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Well, #1 I'd make him do some sports. That's the easiest way for any teen to get on the path of appreciating the differences between men and woman. That girl who was good at tag? Guess what, when you both at 15 shes no good anymore. Even the slow boys are beating her. And physical activities involving even a modicum of contact like basketball? Forget it. Its not just that she can barely jump by comparison, its that any man that does even a little physical activity can just move her. And, its actually scary in many ways, because you will be afraid that you are going to break her. Which you could easily do on accident.
Eh, actually 15 is still in the danger zone. Girls will have started puberty 1-2 years ahead (12-13) and so at 15 will still be ahead or apace. The boys will overtake them, of course, but sometimes not quite at 15. It's just at the inflection point.
15 isn't really the danger zone if we are talking about boys who do physical activity regularly. The gap widens after that, but still, the gap is surely there by 15 for the 90% or probably even the 95%.
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The adult women world champion football team is losing to the under-16 boys' teams (not even the champions) regularly.
There are many 15 year old boys who haven't quite hit puberty all the way yet. Presumably none of them on the u16 teams.
You don't need to hit puberty all way to beat a 15YO girl, what are you guys smoking?
I'm smoking about what you'd expect me to smoke at a rock climbing gym, where I routinely see teenage girls run circles around (some of!) their age-peer male counterparts.
Part of which is that when you graduate kids from the non competitive "kids classes" programs to the competitive "team" programs, the boys separate pretty severely: some boys hit puberty hard and fast and get muscular and athletic and turn into stars, some barely hit puberty at all until pretty late in high school and turn all gangly around 15 unable to climb like either a kid or a man. (Girls face a similar set of problems with puberty, in that some get a rack that will not cooperate with a sport built around being light and having great balance).
The idea that men and women are ultimately equal in physical strength and athletic ability is a bizarre feminist political cope.
The idea that any random male can beat every single female in every single sport in every single situation is a bizarre manosphere political cope.
In both cases, evidence is slippery and misapplied.
You say:
Which is a statement about the top end of the athletes of both genders, and then use it in an argument about medians.
Feminists tend to take an obviously true statement like "Caitlin Clark would beat every mottizen in a game of horse" or "no mottizen would hit an oly total of 262kg at 71kg bodyweight" and bootstrap that into "therefore gender does not have any predictive value of athletic performance" which is obviously false.
Climbing is one of the most body-shape dependent sports - it's more like horse jockeying than it is like basketball. It's not height that matters, but frame size and natural muscle build. Almost all non-anorexic post-pubescent women will have too high a body fat percentage to be competitive. Lean-but-strong men dominate.
The reductio-ad-absurdum comparison here is chess: men are just better than women. It requires no physical ability. However, a girl that's been training since she was 6 and has a 1700 elo will kick the holy hell out of a random boy that sits down at the chess board.
Maybe when we're talking at the 5.14+ level of professionals, but at 5.12d and below a variety of body types are pretty common, from 6'2" beanpoles to 5'11" 195# muscular guys who can hang (hi!).
That said, the reductio ad absurdum is probably Golf. Men are way better than women, no women are competitive, it is impossible to imagine a woman ever being competitive with top tier men, it's broadly understood that women use women's tees that are closer to the green...and an LPGA pro is going to absolutely smoke any man over a 5 or 6 handicap, which is roughly your top 10% of male golfers.
The upshot of chess, or rock climbing, or golf, is that if you discriminate based on gender, you'll be right more than you'll be wrong. But you can probably find better tips if you look closely.
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Is that the idea that was being put forward? I thought we were talking averages and percentiles.
This particular subthread starts with our learned friend in argument @anti_dan stating that to explain sexual dimorphism to an autistic 15 year old he would...
