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Male and female competitiveness - a case study in the running world
Many of the conversations about gender differences in sports emphasize the role of culture in encouraging or discouraging participation in a gender-differentiated fashion. I think running provides an interesting example of the type of approaches that men and women tend to bring to sports in the context of a relatively gender-egalitarian sport. At nearly every running distance from sprints up to marathon, there is a consistent, persistent difference between men and women of approximately 10-12% (see this slightly outdated chart, the couple records broken since don’t change the story). Relative to sports that rely on strength or are highly multi-dimensional, men and women are much, much closer in actual ability, with elite women outperforming competitive hobbyist men in a way that you don’t see elsewhere. Based on personal observation of the sport and understanding of strategy, this is little or no difference in the way men and women approach races at high levels, with the similarities in pacing, drafting, and finishing kick resulting in a similar aesthetic between men’s and women’s races. Also of note, there is no large split in participation between men and women at amateur levels, with local races and clubs being fairly close to 50-50 and often including more women.
Despite these similarities, anyone that participates in local races will notice one very striking difference between men and women - there are a lot more men that are genuinely competing, trying to do their best for a given distance and fitness level than women. For example, one recent local race I competed in was an 8K with roughly five thousand participants; the men’s winner ran a shade under 24 minutes, the top 10 men were under 27 minutes, and 64 men cleared 30 minutes. The top woman was over 30 minutes and finished 76th overall. The 10th place woman came in around 34 minutes. Without being rigorous about the math, we can see at a glance that there are about 7 times as many men hitting a 70% age grade, which is generally a good cut-off for being a competitive hobbyist. From personal observation, this trend repeats itself in most local races, especially when there isn’t any significant prize money on the line (money brings pros, which tightens things up at the top a fair bit).
Prior to any speculation on what’s going on with that sort of disparity, I want to emphasize that among the women that are competitive, I see basically no difference in approach between the men and women. I work out with a few of the local fast women, these were D1 runners in college, and they’re all the same obsessives about running tons of mileage and hammering big workouts that the guys are. In my experience, the women at any given age-grade above approximately 65-70% treat the sport very similarly to the men.
So why are there so many fewer women in that bucket? Some speculative reasons in no particular order:
Physical development is much, much harder for the median woman than the median man. They’ve tried at some point, but they don’t get the immediate physiological response to stimulus that the men get, so they stop caring as much about it. Anecdotally, a powerful female runner friend of mine has told me that she feels like her buildups and improvement are always much slower than men. I think this is physically plausible and that the women who do hit higher age-grades are more anomalous than men.
Women get pregnant. Training hard after pregnancy is more challenging than any inflection point men have. I don’t think this explanation is terribly likely because my observation doesn’t suggest a bit change across age groups, but I haven’t been rigorous and I’m open to correction.
Fewer women have competitive personalities. Women tend to enjoy the social aspect of the sport more and focus more heavily on that, enjoying easy-paced runs with friends, getting into races to do an event with friends, and so on. Men, even social, friendly men, tend to be hypercompetitive about anything they care about, focusing heavily on self-improvement and metrics.
Any of those could be true and I’m sure I could come up with more, but the reason I think this makes good culture-war fodder is the implications for Title IX. Running is more physically gender-egalitarian than other sports, women participate in it at high rates, women’s tactics, strategy, and training is similar to men’s, the culture of the sport is welcoming to all, and yet, there just aren’t very many women that show much interest in competing. If women aren’t interested in running after decades of mandated equal funding for college sports, what hope is there for some actually gender-egalitarian world in sports more broadly? Is the answer from people that think there shouldn’t be observed differences in male and female preferences just that running is still somehow sexist in a way that I just can’t see? I suppose if you take disparate-impact doctrine entirely seriously, what it suggests is that whether I can see it or not, discrimination against women must be happening in the sport somehow.
Crab bucket mentality. Women love shitting on other women who have something they don't. Be it fitness, family, a loving husband, career, hobbies, you name it. There is always some frenemy or judgmental family member whispering evil in their ear, trying to poison them against their own happiness.
