[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, Starre Vartan.

She is author of the great new book The Stronger Sex What Science Tells Us About the Power of the Female Body.

Starre, a pleasure to speak with you today.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you so much for having me.

Tell our viewers about the derivation of this project.

What's the thesis that you wanted to test basically, in this book?

So this is a longstanding thesis that I've had basically since I was a kid.

And it was that men have always defined what strength means by what their bodies tend to do a little bit better.

And I heard a lot about that growing up.

And as a science journalist.

But I didn't hear too much about what women's bodies do well.

And I thought, you know, as I became a science journalist and started reporting that I really heard a lot of sort of undercurrents and the different areas that female bodies were strong.

And I really wanted to counter this narrative that only male bodies are strong and female bodies are fragile or weak, because that's something we've definitely heard for hundreds of years in our culture.

Well, Starre you went a step further than that.

It could have been the strong sex, but it's the stronger sex.

And, I'm sure you have had your share of, the contrarians.

I mean, they're not really the contrarians.

They're the mainstream, like you say, who've, adopted the conventional wisdom and carried it forward for some generations.

But are you really asserting that women are stronger or are equally strong?

Well, it depends on the category.

So that's actually a really great question.

And I'll mention that my original title was slightly less provocative.

And this, we came up with at my publisher because as you know very well, Alexander, we do not live in the most nuanced times.

But, in a certain categories.

Yes.

I argue, I think convincingly in the book that, female bodies are stronger.

When you're talking about immunity, longevity, endurance capacity, there's, really strong evidence, even though we are, lacking significant science in female bodies.

And research in that area, is quite behind, research in male bodies.

We can still say that with authority.

In other areas I would say there's more of a, equal, match between the two, and we don't really know how strong female bodies can get because they've been really, hamstrung and repressed for so long in a multitude of ways, starting from when you're a child to the training that female athletes get.

And then there are certainly some areas where in general, over the population.

Again, human beings are very diverse.

But over population scales, we can say male bodies are a little bit stronger in certain areas.

What we call, in science, explosive strength.

So something that requires very quick, reactions where you're using a lot of carbohydrates very quickly.

And so running those short distances, lifting a very heavy weight over your head just a couple times.

Men's bodies tend to be really good at those things.

So, that's those are great strengths.

But that's not the only kind of strength right?

Right, well, provocative but justified and convincing in your prose and substantiation in the book.

So congratulations on what you write and how you write it.

And for our viewers who want a preview, you talk about, like you said, those, often forgotten but long standing measures of longevity.

But also specifics like flexibility.

Concurrent with that are mental durability.

As much as physical prowess.

How much of the scale, Starre, is tipped by the mental soundness?

As opposed to the physical soundness?

Because what you were alluding to before was, the distinctive physical capacity of a woman to give birth, for instance, and to, withstand that ordeal and experience and then, grow further her sense of strength, mental and physical.

So when it comes to that scale, are you giving them that edge of strength because of a mental fortitude, that you think is kind of tips the scale in their favor?

That's a really excellent question.

And it's very difficult to know, especially when it comes to athletics, exactly how much especially when you get to those top athletic achievements, how much of that is, mental strength and capacity and how much of it is physical?

I looked mostly at physical.

I didn't actually do a chapter on neurological issues or brain stuff in this book because entire books have been written by that.

So I really stuck to more physical aspects.

But I will say that both the research in, pain tolerance and looking at athletic performance that female bodies, have significant advantages there, and we don't know why the top athletes are the top athletes in terms of mental strength.

We know that all athletes tend to have a very amazing capacity to keep pushing themselves through conditions and situations where most regular people would not be able to, that's something that comes with practice and that comes with practice for all human beings.

So I think there is, but I've also talked to the scientists who have made the argument to me that they think that the female capacity for dealing with pain, specifically, which female bodies have more practice at over the life course due to both, being discriminated against for pain treatment, being given less pain meds when they're needed, even for surgeries and things like that, but also going through, life situations like pregnancy and childbirth, as well as menstruation throughout the life course.

So anybody who has a lot of practice at pain gets better at it.

And that goes to your mental strength idea.

And how much of the thesis from the book do you extrapolate to, the broad realm of human existence as opposed to athletic life?

The stronger sex in the sporting culture, or the stronger sex in, you know, in life, among us homosapiens.

So, sports are such a great example of how far we can push ourselves in certain directions.

And, you know, I would argue and some of the great sports scientists that I interviewed also would argue we could have myriad other sports that actually, test and push the limits of the things that female bodies are really great at.

But sports is really been focused around, men and male bodies in general.

And that's changing a lot right now, which is really exciting.

But it does sort of give us a little window into these capacities when we look at sports and athletics.

