324
The Theory That Men Evolved to Hunt and Women Evolved to Gather Is Wrong
(www.scientificamerican.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
324 points (87.7% liked)
science
14360 readers
302 users here now
just science related topics. please contribute
note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry
Rule 1) Be kind.
lemmy.world rules: https://mastodon.world/about
I don't screen everything, lrn2scroll
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's in the ultra marathons that women keep up with men and sometimes beat them
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49284389
women are excellent long distance slow pace powerhouses.
In backyard ultras, where competitors keep running until they can no longer maintain a pace of approximately 4 mph, the male record is 50% longer at 450 miles than the female record of 300 miles.
No one is running 450 km to hunt though.
What? I just looked at the records for ultramarathons, and there is not a single instance of women beating men for their respective runs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon?wprov=sfla1
For the IAU records on Wikipedia, yeah. A couple things to keep in mind, 80% of the people who complete an ultra marathon are male. And the gap between the sexes, some estimate around 4% for ultra marathons, seems to be trending down.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicholas-Tiller/publication/348547781_Do_Sex_Differences_in_Physiology_Confer_a_Female_Advantage_in_Ultra-Endurance_Sport/links/6002ea5c92851c13fe1514f7/Do-Sex-Differences-in-Physiology-Confer-a-Female-Advantage-in-Ultra-Endurance-Sport.pdf
Here's better research I found. You're right, men still win more often and have the records. But honestly it's more complicated than just who is faster.
As I said to them above- it's like suggesting that Olympic target shooters would make the best range hunters. Just being able to run long distances quickly is not any sort of indication someone will be the best endurance hunter.