Andrew Presents His “Research” on Why Girls Throw Differently

Andrew had several mothers upset at him this morning for saying the phrase, "Throw like a girl" is anatomically based. The final caller asked Andrew where his scientific evidence was. We're letting him present it below:

Literature on this put forward by Janet Hyde, professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for example, has shown the disparity. Her Gender Similarities Hypothesis states, in short, that the two genders are more alike than they are different... Counting standard deviations--the measurement of difference between sets of data--she shows how even the widest psychological differences, like physical aggression aren't as much as you might expect... She also measured motor behaviors in boys and girls ages 3 to 20 to get a sense of the difference. Some of those, like grip strength, were large compared to the rest of the data, but still small to moderate overall. Throwing velocity and throwing distance? Both blowouts, at 2.18 and 1.98 standard deviations, respectively. Well above anything else, psychological or physical... Nonetheless, girls are more likely to, for example, throw in a dart-tossing motion or step forward with the incorrect foot, which means a weaker throw... even at age 4, says Jerry Thomas, dean of the College of Education at the University of North Texas in Denton, the difference is three times higher than any other motor function."

In philosophy, the phrase often leads to the consideration of an influential essay in feminist literature, “Throwing Like a Girl,” by the political philosopher Iris Marion Young... Young acknowledged that “throwing like a girl” is an observable phenomenon. The “girlie throw” results from a restricted use of lateral space that tends to come only from the localized part of the body that is doing the action — the hand and forearm — and rarely uses the whole arm, the whole body, or the extended space around the body that is necessary to execute the throw. Women 'tend to concentrate our effort on those parts of the body most immediately connected to the task,' she writes, and do not 'bring to the task the power of the shoulder, which is necessary for its efficient performance.'"

There is in fact a distinctive difference between the way men and women throw a ball... but we should deal with throw like a girl as an insult. In none of our testing did we find men throw more poorly than men."

And finally, from a feminist magazine, Andrew says this is his main argument:

It is not that girls can't throw a ball around, it is the sad fact that we aren't teaching them how to throw it, let alone catch it. And those wimpy boys that just haven't figured it out yet just need more practice and to build up some extra muscle."

What do all of these articles have in common? They agree 1) "You ____ like a girl" is an insult boys should be taught not to use. 2) There's nothing inaccurate about the way women throw, but it is different.3) Men should stop making women feel bad about being women.