A Physiology Lesson from Reddit by SnapperTrx
Rumor has it that somewhere outside of the Empire of Lies is the Island of Sanity. There, little girls learn about the difference between girls and boys the hour they are told where babies come from. Here, where you and I live, it is not so.
The experience of young athletic ladies misled by modern lies into thinking themselves equal in strength to young men is not rare.
Not once, but twice, ladies of my acquaintance told me stories of their shock and surprise the hour they discovered the casually overpowering strength of boys.
That these ladies could be so deeply deceived on a point so obvious was my own first exposure to what is now commonly called gaslighting, that is, lies that contradict the obvious.
The first chapter of one of my novels has a scene where my heroine makes this selfsame discovery her teen years, when the physical differences first are seen. It is the first thing, not the last, a girl should learn about womanhood when she enters that estate.
This column from Snapper’s Domain (a realm of gaming, music, religion and wooden weapons) touches on a similar theme and point. Reprinted here with the author’s permission. The words below are his.
A Physiology Lesson from Reddit
If you aren’t familiar with Reddit I can’t really encourage or discourage you from getting familiar with Reddit. One of the hotspots of the internet it is at the same time one of the coolest places to find neat and interesting things, while also being the literal toilet of the internet, where all disgusting things end up. I have seen things too beautiful to be real there, but also things I wish I could flush from my mind with bleach.
My advice: Proceed with caution if you aren’t already there.
The other day, however, my eye was caught by an interesting post in the subreddit /r/TwoXChromosomes, which is typically a hotbed of feminism and moronic cognitive dissonance.
Despite the fact that I grabbed screen shots I am going to simply post text to avoid having to load images, but the post was this:
Has anyone ever wrestled with guys and be surprised just how much stronger they are?
My guy and I were at the climbing gym this morning and after our session we ended up on the mats where they wrestle while we cooled off and stretched. I started messing with him like I was wrestling and then I put him in a headlock and laughing telling him there’s no way you can get out of this. He says you got me. I guess I was feeling full of myself and told him to at least try. He just stands up with me on his back, pulls my arm off his neck like nothing, then reaches behind and grabs me.
Before I knew what happened he has me upside down in a hug asking me “what are you going to do now, tough girl”? Then he puts me down and did a flexing thing. I think he thought I was mad cause he asked if I was OK. I was fine, happy, but still processing how easy he overpowered me. I honestly felt really small in that moment (not in a bad way or anything, just a reality check of sorts on how strong guys are.)
Now, this very well could have been a troll posting something in a place that is typically very “girl power” and “men suck, amirite!”, but the responses to her post could not likely have been from trolls because there were so many of them, and they all AFFIRMED the initial post:
I used to be a boxer a looong time ago. As an adult, 5’5, 140lb woman my coach would often have me spar with the boys. And I emphasize *boys* because about the time they hit 16 years of age or so, I wanted no part of sparring with them anymore.
Now I’ve been training as a power lifter for 10 years. I am much, much stronger than your average woman. My upper body is stronger than most men who don’t lift at all, but once a man has been training for a couple of months (like 2) he blows past my upper body strength. It usually takes them a year to get the lower body strength it took me 10 years to get.
Your average woman has absolutely no idea how much stronger than her the average man is.
To which someone replied:
Testosterone is a hell of a drug.
Some additional responses to the original post:
Yeah, I realized this one day when my ex and I were playing around and he was trying to lock me in a hug while I desperately tried to break his arms away from me. I am a pretty strong girl and I had been going to the gym almost 6 days a week… honestly I always felt like I HAD to be stronger than him because he was built so thin and all of my limbs were noticeably bigger than his. I honestly got a little scared thinking even if I felt and looked strong a small guy could easily over power me if he wanted to.
I had taken some self defense classes when I was younger, and thought I was pretty good at self-defense. Once I was talking with a guy friend of mine who was around 6’2″, 250lbs and I was saying that I could totally take him in a fight. He got very serious and said “you need to understand, for your own safety, how much stronger I am than you. If someone my size ever comes at you, don’t fight. Run.
He then told me to hit him as hard as I could and fight him with everything I had. It was like punching a brick wall – within seconds he had me over his shoulder, completely subdued. It was a really big learning moment for me.
Another…
Always. Well, in that I always play fight with my fb but I’m never surprised when I’m pinned down unable to move. There are times though when he forgets how much stronger he is than me, so during these pinned down moments when I’m red in the face and grunting in a very un-ladylike manner trying to make him budge, he’s like “…wait, seriously? But…I’m using my left arm!”
My sister-in-law, who’s a black belt in karate, says the same. She can play fight with my brother and as soon as he’s got her properly pinned, that’s it. And he doesn’t do any strength training, just cardio. All of those martial art techniques are useless.
Biology, amirite?
One of the main reasons why I, and other men, harp on the kick-ass girl trope so prevalent in movies and TV nowadays is that it really does give women a false, and dangerous, sense of their ability to defend themselves.
As you can see from these posts, these ladies did strength training, they did combat training and martial arts, and very likely due to their consumption of modern, feminist centered media, they had the idea in their minds that they were adequately prepared to defend themselves against men.
In the movies you have 90 lb. women throwing 200 lb. men across the room and snapping their necks with ease.
This actress weighs in at, maybe, 100-110 lbs. I don’t think she could kick any man down who has his feet solidly on the ground.
These women are put in the movie because their 90 lb. body looks sexy in spandex and looks graceful while doing martial arts moves, but the thought that any of that would work in real life is completely false, and dangerous.
I’m not against the kick-ass girl trope in movies provided the reason behind said 90 lb. girl kicking ass is explained. Super powers. Mechanical enhancements. Chemical enhancements. Science fiction. All these can lend to good reasoning, but your average TV show about female cops or female assassins flipping, jumping and punching a group of trained, male soldiers needs to stop.
I know plenty of ladies, and probably the majority of women on the street, would say I was a woman-hater for pointing these things out, or that I read too much into TV and movies, but the proof is in the pudding: These types of things DO affect the way women think about how they can defend themselves.
Do yourself a favor, ladies. Stick to combat training for cardio and exercise, but for defense, buy a handgun and get some firearms training.
Just my two cents.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
