SP - General Too many women on the battlefield!

[WNxSpectre]

Now, not all men are larger than women, or stronger than women. But the average man, will be around 20% larger and stronger. Which means out of a hundred men and a hundred women, 99 of the men will be able to defeat 100 of the women. And perhaps 20 of the women are able to defeat one man. With equal training and weapons practice. I dont know about you, but in a mass fight, i would put my money on the all men`s team.

Your math here is wrong regarding the distribution.

What it means is that there will be roughly 20% of males with an advantage in strength beyond any female on the opposing force, meaning that 20 males will have strength outside the range of the predicted distribution for the female force.

There will also be roughly 20 females in the female force who will be at a physical disadvantage against any predicted male on the opposing side.

The bulk 80% of individuals both male and female will be within the overlapping zone of the bell curve distribution and will have even distribution of physical prowess with each other.

However, in any statistical distribution there will always be outliers, meaning there's always a chance that there could be women who may be unusually large and that some men may be unusually small. There could be a male who is so small that he is no physical match for any of the women. And equally there is a chance that there could be an outlier female who is so unusually strong that there is no male in the opposing force who is a physical match for her.

 

[shaktar]

Your math here is wrong regarding the distribution.

What it means is that there will be roughly 20% of males with an advantage in strength beyond any female on the opposing force, meaning that 20 males will have strength outside the range of the predicted distribution for the female force.

There will also be roughly 20 females in the female force who will be at a physical disadvantage against any predicted male on the opposing side.

The bulk 80% of individuals both male and female will be within the overlapping zone of the bell curve distribution and will have even distribution of physical prowess with each other.

However, in any statistical distribution there will always be outliers, meaning there's always a chance that there could be women who may be unusually large and that some men may be unusually small. There could be a male who is so small that he is no physical match for any of the women. And equally there is a chance that there could be an outlier female who is so unusually strong that there is no male in the opposing force who is a physical match for her.

What? No. Its a statistic with an average of all males in the testgroup. The average of men, is 20% larger and stronger than the average of women. Not an average difference. If that makes sense. My english might be faulting me. And regardless 20% is significant. Idk how statistics work, but i would say that if it was only a 10% difference, it would be negligible.
Yes, some men will be weaker and vice versa. But for the sake of this argument, of women in medieval or earlier periods, participating in battle, the weakest of the men would not be present unless it was a last ditch defense. You could argue that probably most of the women would be of peak strength. But so would the men! Average or above.

Btw, i just googled it quickly and it is 12% in the US, regarding body mass.

 

[shaktar]

ez win for me

No i demand satisfaction. On the battlefields of calradia. Pick your weapon, we fight at high noon.

 

[WNxSpectre]

What? No. Its a statistic with an average of all males in the testgroup. The average of men, is 20% larger and stronger than the average of women. Not an average difference. If that makes sense. My english might be faulting me. And regardless 20% is significant. Idk how statistics work, but i would say that if it was only a 10% difference, it would be negligible.
Yes, some men will be weaker and vice versa. But for the sake of this argument, of women in medieval or earlier periods, participating in battle, the weakest of the men would not be present unless it was a last ditch defense. You could argue that probably most of the women would be of peak strength. But so would the men! Average or above.

Btw, i just googled it quickly and it is 12% in the US, regarding body mass.

My Major was Psychology I am familiar with statistics we encounter them all the time, and the numbers are not working out the way you have detailed them. You would have two bell curve distributions for male and female with an 80% overlap. Which given what I know about human nature makes intuitive sense, we as a species largely overlap in average distribution in most attribute details, cognitive and physical.

It would not surprise me that in the US the numbers would turn out different given the ongoing obesity epidemic inflicting both males and females, that must skew the numbers.

Fun conversation. I couldn't help chiming in on this topic given my university major and interest in human nature.
Respect your good manners, and the respectful way you have conducted yourself in this thread.

Edit:
Have been doing a bit of research into this topic.

As a general rule from what I have found women are roughly 2/3rds as muscularly strong comparative to men. Meaning the overlap of the gender bell curves would be roughly 70%. The initial 20% you mentioned falls close to that range of distribution and the 2/3rds estimate is a good approximation. The largest difference falls in upper body strength..

I think body muscle comparisons are more revealing than strict body mass comparisons, because males and females contain different average fat to muscle ratios and even different ratios of differing types of muscle fibers.

"a woman's body is typically about 30 to 35 percent muscle by weight, while a man's body is about 40 to 50 percent muscle by weight".

The difference in average musculature is more stark when comparing the upper body of each sex, a European study found that "the women were approximately 52 percent and 66 percent as strong as men in the upper and lower body respectively."