So, for example, we look at very long marathon, training and long swimming distances, even in very, very cold water.

And we see women really do, very well in those areas, even, beating men in competitions, sometimes with less training, less funding, all of that stuff.

So this speaks to our capacity that we've developed evolutionarily over time, which is that female bodies have this endurance capacity.

We preferentially use fat for fueling.

And we also preferentially, then do activities that use that fat that can be endurance, that long burn strength.

So think about historically what female bodies have done carrying babies, walking long distances, look for hunting, for gathering, and carrying water, carrying firewood, all of this stuff.

These are considered generally female jobs in most subsistence cultures.

And that's because of that long burning strength, tanning hides.

So we see the reflections of the things that female bodies are good at in athletics, in the real world and through our human history as well.

So you don't have a problem with the, extrapolation of this thesis to, the toughness or stick to it-iveness.

Or if you want to say endurance or longevity of women.

In higher education, where women outnumber men, at least in the United States.

Is it fair to say that you concluded this book, believing there is, enough to substantiate the point that, women are also, if you want to use the word more productive, more productive citizens.

And when the alarm clock goes off, at whatever time in the morning they're going to be there more likely than men.

And I don't say that to insult my own.

I just say that as a provocative question in response to a provocative book, which is, are women less likely to sleep through their alarm clock and more likely to be at the office at, you know, 7:00 in the morning for 40 years?

I'm not sure about the answer to that last question, but I can say that, you know, we definitely can look at our own history and even the current hunter gatherers that are still with us today.

And also look at the more recent history of, humans in the Bronze Age.

And up in, you know, the last 10 to 5000 years and see what female jobs were even when we lived in a more gendered society.

And we see, actually, because this is the subject of my next book, that, women really were very involved in doing all kinds of work, including physical labor.

We tend to think of physical labor as something that men do.

But throughout human history, women were doing physical labor unless they were like the really rich, very privileged people.

Up until very recently, that was the norm.

And so, you know, being able to balance those tasks, those physical tasks with, caring for children, with pregnancy, with menstruation has been the norm throughout human history.

There was never really a time when women were put up on a pedestal unless they were literally a queen or a princess.

So, you know, this idea that, you know, female bodies or psyches or mental abilities are lesser is really more of a story that has been told and almost a fairy story that comes out of the, monarchies and those systems that many of us look up to in the past.

Right.

Well, let's talk a little bit more about sports, because that's the focus of the book.

And then extrapolate ourselves to women's strengths in civic life.

So, Caitlin Clark, is a very public example of, something we had not seen, that we had seen the WNBA, we had seen the NBA, but you had never seen, a, woman basketball player shoot the three with the efficacy, and of course, the dynamism of Caitlin Clark, until Caitlin Clark.

Now, you seen Leslie, and a few other players dunk.

In the WNBA.

And that was like a critical moment of taking the sport seriously, because dunking has been, a very high profile, publicized, example of basketball for some time.

But, Caitlin Clark really did something that your book proves is possible.

And if not just possible, but is the future.

But it took a long time to get there, so I just wanted you to reflect on, the science not keeping a pace with the popular culture until someone like a phenomenon like Caitlin Clark emerges.

So there's a few things there.

One is that, and I'm a little older than Caitlin Clark is, but, you know, she is among the first generation who grew up being even able to watch female basketball players on television in any capacity.

So think about that.

Being able to even see your own kind playing this game on television and thinking as a little kid, hey, maybe I want to do that if I practice really hard.

That's a huge and important thing.

So that's a generational change that has literally just occurred.

And so we're seeing the fruits of that.

We're also seeing that, a more balanced, training regimen for younger people.

So in the past, it was always assumed that, girls played certain sports or did certain sports in a modified way, and boys did another.

And what the research has shown recently is that, first of all, there's not really any physical differences between boys and girls until they hit puberty.

So separating them out to play sports is really just a cultural story thing that we're telling ourselves.

And also based on the fact that a 3 or 4 year old boy might be encouraged to do different types of activities and get good at them, like kicking and throwing, and a 3 or 4 year old girl would might be encouraged to do other things.

So the more we change the... I thought you were going to say kicking and screaming.

-No.

-Not kicking and throwing.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

No, I mean, so but the important thing to think about here is that doing those activities when you're a little kid and then through puberty, actually trains your body to be really good at them when you're an adult.

And many young girls don't get that opportunity or they get a limited opportunity.

And that's why we see girls who grew up with older brothers or older sisters who play these sports tend to be really good at them.

Many little boys grow up playing these sports, and that's why they're really good at them.

Of course, again, there are physical differences in between male and female bodies to some extent, but a lot of the differences we see are actually between the amount of training and practice people get.

