It now appears that a primary reason why women in track and field gained on men in the 1970s and ’80s — and what the Nature papers did not account for — was because they were making up for the lack of an SRY gene by simply injecting testosterone.
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Seventy-five of the top eighty women’s shot put throws of all time, for instance, came between the mid-1970s and 1990, predominantly from Eastern Bloc countries.
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To this day, nearly all women’s world records in sprint and power events are from the 1980s, a testament to the powerful effect of male hormones on female athletes.
The East Germany “lady” swimmers. Who can forget them. The East Germans had in one building the enhancement drug lab on one floor and on the other floor a lab dedicated to producing another drug given to the athletes so the enhancement drug could not be detected.
I’ve kept vaguely in touch with the constant debates over performance enhancing drugs in professional sports for a while now.
The debates rage over whether PEDs are just a completely natural form of enhancement that technology allows, and that if humans want to continue growing and exceeding previous records and goals in sports, that PEDs are necessary to implement that, or if they are setting a bar that essentially requires people who want to compete professionally MUST use them in order to do so, even if they’d rather not.
Are records set by people using PEDs actually records? Should we have two different sets of records (natty vs enhanced)? If so, do we need to have different divisions within professional sports, or even different leagues?
Personally, I think the entire debate is completely overshadowed by the fact that most PEDs are still illegal, and so it seems silly to me to actually have divisions and leagues within professional sports, one of which essentially requiring it’s competitors to break the law.
The upshot is that I stand behind the decisions to test for PEDs, and that professional sports should not allow them. That being said, with more and more drugs becoming legal, or at least being decriminalized, this is likely a debate we’re going to have to resolve some day soon.
Finally, this post, as well as many others on this website, seem to be participating in this “debate” over whether women and men are physical equals, which I think is quite simply a stupid debate.
There is no “debate”. There is a mountain of actual scientific evidence backing the conclusion that no, no they are not. Generally, once that much evidence has been collected in any other non-politically charged discussion, the conclusions that they indicate would be considered scientific “fact” and would no longer be up for discussion without a similar amount of scientific study that disputes or disproves.
It’s not even close. Grab 100 women at random off of the street, and then compare them to a perfectly average, totally unremarkable male avatar, and what you’ll find is that the vast majority of the time, exactly zero of those 100 women will be stronger than the totally average male avatar.
Compare athletic records between men and women, and you’ll find that middle school aged boys are neck and neck with professional athlete women.
The best female tennis player on Earth was beaten handily by a 200-some odd rated male, who smoked cigarettes between matches during the game.
Body geometry, bone density, muscle mass, potential muscle mass capability, body mass, and so forth, all indicate that men are physically stronger and more capable than women.
I think that the fact that the debate continues to rage is a sign of people’s inability to accept facts that they don’t like.
https://i1.kwejk.pl/k/obrazki/2018/08/bPIkCizd0ICxxGf3.jpg
Top panel “I can’t believe they disqualified us because of sterides!”
Bottom panel “My God, I cant stand woman crying”