And @anon_ (apologies if I'm misstating your point) and I are pointing out that reality is actually a really noisy signal, and that taking your 15 year old autistic boy and making him play sports (which everyone should do anyway) may or may not lead directly into an understanding of sexual dimorphism. Depends on the kid, depends on the sport, depends on the social groupings the kid is involved in. It's not as simple as "every man is stronger than every woman" and human beings are notoriously bad at dealing with percentage chances that aren't 100/0 or 50/50.
Hypothetical: an only child homeschooled 15 year old boy, the rock climbing gym is his PE class. ((I know several kids/families like this irl, the parents are climbers and think it's a great way to get their homeschooled kid both exercise and socialization)) Which factor is going to cleave reality at the joints better to classify human beings by physical ability: whether they have tits, or whether they have their own climbing harness? In rock climbing, having tits will allow me to say with certainty that you aren't in the top 1% of climbers in the gym and you're less likely to be in the top 5%, but beyond that it has little predictive value: plenty of women climb 5.11 or 5.10, plenty of men can't. "Having your own climbing harness" allows you to make a pretty accurate hard cut: people who don't own gear pretty much never climb anything tougher than a juggy 5.10a. Athletic freaks who climbed 5.11 before buying a harness have been much rarer in my life than women who climbed 5.13.
So is our rock climber kid going to classify reality first by male/female, or by climber/civilian?
I do think that athletics is exposure to reality, hence why Plato tells us that Gymnastics is inimicable to Tyranny. Over time a kid will develop a nuanced understanding of the reality of sexual dimorphism. But, you know, it'll take time, and long exposure across multiple fields, and it will probably be quite nuanced.
Rock climbing (which my phone somewhat appropriately tried to autocorrect to rich climbing) is one of the worst possible examples, because the guy doesn't get to realize he could body the girl 5 feet to his left.
If they did 7 seconds of basic wrestling the confusion would disappear.
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Yes, but that doesn’t mean the median 15YO is in the same boat.
If somewhat more athletic 15YO boys tend to win against the absolute world elite of adult women, then a girl their age is screwed. If being a full-grown adult doesn't give you enough head start to win, than starting puberty a bit earlier won't be of much help either.
Sure an athletic 15YO girl might beat a fat slob boy her age (this is also true of adult men vs. adult women), but that doesn't make 15 much of a danger zone.
My assumption is that the difference between a median 15yo boy and one who seriously does sports is more than "somewhat more athletic". On top of the training, they're going to be selected for natural testosterone levels, perhaps even artificial testosterone levels, higher chance of being on the later end of 15 year old if not outright age fraud, etc.
Ok bro whatever, show me the statistics that show a median 15YO girl is roughly as good as a median boy.
The point of the objection about having it be 15 year old is that it's not yet an open and shut total domination of the bottom male percentiles over the top female percentiles (which is required for making kids grok the sex difference), not that she'll be roughly as good.
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Obviously the average man is much stronger than the average woman, and elite female athletes cannot compete at all against elite male athletes, but I think you and a few posters here are exaggerating the disparity because there’s no way the “slow boys” can compete with actual athletic women.
When I was forced to play basketball in high school PE class, there were some girls who played with the boys, and I can tell you from first hand experience, a clumsy autistic nerd who’s just getting into shape absolutely cannot just move a 5’10 elite female athlete with broader shoulders than him.
Like, I was in OK-ish shape and could do a 5k in 21min, and there were girls who did it in 17mim. Sure, there were boys who could do it in 15min, and most girls did it in 25min or more, but I didn’t stop to think about the statistical distributions, I just saw that there were both boys and girls way ahead of me.
Just look at female athlete records in any sport, compared to the mean or even advanced male performance.
The existence of such a person is a failure of the public schools.
I agree with you with regards to comparing elite female athletes with average guys. But the fact is almost no high school has even one such elite female athlete. Under a proper physical fitness regimen, if the school held a 1v1 tug of war competition girls would win against guys like 5% of the time. That there are so many weak and feeble men is a choice propagated by the system that not only doesn't prioritize physical fitness, it actively discourages it for all but the top percentages. That is why you have guys thinking girls can beat them at things. Because those 20% are working out everyday while he eats potato chips and does nothing. If he merely did 20 minutes of running and 20 minutes of lifting every other day he'd instantly be in the top 5% of females.