This study only had 16 male and 16 female subjects, which is a very small sample to draw broad conclusions from and thus will have had a very large margin of error. I would take these findings with a grain of salt, the precise numbers are worthy of skepticism given the tiny sample size.

It has also been said that the type of muscles differ and that women tend to have more slow twitch muscles.

"Perhaps most notably, women tend to have about 27 to 35 percent more type I muscle fibers than men. More commonly known as slow-twitch muscle fibers, as per the American Council on Exercise, type I fibers are aerobic muscles rich in blood-carrying myoglobin. By the same token, women's muscles have a greater capillary density.

The combo of more slow-twitch fibers and more capillaries makes for an increased ability to deliver more blood to the muscle, while it also increases fatty acid oxidation.

According to ACE, "Because they can provide their own source of energy, slow-twitch fibers can sustain force for an extended period of time, but they are not able to generate a significant amount of force"."

So it seems that women may have on average greater muscle endurance over time, although lower capacity to exert immediate force. This makes some sense to me, given our species history and what I have learnt of early hunter gatherer societies during the vast majority of our history.

 

[Rybn47]

yes, lord with no equipment is a bug

 

[shaktar]

My Major was Psychology I am familiar with statistics we encounter them all the time, and the numbers are not working out the way you have detailed them. You would have two bell curve distributions for male and female with an 80% overlap. Which given what I know about human nature makes intuitive sense, we as a species largely overlap in average distribution in most attribute details, cognitive and physical.

It would not surprise me that in the US the numbers would turn out different given the ongoing obesity epidemic inflicting both males and females, that must skew the numbers.

Fun conversation. I couldn't help chiming in on this topic given my university major and interest in human nature.
Respect your good manners, and the respectful way you have conducted yourself in this thread.

Edit:
Have been doing a bit of research into this topic.

As a general rule from what I have found women are roughly 2/3rds as muscularly strong comparative to men. Meaning the overlap of the gender bell curves would be roughly 70%. The initial 20% you mentioned falls close to that range of distribution and the 2/3rds estimate is a good approximation. The largest difference falls in upper body strength..

I think body muscle comparisons are more revealing than strict body mass comparisons, because males and females contain different average fat to muscle ratios and even different ratios of differing types of muscle fibers.

"a woman's body is typically about 30 to 35 percent muscle by weight, while a man's body is about 40 to 50 percent muscle by weight".

The difference in average musculature is more stark when comparing the upper body of each sex, a European study found that "the women were approximately 52 percent and 66 percent as strong as men in the upper and lower body respectively."

This study only had 16 male and 16 female subjects, which is a very small sample to draw broad conclusions from and thus will have had a very large margin of error. I would take these findings with a grain of salt, the precise numbers are worthy of skepticism given the tiny sample size.

It has also been said that the type of muscles differ and that women tend to have more slow twitch muscles.

"Perhaps most notably, women tend to have about 27 to 35 percent more type I muscle fibers than men. More commonly known as slow-twitch muscle fibers, as per the American Council on Exercise, type I fibers are aerobic muscles rich in blood-carrying myoglobin. By the same token, women's muscles have a greater capillary density.

The combo of more slow-twitch fibers and more capillaries makes for an increased ability to deliver more blood to the muscle, while it also increases fatty acid oxidation.

According to ACE, "Because they can provide their own source of energy, slow-twitch fibers can sustain force for an extended period of time, but they are not able to generate a significant amount of force"."

So it seems that women may have on average greater muscle endurance over time, although lower capacity to exert immediate force. This makes some sense to me, given our species history and what I have learnt of early hunter gatherer societies during the vast majority of our history.

I might read it incorrectly, but im pretty sure it was not a comparison. As i stated.

Besides, modern testing done in different military corps, shows this categorically:

And if it is present in modern units, where technology such as guns equate for the disadvantages during the actual fighting and women STILL come up as scoring lower? Come on, man. If they had swords, it would not be a fight. It would be a slaughter.

 

[Lord Ferdinand]

Interesting video. Women in the army could cook for the real soldiers.

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

none of that, now.

 

[RoboSenshi]

Is there any mod that stops female nobles(apart from faction leaders) from leading parties? Or at least reduced more.

I can't find any.

 

[Grank]

Wow this thread is still alive.

My Major was Psychology I am familiar with statistics we encounter them all the time, and the numbers are not working out the way you have detailed them. You would have two bell curve distributions for male and female with an 80% overlap. Which given what I know about human nature makes intuitive sense, we as a species largely overlap in average distribution in most attribute details, cognitive and physical.