What you learn as a kid is what you're good at as an adult.

I grew up doing a lot of weight bearing activities because I had a lot of chores to do.

I grew up with my grandma and she put me to work, so therefore that is something that I hold in my body to this day.

I have a really great strength capacity.

Most little girls don't grow up doing that kind of work, and so therefore they don't have the bodily knowledge and practice.

So that is changing.

And that's really important to change because then we'll see athletes like Caitlin Clark more commonly.

And of course, we all know that, Caitlin Clark's investments in the sport has led to, an institution to be rebirthed, and potentially have the financial backing one day that, something like the NFL or NBA does.

And that was a stroke of people would say, miraculous.

But, it was hard work and dedication, -but it was a single stroke -Yeah.

that has been so consequential, maybe more than the prior entire history of the WNBA, not individual players, because they can go right up against anybody else.

But the cumulative reality of the of the financial output of the league just changing instantly, much like the NIL, and Supreme Court ruling about college athletes being compensated now has had enormous cultural, change in the profession.

Yeah.

So we've seen a lot of change happen in women's sports recently.

And we're going to see lots more.

A really interesting statistic is that only 6% of all, all sports science has ever been, on women's bodies alone, there's been some other studies that were both male and female.

So we really have a dearth of information.

We're learning right now.

The coaches and the sport scientists are working on how to train female bodies, when to train them the same as male bodies, when to train them differently.

There's a big movement now.

You know, women's bodies are not just small male bodies, they're different.

And figuring out where those differences are and how to make that training difference will improve women's sports even more.

The old wives tale.

We should call it the old husbands tale, because it's husbands who have probably been promulgating this, and that is, that men can survive with less sleep.

What did the science, come out on that in your research for this current book and maybe for your next, about, men and, their sleeplessness or their embrace of being able to be more sleepless creatures than women?

I think that's, really interesting.

I didn't get into sleep too much in my book, but I do know that, female bodies and brains are really good at dealing with all kinds of interruptions and, difficulties and pressures better than male bodies generally.

So when you're talking about, heat or cold or sleep deprivation, women tend to perform better in tests in the lab under those conditions.

So I think there's, this might be -more of a cultural story than.

-Which would debunk... But, you know what I'm referencing, which is this idea, and folks can Google it out there.

It's a real idea that men can perform better on less sleep or, put differently, men, don't need as much sleep in order to, be functional.

So, I think what you're getting at is so, in high pressure situations and stressful situations, female bodies do better.

But in general, over the lifespan, female bodies have been found to need a little bit more sleep.

The guess is due to dealing with all of the, incredibly complex stuff that happens in the female body.

We have whole extra organs that you guys don't.

So, you know, we're talking about the uterus, the strongest, muscle in the human body and the ovaries and all of the incredible balance that takes place over the course of a month to keep all of those systems running.

That's the theory, we don't yet know.

I would say it is a little bit more like women do best under stress, but then need more recovery.

And do need that sleep the rest of the time.

So, yeah.

And maybe the idea and maybe this has scientific substantiation or will at some point is just that men can pull more all nighters, but it kind of lines up with what you were saying earlier about, having, very specific criteria of whether it's weight or height that may be still favoring men, but that doesn't speak to the body of strength.

Some particular genetic attributes that may start at a different place.

So anyway, this is just to say that... I would say it's really one of the things that's really interesting is that there's actually a lot more variability in female bodies.

So we see that just looking at the world and body shapes, we see that when we're looking even at genitals, we see that when we're looking at almost any difference between the sexes that the female body has this much variability and male bodies have a smaller amount of variability.

So my guess would be when it comes to sleep, you're going to see that as well.

You're going to see a lot of variability in female bodies, maybe an overall need for more sleep.

But in male bodies, you're going to see more of a narrower range.

Okay.

So as we conclude something that is an important thesis, in my mind is that, the two women who've run for president as major, parties, nominees in the United States did not lose because they were women.

And I will, you know, come at me, viewers, with your take on this, and I certainly want to hear Starre's take on it, but I will say that, there was, a plethora of things associated, but both, Secretary Clinton and Senator Harris, Vice President Harris, that, I think were far more salient in dictating people's reaction to them, than them being women.

I don't think they lost because they were women.

And I don't think a major party nominee who's a woman has any less, natural ability in actuality, to do the job, nor any less, ability to attract voters.

What say you?

So, this is actually a really great question because it speaks to a lot of the science in my book.

And a lot of our cultural assumptions, too, which is we see a very small minority of people.

And this goes when we're looking at racial stuff as well as sex, and we make a lot of judgments about them based on a very small, what we call in science sample size.

Right?