I am by no means an elite athlete. That said, I once faced a girl who would go on to be an Olympian in a 1v1 match. I won. It was not close. I wasn't even fully into puberty at the time. I was embarrassed by the existence of the match.
The fact is, if you are losing to girls as a guy in basically every sport but super long distance swimming they are substantially outworking you. If you told George Washington that his country would be dominated by places of child education wherein the average kid just sits all day and cant run a 2 mile sprint to notify the neighbor you need some butter for a pie, he'd be appalled. Movement is the solution. It is, of course, pain as well. But pain is weakness leaving the body.
I am not from US so take it with the grain of salt(still underlying school system is basically the same in Europe and America), but most people who fit description of "clumsy autistic nerd" didn't end up with zero physical abilities because of the teachers or school program but out of their own volition. They just didn't like to play the games that everybody played, and they didn't have a spirit of competition that would motivate them to give their all to running the distance or doing pull ups. And your only means of forcing them is through grading but they also often don't care about it(or care enough to raise enough stink to get themselves an exception or just transfer to a different school without such constraints).
Yes that is true. It should not be an option though. School PE should resemble an R. Lee Ermy boot camp at the start of each school day and failure to participate would be treated with latrine duty instead of being able to go to other classes.
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Eh, when talking about specifically "autistic nerds" (i.e. like 1% of the population), there are certain caveats on that. Autists typically have retarded* co-ordination, and the top end of the "nerds" (i.e. aspie savants) sometimes get accelerated. A 13-year-old boy with garbage co-ordination against a 14-year-old girl isn't such an uneven match.
*I use this word precisely; adult co-ordination is usually normal, but it takes longer to get there.
Too much of this problem is derived from the coddling of your "autistic nerds" being allowed to sit out gym glass, walk the track, etc instead of having to do pull ups, push ups, and windsprints every day. School PE should mirror boot camp in most respects with a bit of additional recreational sports added in.
People should get to be agentic rather than being forced into activities. (Not that I am against promoting physical activity in society).
We are talking about children. They are already being forced to go to school. I am merely advocating that the time spent there be productive.
I can understand why you are advocating for what you are advocating for. But it is a very let's try to add something to a badly run system argument, when the whole system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch.
I don't think ending the K-12 system is happening anytime soon, I do support all sorts of efforts to reduce its scope such as vouchers and the enabling of homeschoolers. But, if I were a governor or even merely on a school board, I would be pursuing measures to make my children healthier. And that would mean starting school with a vigorous, non-optional, PE curriculum.
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And kids should be forced to do certain things, wear certain things learn certain things, so that as adults they have the agency to make choices for themselves about how they want to live.
Letting a kid get through high school with no physical activity is decreasing rather than increasing their agency. It's putting them on a path of laziness, sedentary sloth, and identity formation against athletics.
Forcing a kid to practice athletics when young increases their agency as adults. They can continue to their athletic practice or choose to be a fat slob or choose to try a new sport and it will be easier as a result of their experience.
I don't think it is forcing kids to do things that makes them agentic per se, as opposed to exposing them to different things and having an environment that ensures they engage in various healthy activities. Forcing people typically tends to do the opposite, it raises them to be conformative (unless they turn rebellious as a result of being forced).
Note that I am not against promoting sports or physical activity for kids, I took issue with forcing people to do things in the specific way anti_dan advocated for.
I disagree, though I totally see your point and agree with it. I'm of the opinion that in the modern world, one must embrace the inevitable upper-middle-class-white-person cycle of periodically inventing a new sport ("rich climbing") so that white kids have something they can compete in. It's great to expose kids to lots of different kinds of things they can do! I often joke that Lionel Messi, in a world without soccer, would be a short Argentine mechanic with a weird ability to do things with his feet, no one would know he was one of the greatest athletes of all time. It's important to try a variety of things. But, I disagree with the idea that it should be left to chance: kids should be forced to try a variety of things.
