Blog By : Jeffrey Klugar
Gender politics and science have never gotten along very well. The patriarchal system was—and in some cultures still is—based on the premise that women are more mercurial, less deliberative and physically less sturdy than men. Those are perfectly easy beliefs to hold—at least until you subject them to the least bit of intellectual scrutiny or real-world testing, at which point they fall apart completely.
In the 1970s, the script flipped, with the fashionable thinking being that gender differences are artificial constructs. Give little girls footballs or model rockets and little boys baby dolls or princess toys and they'd play perfectly happily with them as long as someone didn't tell them otherwise.
But this too was mostly rubbish, as any parent who has raised both a boy and a girl can tell you—and as scientists confirm.
The more closely they study brain structure, prenatal hormone exposure and more, the more they confirm that boys and girls are born fundamentally, behaviorally different.
The question gets a little murkier when it comes to one of the great dividing lines between the sexes: sports. On the one hand, both interest and participation in organized sports is still a predominantly male thing. On the other hand, when any culture makes the effort to level the playing field of opportunity, female participation rises dramatically. In 1972, before the enactment of Title IX, the landmark law that ensured gender equality in educational opportunities, only 7% of high school athletes were girls. Today it's 42%.
Still, according to a thoughtful new study published in the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, the hard hand of evolution plays at least as much of a role in sports interest and participation as policy does—and quite possibly a greater one. And that, like it or not, tips the balance in favor of males.
@commonstrong @commonstrong.com