So think about all of the men we have all seen in our lifetimes run for president and how many women we've seen run for president on that highest level.

I mean, it's not even, it's not even a 10% situation.

I don't think maybe it's close to 10%, but we're just seeing and we're seeing in sports and we see this in scientific history of studying bodies and capacity and performance and immunology and all of the things we see this bias where we are mostly all of the time looking at men, looking at male bodies, and then the few women that are included are held up as examples, as tokens.

Right?

And so I actually don't think we can say either way or very much at all about female, accomplishment or presidential capacity based on the candidates that we've seen, because we haven't seen enough, we haven't seen enough of their work and their ability, because there haven't been enough numbers until we get to a place that's even close to 50/50, I don't think we could really make judgments about female Presidential candidates or athletes or women in the real world in offices.

Well said, well, said I, I think, you know, the the lack of a sample size is, is definitely, something that could substantiate that thesis, too.

But you would concur with me.

I didn't hear as emphatic, affirmation as the title of your book, Stronger.

But, you would concur with the thesis that Harris and Clinton, losing the American elections, did not principally have to do with them being women?

I don't think, capacity wise or ability wise, certainly not.

I mean, we've seen women leaders all over the world, leading quite well.

And actually in surveys, doing, you know, incredibly well, in comparison.

But, again, those numbers are so small that I just feel like doing a comparison is almost impossible.

And something that comes up that informs science and informs how we understand all of this stuff is how we all feel about our own bodies and each others.

And so I do feel like when you're talking about a presidential candidate, the stories that we've told and believe about ourselves as women, and also the stories that men hear and tell about us have a huge, influence.

And no, I don't personally think that the American electorate is ready for a female president yet.

And I think that's down to all of these cultural stories that I reported on in this book, because the amount of, gaslighting and historical downplaying, really, you know, repression of female bodies and voices becomes so incredibly, infuriating and frustrating when you research a book for two years on the subject that you come to a question like this and you say, yeah, I don't think that the people are actually capable of, meeting these candidates in a fair place yet.

Let me make sure I understand.

So you're saying that, you agree with the idea that they didn't lose because they were women, but you also think that the electorate, is not ready for a woman, because of the cultural?

They're a little bit opposed theses, but I understand why they're not too.

I mean, I'm actually backtracking as I'm thinking about this now and saying, well, maybe they did lose because they're women, because, of the particular histories, personal histories involving both Clinton and Harris.

Namely, Hillary Clinton as, the victim of infidelity, who stood by her men.

Some people didn't like that, with Harris, having a relationship with, an older person.

And I don't recall if she was working for him at the time, but in the same field, the former mayor of San Francisco.

Some people may not have liked the idea that she was, having, you know, romantic relationship with, someone much older than her and also someone who may have been, in the same professional field or, someone with whom she was working at the time.

So, I mean, those contexts of women in their particular predicaments of, you know, relationships and how the public might interpret that, that could very well have influenced, people's perception of that, voter's perception of them.

But my point in saying that I don't think it has to do with them being women is because, not all women have those aspects in their personal story.

That is, they are publicly the victim of infidelity or, you know, someone who stood by their man.

And not all women are someone, women who date men who are significantly older than them or in the same profession.

I mean, the president of France is married to an older woman and doesn't seem to have hurt him in the least bit despite there's always you know, internet nonsense.

I think the fact that they are women is key to answering this question, because I don't think they would be held to the standards that you're mentioning if they were not women, because we've seen men who have had those exact same type of stories.

And even much worse, when you're looking at our current president.

And that hasn't stopped them and that hasn't kept them out of, the running in most people's minds.

Right?

So we have a double standard that's very clear when you bring up this exact point in that the male candidates who have these types of stories in their background, nobody cares.

-Maybe they do care.

-Yeah, well that's... And maybe that does make those women less electable, but it's because that's a double standard that we're holding women to that's different than what men were.

And I will say, yes, Hillary Clinton is certainly a very specific and special circumstance and has it's a very, very complicated thing.

But frankly, I don't think most people even knew about the things you're mentioning about Kamala and her previous relationships.

I think people, I don't think that story was that big of a needle mover.

I think there are people who perceive that story is she bought her success through that, through a relationship.

The perception that her rise was not merit based.

And again, maybe a double standard like you're saying, maybe not.

But, Donald Trump is president flummox's is any criteria we have for anything.

And it's catching... -And other people, other men too -completely rewires everything.

-I mean, he's not the only one.

-He's not the only one.

He might be the worst one, but not the only one.

Starre Vartan, please check out her terrific book, The Stronger Sex, and she will defend that, contention of strength.

Starre, thank you for your insight today.

Thank you so much.

This is a really interesting conversation.

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