In 2014, Always launched its #LikeAGirl campaign which shed light on just how much gender stereotypes are ingrained in our culture and language. It was eye-opening to see how much impact a simple phrase has on our vision of ourselves as women and as athletes.
What is more eye-opening is to see the scientific evidence that shows how women being labelled the inferior gender in terms of health, strength, and athletic performance is far from the truth.
While the body of evidence on females is small compared to male counterparts, it has been around for a while and slowly is becoming a more prominent area of research. Some of the first data on sports nutrition and the different needs of men and women started back in the 1970’s. Because of the daily fluctuations in female hormones, tracking what a female needs in terms of nutrition and appropriate exercise protocols and planning for peak athletic performance can be tricky.
Despite this massive difference in hormonal influence, the evidence is clear on one thing: Weight to strength ratio in women is comparable to men, especially when it comes to lower body strength. A male athlete isn’t stronger simply because he is male and has more testosterone. The reason most people assume men are naturally stronger is because we tend to compare absolute strength as opposed to relative strength. A 200-pound male is likely going to have more muscle mass than a 135-pound female and therefore have more potential strength. But if their weight and muscle mass ratio were more even, the strength differences would be minimal. Strength potential — and as a result, athletic performance which is a by product of strength and power — has more to do with genetics than it does with gender.
One study showed that test subjects increased their barbell lifts by 321 per cent by simply telling them they were being given a performance enhancing supplement. A 321 per cent increase in strength with a placebo. That is how powerful the mind is. Nothing actually changed but they believed it did and therefore the results changed dramatically. The same thing happens in reverse when you tell a girl she doesn’t have as much testosterone as a boy and is therefore weaker. Women start thinking that they have less potential than they actually do as a result of false beliefs and social pressures.
While yes, women may not make nearly as much testosterone as men, they in turn create 300 per cent more IGF-1 than men do, which acts like testosterone in a way. It is anabolic for women (muscle building) and aids in muscle repair and prevents muscle breakdown. Women have the same capacity, it is just in a different form, and the more we look to science the more we see that women have been wrongly labelled athletically inferior for a very long time.
Could you imagine what would happen if we started to remove the negative connotations in phrases like “throw like a girl” or “run like a girl?” Imagine if we celebrated female strength, speed, athleticism, and body composition and didn’t allow our young girls to grow up believing they can never be as good as someone else simply because of their gender. If belief is what is massively lacking in our society and the reason females are not reaching their potential then we need to start changing the conversation and embody the #LikeAGirl movement with the pride and the strength we are capable of!
Alyssia DeWolfe is the Owner of Back Alley Fitness, an online trainer and nutrition expert and a member of the Females in Action Moving and Empowering Committee.
