relative strength of men vs. women

[octahedrite]

Today I read this interesting article about why "men are strong, women are weak" does not universally apply.

Shield Maidens, Bell Curves and Strong Women - R. J. Eliason

When people say things like men are x% stronger than women, many of us have this image of lining all the men and women up side by side. And the men will all lift x% more than the woman next to them. But that’s not how it works.

Comments

[tei]

This was great! I'd watched a lecture recently that mentioned the fact of DNA analysis proving grave good assumptions wrong in the context of Scythian warriors (where, similarly, upon further investigation almost half of the bodies buried with weapons were female), so it's good to know that's the case for plenty of other notably "warlike" societies.

And the thing about constitutional strength, how likely are your soldiers on average to survive the things that actually killed the majority of soldiers, is such a great point that I hadn't seen elsewhere!

Thank you for posting!

[octahedrite]

Glad you found it interesting! I also liked the part about constitutional strength, and it's interesting to learn that Scythian warriors also had a similar gender composition.