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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5554867" data-attributes="member: 4937">That's not a valid analogy.  Comparing the top man to the top women is very different than comparing the top women to a man of more ordinary ability.  Why for example isn't the reverse comparison made: the top male tennis player versus the 600th best female tennis player in the world?   How valid would it be to claim that men are better than women in tennis because the men's champion could beat a girl on a high school junior varsity team?The only reasons for comparing world records rather than a broader range of data is that:a) it's a case of like compared to like ANDb) it's easily available and authoratative data.I could site scientific studies about average strength gain differences of men and women who do strength training, it's just the numbers wouldn't be as easy for me to get a hold of.  I'm not going to spend 12 hours digging up scientific articles for the purpose of proving my point.The important point though is that I'm comparing 'like to like'.  Comparing Serena Willaims to an office worker that doesn't play tennis is not comparing like to like.  Comparing a top female MMA to a computer programmer with limited combat experience isn't a valid comparison.Moreover, for the purposes of convincing myself, deep research isn't required.   I have significant first person experience with the difference in lifting capacity, throwing distance etc. of randomly chosen men and women.  In short, for the purposes of an internet discussion, I don't consider the burden of effort to lie wholly on me.  If someone wishes to overturn the intuitive notion that men are on average signfiicantly stronger than women, I believe the larger burden of proof lies with them.   That they often reach for Billie Jean King mythologies where one women of outstanding ability defeats a man of much more ordinary ability is in my opinion actually evidence on my side of the point.   In the case of Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs, it was the world women's tennis champion versus a semi-retired 55 year old who was hamming up the 'male chauvinist' card for the purposes of making a buck.Studies based on the results of military basic training are one area that has been looked at for very large data sets.  Suffice to say that men start out stronger than women, improve strength faster under conditioning than women, and ultimately maintain a proportional lead on women after training.I realize that this is very 'politically incorrect' to talk about.  Right now our society is steeped in the mythology of he 'kick-butt girl' who can defeat men in outright contests of strength and power, and if you point out how much of a mythology this is and the tricks used to sustain this mythology you are considered sexist.   I could cite dozens of examples of this archetype from media, but notably all would be from fiction.  However, basing beliefs on a lie IMO does a disservice to everyone, firstly because it sets false expectations up and secondly because it undermines the very claim of equality that its intended to support because as a basis of equality strength is a very unsound comparison.</blockquote>

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