are making it harder for the truly trans to receive compassionate counsel and care. They are very few. The number of those who are now detransitioning (or want to) probably greatly outnumbers those who make a successful transition. But after a full transition, surgery and all, successful transitioners will never reproduce.

There is a turning point in every life, a process we all pass through, that is expressed in the pairs of words, "boy - man", "girl - woman". It is puberty. Some time between age 10 and 16 (for me it was 12), hormone production ramps up and secondary sex characteristics develop over a span of 3-5 years. Before that, boys and girls can develop equal skills and equal strength. Afterwards, nothing is the same. Some child athletes become adult klutzes; some awkward children grow into athletic adults; but more likely, the sporty kids become sportier adults, and the rest become spectators…and some, like me, do our best to ignore sports, from birth to death (when our son played on various teams, I would attend the games and cheer him on. Otherwise, I don't care).

When our son was about eight he took gymnastics classes for about a year. In the end, he preferred running sports (soccer, track, and roller hockey). But I noticed something while observing his gymnastics classes. Puberty messes up the kids, but in different ways. Both boys and girls get more awkward. Boys' legs seem to shoot out ahead of their torsos, and it takes them a couple of years to relearn balance and coordination. Girls' hips thicken and their busts get heavier, which throws off their balance in a different way; it takes them the same couple of years to accommodate. The "lucky" girl gymnasts (if you want to call it that) retain a boyish body into adulthood with small busts and narrow hips. These are the most likely to become career athletes.

Excuse me if this seems crass: A woman whose bra has F cups is not going to be a talented athlete. You male athletes, try this: F-size breasts weigh five pounds each; strap two five-pound pot roasts to your chest and go exercise. Instant Klutz! Curiously, nowhere in Stronger Sex did I find a word about the effect of breast mass on athletic performance.

The great value in the book is the mass of data the author has gathered, or more frequently, gleaned, about the various strengths of female bodies. Briefly, nature has endowed women with extra "powers" to ensure they can carry, bear, nurture and raise offspring successfully. Where they stand out is in endurance, in the ability to bear pain even though they seem to feel it more intensely, in a stronger immune system, and in fueling exercise differently from men. But one significant fact must be kept in mind: A fit male body contains on average 15% fat, while a fit female body contains on average 25% fat. 

Putting that into practical terms, a woman of a given height and strength must weigh more than a man of the same height and strength. For example, consider a welterweight boxer, a man who weighs 144 pounds. He may have less than 15% body fat, but let's assume he actually has 15% fat; that comes to 21.6 pounds, leaving 122.4 pounds of lean body mass. A woman of equal strength and lean body mass, who has 25% body fat, will have 36 pounds of fat and weigh 158.4 pounds. That pushes her into the next weight class. In order to compete as a welterweight she would need to starve herself below 147 pounds, which would probably cause her periods to stop. It would also weaker her overall. But if she and the man were to box together with her weighing 158 pounds to his 144 pounds, she would still be at a disadvantage because moving the extra mass around would tire her out sooner. From this I conclude that boxing is not a sport in which men and women can compete on equal terms. Biochemistry and physiology make that impossible.

Let's jump to the top of the scale. In the 1980s Mike Tyson weighed 220 lbs (100 kg) and had 7% body fat. Probably no woman in history has equal vital statistics. What is the ultimate strength of a woman's body? I was in the mining town of Battle Mountain, Nevada with a team of geologists. We stayed in a hotel across the street from a saloon. The others went to the saloon. I stayed in the room. Late in the evening there was a commotion across the street. I glanced out to see two men fly out and land in the street. When my colleagues returned I got the story. Miners are typically smallish men. These two weighed in the 150# range. They got into a fight. The saloon owner, a very large woman of late middle age, stepped over, grabbed the two by their belts, picked them up and clashed them together like cymbals. Then she carried them to the door, one in each hand, and threw them into the street. I don't know how she would stand up to a heavyweight boxer, but I know I wouldn't care to cross her!

I agree with the author that there are sports at which men and woman can compete on an equal footing. There are others that this is not so. What needs to change is a pervasive culture of "no, they can't" without data or experience to back it up…and very often, "no, they can't" runs contrary to past experience! Sport in particular lends itself to extreme opinions, none of which are correct or even useful. Since the coming of age of the X Generation, X has meant eXtreme. It's time to chill, folks.

