Are there any sporting events / activities in which women are superior to men?

This thread makes about as much sense as asking if there are any sports where high school boys are better than men - and the answer is just as predictable. But it apparently makes some guys feel better about themselves to know that guys are generally bigger, stronger and faster than women; muscles are clearly everything.

Runnerchx44 wrote:

J.D. Byrighers wrote:

giving birth...

Ding ding ding. I think it’s funny when I hear of stories of men who can’t handle being in the room when their child is born. Really? Your wife just housed a human being inside her belly for 9 months and is now pushing it out into the world and you cant handle watching!?

Have you done it? It's pretty amazing but also really brutal.

Anyway, the reason you keep hearing men complain about it is because men dont have babies. If they did, their wives would be the one in there freaking out and telling people how bloody/poopy/tearing it was. Man or woman, it's a tough but awe inspiring thing to witness.

La Ultima Palabra wrote:

Bare Briant wrote:

Even those that don't require much musculature like chess or badminton?

You're clearly not familiar with top-level badminton...

As to the general sense of your question: Yes, there are some world-class female athletes who can occasionally win against fields of sub-elite men. Are there any female athletes in any sport who are consistently better than their best male counterparts? No.

Motor sports, equestrian, and thoroughbred racing have been mentioned in previous posts, but those are activities in which the women are quite literally not the ones supplying the horsepower.

Ok, so if we accept equestrian, horse racing, and car racing as sports, then women can compete equally with men in three sports.

What about archery and rifle? Do women compete as equals to men? My assumption is they should be able to.

Drainthefecesswamp wrote:

La Ultima Palabra wrote:

You're clearly not familiar with top-level badminton...

As to the general sense of your question: Yes, there are some world-class female athletes who can occasionally win against fields of sub-elite men. Are there any female athletes in any sport who are consistently better than their best male counterparts? No.

Motor sports, equestrian, and thoroughbred racing have been mentioned in previous posts, but those are activities in which the women are quite literally not the ones supplying the horsepower.

Ok, so if we accept equestrian, horse racing, and car racing as sports, then women can compete equally with men in three sports.

What about archery and rifle? Do women compete as equals to men? My assumption is they should be able to.

A women US Marine Captain told me thirteen or fourteen years ago that women Marines qualify shooting M-16 A2 as well as male Marines. I have no reason to doubt what I was told. Larger the rifle and greater the recoil would possibly make shooting less than equal between genders.

Drainthefecesswamp wrote:

What about archery and rifle? Do women compete as equals to men? My assumption is they should be able to.

NCAA rifle champs are co-ed. There have been many women champions:

zzzz wrote:

Drainthefecesswamp wrote:

What about archery and rifle? Do women compete as equals to men? My assumption is they should be able to.

NCAA rifle champs are co-ed. There have been many women champions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Rifle_Championship

This ^. Women have been shown to be Superior shots to men especially if emotions are not involved.

During Hunter’s Education, the instructor noted anecdotally that girls are always way better at shooting than boys because they actually listen when you teach them how to aim, squeeze the trigger, etc. vs. boys think they already know what they’re doing. Also, if you go by the health test standards, I would guess any sport involving flexibility (like gymnastics). Oddly, I think women generally underperform the top men at chess and billiards, but I would suspect this is more a function of 2 things: 1) pool of participants is smaller because the sports are less popular with women and 2) the top men all find the sport incredibly early in life (with chess specifically) whereas I think women would be pointed in other directions by parents if found agonizing over a chess board or billiard table for hours at 5 years old.

Psychology Professor wrote:

zzzz wrote:

NCAA rifle champs are co-ed. There have been many women champions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Rifle_Championship

This ^. Women have been shown to be Superior shots to men especially if emotions are not involved.

Yes, embracing social commentary and criticism

donut wrote:

Liberal Larry wrote:

I don't think so. If they competed in same events, men would clean up.

Have you ever thought about why men and women don't so the same events in gymnastics, unlike most other sports?

Obviously men have more strength and power but women are more flexible. There is no way a 16-year old boy could do some of the moves on uneven bars or floor exercise that world class 16-year old girls are doing.

Agree. I would have also thought women can be better than men in figure skating.

I also don't see why women should be at least as good as men in events like archery, darts, bowling, shooting, and sailing.

I don't know the exact numbers but I would have thought that the heavyweight classes of women in sports like weightlifting or powerlifting are actually lifting more than the lightest weight classes of the men because sheer size is huge factor in strength sports. I'm not sure if the same would apply to a combat sport like wrestling or judo.

It doesn't matter. YOU aren't better than the elite women in any sport, so go cry a river somewhere else.

The 55-kg olympic weightlifting records for men (the lightest classification) beats all women's marks for every classification except the 87-kg. record which it is roughly the same, and the +87-kg. class which are superior the the men's 55-kg. records. So 121-pound men are about as strong as 191-pound women. They are considerably stronger than every female lifter lighter than 191 pounts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_Olympic_weightlifting

]Actually if you look at the historical records (1998-2018) the men's 55-kg (121 pounds) are stronger than all classifications including the women's 90 kg. (198 pounds). Only the 90-kg. plus (198-plus) women can beat the men. So, you might have 300-pound women beating 121-pound men.

Runnerchx44 wrote:

J.D. Byrighers wrote:

giving birth...

Ding ding ding. I think it’s funny when I hear of stories of men who can’t handle being in the room when their child is born. Really? Your wife just housed a human being inside her belly for 9 months and is now pushing it out into the world and you cant handle watching!?

Didn't know this was a sport. How much do the pro's make?

makhdaddy el hombre wrote:

laundry

doing the dishes

cooking

etc

eat slugs.

Not starting threads like this on LRC?

Not a sport, but for what it's worth.....

Many years ago, in order to fulfill a requirement, I had to take a dance class. This class involved lots of push-ups and ab work. While the women weren't even close to the men in regard to push-ups, as far as the ab work went, the most fit man could not last as long as the least fit woman (I'm thinking specifically of the "bicycle" while lying on one's back, but it seemed to be the case with ab work in general).

Rock climbing. I wouldn't say women are superior but definitely close to equal. I think the only reason women haven't pushed the difficulty as far as men is because there are 10x more men participating than women.

I am a fairly decent climber (13c and V9) and any given night there are 5 women in the gym that are way better than me.

the styles very greatly though. its fun to see the different approaches to the same boulder problem.

Bare Briant wrote:

Even those that don't require much musculature like chess or badminton?

I would guess Archery and surprised that sport is separated by gender. The South Korean women are amazingly accurate and I think the best target shooting archer in the world is an early 20s girl from Columbia.

Sure men can pull higher poundage bows, but competition distances don't need those bows and they would be a detriment because your shoulder gets tired in a hurry when pulling 70lbs repeatedly.

I visited the Olympic Training Center once and they said women have better ability at controlling their heart rate and breathing when in shooting competitions or the xc ski and shoot event, so they are superior to men in that aspect for sure.