Muscles aside, how do you think menstruation and pregnancy would affect a woman's performance during a campaign? That's the main reason men did the fighting. We don't get disabled for a good chunk of the year due to pregnancy. Men can train, march and fight any day of the week. It wasn't due to misogynist society. People had no such political view back in antiquity, when this system was already in place. "Misogyny" was simply the product of a martial culture, which is shaped by natural biological traits. Fighters have a tendency to act arrogantly towards non-fighters, and this happens to include women. It's something that can still be observed with martial artists today.

"Women should be allowed to fight" is an idea born from an era that has largely forgotten how dangerous and scary fighting actually is. Those who don't have to fight are lucky. Women were in fact protected from that responsibility, not oppressed from the right to fight.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Women were in fact protected from that responsibility, not oppressed from the right to fight.

Mankind is good at protecting women from where their fate is decided, be it battlefields or voting-urns. But no, they are not oppressed...

 

[Mad Vader]

Mankind is good at protecting women from where their fate is decided, be it battlefields or voting-urns.

+1
Half the people in this thread have very iffy views on women's rights which informs their reading of history too.
In fact, these kinds of threads attract the conservatives first to complain about women, and then us liberal white knights to save those imaginary women. It's useless commenting here, as it's just another front of the wider culture wars.

 

[Grank]

Meh. I'm an Asian living in an Asian country. We don't have all that gender politic stuff in where I live. Men and women are treated differently, but we get along well. I'm just saying that societies back then developed pretty much naturally, not driven by 21st century gender politics.

 

[Mad Vader]

Meh. I'm an Asian living in an Asian country. We don't have all that gender politic stuff in where I live. Men and women are treated differently, but we get along well. I'm just saying that societies back then developed pretty much naturally, not driven by 21st century gender politics.

It's not politics to ask women what they want instead of making decisions for them.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Meh. I'm an Asian living in an Asian country. We don't have all that gender politic stuff in where I live. Men and women are treated differently, but we get along well. I'm just saying that societies back then developed pretty much naturally, not driven by 21st century gender politics.

It's not politics to ask women what they want instead of making decisions for them.

@MadVader +1
Could not say it any better.

deciding what´s best for others without hearing them is oppression, in a form, even if they might have agreed.

 

[Grank]

It's not politics to ask women what they want instead of making decisions for them.

What is this about? I thought we were talking about why, historically, men did the fighting. And why is it bad to make decisions for other people? Oftentimes in life it's simply more practical for people to make decisions for others. Where's the line supposed to be drawn here? Should all(?) army leaders ask every(?) women if they wanted to fight? They sure didn't ask when conscripting men, and I'm pretty sure if it's an option, only a few people would want to go die in war. That would be a mess.

Hell. Even in this lovely peaceful progressive modern era, my governor didn't consult me on wide that new bridge had to be. I trust professionals to make that decision for me.

 

[Mad Vader]

What is this about? I thought we were talking about why, historically, men did the fighting. And why is it bad to make decisions for other people? Oftentimes in life it's simply more practical for people to make decisions for others. Where's the line supposed to be drawn here? Should all(?) army leaders ask every(?) women if they wanted to fight? They sure didn't ask when conscripting men, and I'm pretty sure if it's an option, only a few people would want to go die in war. That would be a mess.

You are just clouding all the issues. My statement was general as a response to your general statement, not about war as you try to construe it.

Hell. Even in this lovely peaceful progressive modern era, my governor didn't consult me on wide that new bridge had to be. I trust professionals to make that decision for me.

Your trust in experts and your governor has nothing to do with women's rights. Chances are they are treated as second-class citizens in your presumably traditional/conservative country and have little say in important decisions concerning everyone and them in particular. I'm sure that works for you and you prefer to think women don't need to have as much power as men do. Which is why you are in this thread commenting on women.

 

[Grank]

You are just clouding all the issues. My statement was general as a response to your general statement, not about war as you try to construe it.
[...]
I'm sure that works for you and you prefer to think women don't need to have as much power as men do. Which is why you are in this thread commenting on women.

In all honesty the reason I've been talking in this kind of discussions is because I find it amusing how people in the west tend to think in "stances" during it. If one speaks against something that limits the "freedom" of any social group, people tend to assume that person is "against that group." It's silly and amusing in the eyes of an outsider like me.

I know the US has a bad history with all its race-related slavery and women's rights, but my people tend to see those issues as people being dicks instead of the social groups involved. It's easier to fix problems when you think that way. Instead of thinking of whole social groups, who in fact contain a lot of people with lots of stances and level of goodness, we just see who did what, why and possibly how to solve it. Nobody in my country would care enough to get angry about the European power that enslaved our people hundreds of years ago. Those were just different people with different minds and goals, not the whole Caucasian race.