Unfortunately for women who aspire to greatness, or even just happiness and contentment, their higher agreeableness and neuroticism causes them to cave to their haters more often than they reach escape velocity from the crab bucket.
I've never in all my life seen a man effected the same way. I'm sure everything under the sun is possible. I'm sure some internet rando is going to say it happened to them and they have a penis. But I've never seen it.
I'm not sure how this is supposed to answer the OP's question. Women are less competitive at sports because they're... more competitive? You seem to be portraying them here as competitive, anyway.
I would agree that "higher average agreeableness" would be a possible explanation for being less competitive at sports, but I don't see how this follows from your first point, and in fact it seems to contradict it. Women are more agreeable... and that's why they're always trying to tear each other down?
I mean, if you think words don't mean anything, then I understand your confusion. Let me illustrate with some examples if the difference between nakedly shitting in someone's soul, and actual competitiveness seems too abstract for you.
My wife eats healthy and exercises. Both because it makes her feel good, is good for her mental health, and it helps her auto-immune issues and family history of Crohn's Disease. And every single one of her friends, her mother, her sister et al are constantly making passive aggressive comments about it. Weird shit implying one way or another she's gonna get fat. Or that she's actually hurting herself. Or that she's setting impossible body standards for our daughter. Or that she won't look good if she gets too muscular.
What's the competition? My wife is already married, to me. The women are already married too! These women aren't trying to beat my wife in a race, or anything else for that matter. None of my wife's behaviors have the slightest indirect impact on them, beyond making them feel guilty about their own poor choices. So they whisper poison in her ear.
Now, compare this with Mike Tyson trying to get into his opponents head before they directly clash in the ring. Shit like "I'm going to eat your children" or "I'll fuck you till you love me." Attempting to intimidate a boxer before you fight directly in the ring in a time honored tradition, and how it counts as competitive behavior should be manifestly obvious.
So men are associated with the good version of competition - pure, honorable, based on rules and tradition, with a spiritual purpose. And women are associated with the bad version of competition - spiteful, lawless, poisonous, visited on people who want no part of it. Bit suspicious that it would break down so cleanly like that.
Why make it a gendered thing? Clearly all humans have the capacity to engage in both sorts of activity. Need we point out that men commit the vast majority of acts of rape, murder, and torture? Almost all mass shooters are men - how's that for poison? Granted, a lot of victims of violent crime are asking for it in various ways, but many aren't (I know from firsthand experience). So much for honorable and rule-governed conduct.
If I had to choose between being physically assaulted or being called fat, I'd generally prefer being called fat. If the question is who "shits in people's souls" more, then men do so much more shitting that it's not even a contest.
Men and women are different. Why wouldn't these differences surface in their approaches to competition?
Traditionally competition amongst women is much less direct than competition among men, I suspect oweing to the traditional venus for competition and lessor roles in public life.
Also it's typically only women that care about womens competition, if that.
This is changing quite fast. While obviously women disproportionately care, and men still care about men's sport much more, in Britain at least both women's cricket and football are becoming increasingly mainstream society wide, and with tennis it's been the case for some time.
Possibly in terms of watching competition as entertainment. It's a very small portion of women that participate in women's athletics via organized competition. Nor do the women who participate benefit in the same way that men do, as women's achievements are not valued as much by men as men's achievements by women.
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This is a great example. Evidently I touched a nerve, and thus total war, scorched Earth, is declared. Expand the scope of the argument without limit, and say every mean and hateful thing about the opposition you can passive aggressively throw out, as though it has anything to do with anything.
I appreciate you being so gracious as to provide such a sterling example. Takes a lot of courage to step into that role.
You know I’m a man right?
Anyway I bear no ill will towards you, so if you don’t want to continue the discussion we don’t have to.
I was being charitable and kind and assuming you were just pretended to be retarded as an example. Or are you saying that men can be just as passive aggressive as women can, because you, a certified haver of a penis, are so?
It's evident to me that you knew from your first post in this exchange that you were cruising for a banning, so you decided to go for broke and get your digs in while you could.
Banned for a week.
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