The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us about the Power of the Female Body

A myth-busting vindication of women’s physical strengths that's "fun, rooted in science, and a strong pitch for a stronger sex" (Cat Bohannon)

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year

For decades, Starre Vartan—like most women—was told that having a woman’s body meant being weaker than men. Like many women, she mostly believed it.  

Not anymore.  

Following a half decade of research into the newest science, Vartan shows in The Stronger Sex that women’s bodies are incredibly powerful, flexible, and resilient in ways men’s bodies aren’t. Tossing aside the narrow notion of a fully ripped man as the measure of strength, Vartan reveals the ways that women surpass men in endurance, flexibility, immunity, pain tolerance, and the ultimate test of any human body: longevity. Vartan—a deadeye shot since her grandmother showed her how to aim a .22—debunks myth after myth like so many tin cans at two hundred yards and reveals why, if anyone wins in a battle of the sexes, it’s women. 

In interviews with dozens of researchers from biology, anthropology, physiology, and sports science, plus in-depth conversations with runners, swimmers, wrestlers, woodchoppers, thru-hikers, firefighters, and more, The Stronger Sex squashes outdated ideas about women’s bodies. It’s a celebration of female strength that doesn’t argue “down with men” but “up with us all.”  

Starre Vartan is a science writer who was raised in a family of creatives and medical professionals. She grew up in New York and now splits her time between the Pacific Northwest and Sydney, Australia. She contributes regularly to Scientific American and National Geographic and has written for CNN, the Washington Post, Slate, and New York magazine, among many others.