Now, that's also how I think about the history we've been talking about in this topic. There are reasons why societies across a long period of time, even when separated by geography and contact for a good chunk of it, developed the same pattern of treatment towards women. It's biology, which is natural. Physical ability being limited during pregnancy and all that, eventually resulting in women not growing as much muscles as men during our evolution. It would be silly to field women on the battlefield.

I'm speaking honestly here, but you're free to not believe me. I took that risk when I decided to talk like this. I knew that people would assume I'm "against women's rights" as that's what thinking in groups does to a man's mind. I've seen it a lot. It's silly of course. I'm a normal man who loves women. I want my loved ones to be happy. Why would I want to oppress them?

Your trust in experts and your governor has nothing to do with women's rights. Chances are they are treated as second-class citizens in your presumably traditional/conservative country and have little say in important decisions concerning everyone and them in particular.

I was referring to "making decisions for others is oppression" with that. It's not removing one's rights to do so. It's simply the practical thing to do. It takes a lot of resources to hear the thoughts of every single individual in a society, and doing so for every government decision would be too wasteful.

Besides, not every citizen knows how to do everything. Not everyone is educated in bridge-building, for example, and that's fine. We trust those who do, as we're too busy doing our own thing. We're all different with our own abilities and thus roles, but difference is not a problem unlike many people seem to think. Just don't be dicks about it.

 

[Mad Vader]

People who pretend a problem doesn't exist, are usually a part of the problem. Racism has very little to do with people being dicks. It's just convenient for you to pretend these things don't matter because you are not the one suffering the consequences. Same for women being treated as inferior. If it's not you, it's okay, you find an excuse and say it's not a problem. It requires a degree of self-awareness and empathy to see that others may suffer while you are fine.

Also, I presume your country is authoritarian, since they taught you well here:

Besides, not every citizen knows how to do everything. Not everyone is educated in bridge-building, for example, and that's fine. We trust those who do, as we're too busy doing our own thing. We're all different with our own abilities and thus roles, but difference is not a problem unlike many people seem to think. Just don't be dicks about it.

This is a very shallow excuse for rationalizing a dictatorship. While it doesn't say so directly, you don't need to read between the lines much to see that this is an argument against democracy in general.
Citizens can and do make decisions about bridge building too. How if they are not experts? It's the job of the free media and the politicians to communicate the message from the experts, so citizens can make good decisions about bridges. It may not be necessary as there may be other mechanisms to stop an individual from building a stupid bridge, like elected representatives.

 

[Grank]

People who pretend a problem doesn't exist, are usually a part of the problem. Racism has very little to do with people being dicks. It's just convenient for you to pretend these things don't matter because you are not the one suffering the consequences. Same for women being treated as inferior. If it's not you, it's okay, you find an excuse and say it's not a problem. It requires a degree of self-awareness and empathy to see that others may suffer while you are fine.

It's got everything to do with people being dicks. That's the damn root of the problem. People not being kind, good, reasonable people. Someone who's treating others poorly just because of their race is being a ****. Someone who's beating on women is being a ****. There are various forms of evil, and when the victims are categorized by race, it's defined as racism. When it's gender, it's sexism. We don't talk in those fancy terms in my country. We just try to be good people, and it mostly works. No left-right conflicts or any of that nonsense.

And no my country is a republic. We run on democracy. Our president is elected, by men and women of age. Children don't vote, so I guess you can call us age-ists if that's already a thing in the west.

This is a very shallow excuse for rationalizing a dictatorship. While it doesn't say so directly, you don't need to read between the lines much to see that this is an argument against democracy in general.
Citizens can and do make decisions about bridge building too. How if they are not experts? It's the job of the free media and the politicians to communicate the message from the experts, so citizens can make good decisions about bridges. It may not be necessary as there may be other mechanisms to stop an individual from building a stupid bridge, like elected representatives.

It's just blunt reality. Not everyone is knowledgeable in every field of study. That's just pure nonsense. You can easily fact-check this by asking a random 8 years old boy about quantum physics. He most likely won't know jack **** about it, and that's fine. It's not wrong to not be an expert on everything at all time. That's just how societies are. Different individuals learning different trades to fill different roles.

Yes, citizens do make decisions. Hell. In a democratic government, the government consists of citizens, but is it all citizens? Clearly not. Only a portion of the population work at the various government institutions. The ones higher up are our representatives. We vote them trusting they know what they're doing. They don't ask every single one of us about every single policy or program they plan on running. Why? Simply because it's a waste of time and resources. Imagine how many voting will have to take place. We just trust them to make the decisions for us, as we take care of our own daily lives.

Take a look at your own reality for a minute. I'm certain that you're not involved in every decision-making in your state. Would you call it oppression then? Of course not. It just takes weight off your shoulders to have others make some of those decisions for you. It's just the easier way to live most of us prefer. The same with our ancestors.