Fundamentally where we differ is here:
The majority of great innovations come out of restrictions. Most modern American men's fashion stems from essentially three places: military uniforms, prison uniforms, or prep school/ivy league/country club dress codes. Innovations to look good while skirting those regulations lead to essentially all male fashion today.
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But in the previous comment’s context, they’re already being forced into activities and have limited agency, by virtue of being in high school.
Why is promoting a culture where physical fitness is an important aspect in any way less agentic or more forced than the situation where kids already have to be at school doing things adults tell them to do?
You can have a culture that promotes physical fitness as an important aspect, but doing so in a boot camp like space and forcing them to participate in it in what a school environment typically is like currently is what I am against, because I believe it hurts more than it helps and sucks all the joy out of physical activity and sports just like school typically sucks all the joy out of maths/science and everything else you are forced to study there. Plus, schools tend to be ineffective.
I’m with you on schools being ineffective, but I think this is a side (possibly intended) effect of the last 70-80 years of school design.
School, like everything else, is effective when it is a challenge that can be meaningfully failed, when there are stakes attached to failure, and when there is a meaningful release valve, i.e., productive work for dropouts. It’s hard to say any of those three things apply to American schools in the 21st century.
In that regard, you’re right, American schools need a huge overhaul anyways, and trying to encourage physical fitness activities was already being consumed by leftism as far back as Kennedy. Any serious measures would probably fall flat on their face in the teeth of “just be kind” teacher resistance and “don’t get sued” admin resistance.
That being said…
As to having all the joy sucked out of physical activity, sorry, I say this as an obvious nerd of the sort who discovers and posts on the Motte, but not everything is supposed to be joyous. I still eat my vegetables as a middle-aged man, because it was joylessly ingrained in me by adults and is provably demonstrable in the real world that a healthy amount of vegetables is better for me than tubs of ice cream, or even my preferred all steak diet.
Physical activity is the same way. Maybe it’s just the “eating your vegetables of life” activity for the nerds, but I think “it won’t be hedonic” as an argument against something is an argument on weak footing.
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I don’t disagree that it’s appalling that physical fitness being neglected for the majority (although calling men “weak” and “feeble” as opposed to just unhealthy is an odd choice of language). It doesn’t really matter for the main point that there’s elite female athletes, but it’s still important to know that the delta is not that big at the extremes. The top female athletes are about ~10% worse than the top male ones, and if you look at something like a 5k run, the top females today are better than the top males from the 1930s. That’s way closer than most posters here would suggest, and to compete with female Olympians in most sports you’d still have to be in like the top 0.1% fittest men. The average Joe, even with a decent amount of training, doesn’t stand a chance.
But that’s getting aside from the main point. How exactly is knowing that he can easily surpass most women at sports with relatively little training supposed to dissuade the hypothetical autistic teenage boy from transitioning? If anything it might backfire and make him stop exercising altogether to match more female levels of performance/muscularity (and on estrogen, male performance is drastically reduced anyway).
I would postulate that regular exercise would probably improve the mental health of these teens to the extent that something around 99% of all the trans candidates would no longer be so. In fact, they probably wouldn't by "autistic" anymore either (because we are generally not talking about genuine autism diagnoses in this sort of hypothetical). Sound of body resulting in sound of mind is real.
I don’t want to discount the psychological and physical benefits of but come on, it won’t stop anyone from being autistic, or even trans. I wish it did! I went to the gym and I just became an autist with a six pack. And it didn’t stop me from being trans either, unfortunately.
Plenty of athletic people I know are various flavours of neurodivergent or queer. Some trans guys I know are particularly into bodybuilding and powerlifting and it uh… has the opposite effect of making them conform to the social expectations of birth sex.
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