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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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Size and powerlifting movements are easily measurable, and if you only look at the spreadsheets and stats, it might look plausible. But strength is compounding in a lot of odd ways when the body is used in totality. Add in leverage through technique that compounds with your entire body and one should see why comparing raw strength numbers even between men can become a gross oversimplification of all the variables at play.

For example, it's not enough to presume that the reason why someone with a lot of grip strength feels strong is just because of their measured strength on a hand dynamometer. Until they are holding on to your wrists and you can't get them to let go you might not have considered that the size of their hand, or the thickness of their fingers is a clear advantage. Or how thin your own wrists are in comparison. Now compound that advantage with every single muscle and joint in their body as they hold on to your wrists and pull you around. From their bigger hands, longer limbs, broader shoulders... It literally does not stop at any point. From skeleton to skin. Even their feet and toes are larger, giving them bigger contact area with the ground.

To make a long story short, when you truly ask for a size equal woman to man, and look at that woman, you will not feel like you are looking at a woman. It's something that doesn't exist in any relevant number in the human species outside of complete anomalies or extreme growth hormone abuse. And even then it's often not enough. Categorically, men and women are different. And when we abstract ourselves away from reality with weight numbers and height measurements we are just playing a game on ourselves. If you want an answer to the question that is in any way relevant for normal humans, then you've already invalidated the effort with your caveats and hypotheticals.

To that extent the trans angle of the question is over and I'm not sure what else you were trying to get out of this.

Interesting points, so your main point here is that strength as it matters in combat, is not adequately measured by powerlifting numbers. Isolated muscular strength may not be that unequal between men and women, but other factors make it so that practical combat strength is markedly different.

Honestly I'm not trying to get anything out of this, just avengers movies spiked my curiosity regarding this culture-war adjacent topic.