So much of Ms Vartan's writing in this book is polemical in nature that it can be hard to read. I'll forbear complaining further, because of its value. Get this book, tighten your belt, and read it for that value.

Until gender doesn't matter

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, gender issues

It never failed. Twice I've shared an office with a woman, and every time a man came in who didn't know us, he'd either address me as though I were the only one there, or address her as though she were the secretary. The fact is, in both cases we were equal colleagues. With my colleagues' agreement, whenever I thought we'd get away with it (and that was usually), I'd interrupt by saying, "Excuse me, that's my boss..." Wish I'd had a camera handy!

Of course, I've been in on a couple of bull sessions with the subject, "If all the bosses were women." The usual conclusions were, one, war would probably end because by the time a man is a commanding officer he knows better than to go up against a woman, and two, men would likely become little more than pets. That last recalls Garrison Keillor's witty riff on Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking...". I've lived in the frozen north, where there were plenty of the "Norwegian bachelor farmers" that Keillor lampoons weekly. I know a story or two that substantiate their fear that, should one of them marry one of those strong women, he'd soon be sidelined. One of my neighbors remarked about another, "Yeah, she bought him a big truck and these big gloves so he can drive around and feel important. Really, she just keeps him for a pet."

What would really happen if women ran things? Dee Dee Myers, former Press Secretary for President Clinton, takes a whack at the issue in Why Women Should Rule the World. Like any good debater, she takes her theme in three parts: "Why women don't rule the world", "Why women should rule the world", and "How women can rule the world" (italics are mine).

The historical reason for "Why not?" is, under subsistence conditions women are too valuable as childcare providers. Since a large segment of the human race got more prosperous, however, the reasons are, it is just a habit, and the old "Men are stronger so just try to stop us anyway" gambit. The old Greek play Lysistrata has one answer to the last: "If you don't, I won't!" (of course it was written by a man, Aristophanes, expressing the castration phobia in a new form).

Where women do have some authority, Myers shows that things do indeed work out differently. We have to drop the PC "everyone is the same" crap and understand: woman and men are good at different things. One salient fact shows why: The major corporations which have significant female executive leadership, including female CEO's, rank at the top in profitability and growth. It indicates that the things women are better at are as necessary as the converse. In a sense, denying women leadership roles puts a company, or a society, at a disadvantage. As Geraldine Ferraro put it, women in power "raise issues that others [i.e. men] overlook, pass bills that others oppose, invest in projects that others dismiss, and seek to end abuses that others ignore" (quoted on p.93).

Things are changing regardless. According to an article Myers cites (Journal of Accountancy, April 2004, by Maureen Duffy), in another year or two women will control half the wealth of the U.S., some $22 Trillion (the figure given in the book is grossly in error; this is from the article itself).

The last chapter points the way. In each kind of enterprise, there is a sort of Critical Mass (and I don't mean a room full of complainers!). For example, the board of directors of many corporations with at least three women simply run differently than those with two or fewer. For running the country, the critical mass is likely to be one: whenever a woman gets elected President, things will be Different. I know, inertia is hard to overcome, but just giving a battleship a big nudge in a different direction will make a big difference in its final goal. The recent candidacy of Hilary Clinton is already one such nudge. Like her or not, she has made a difference.

The author thinks it likely that "...if we eliminate the conflict between having a high-powered job and having a family, unravel the mysteries of innate aptitude and interest, and root out discrimination, there will still be more women in social psychology and more men in engineering? And isn't that okay?" The key issue is not to drive women either to or from social sciences or "hard" sciences, but to allow those with aptitude to pursue what they are good at. Period.

So if your little girl wants to play with guns and trucks—most don't, but a few do—let her; if your little boy wants to play house more than play war—most don't, but a few do—let him. And right up through the scale. Even more, if your grown-up girl that once played house and dollies wants to run the country, don't stand in her way. It makes me wonder how Margaret Thatcher might deal with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iron Lady would not likely flood him with crumpets and tea, but just might be able to get through his armor nonetheless. Lord knows no man has yet done so.

In the end, Ms Myers is not arguing for 100% female authority, but proportional rule. Half the people are women, so half the leaders ought also to be women.