[siberianheat]

Of course strength is important. Eleven year old girls may be bigger than their male classmates but it is unusual for them to demonstrate superior physical strength at anything.

You are right on all points, but I found this comment worth a reply and you might find it interesting. I was sitting at a function in an elementary school gymnasium recently and they had a list of 10 physical strength records for their students over the years (up through sixth grade, I think, so kids are about 12 years old). One list was for boys and the other for girls. I was SHOCKED that the girls eeked out wins in 9 of the 10 categories (things like pull ups, push ups, etc). So while the author of the article may technically be correct that there is a narrow window of time where girls outperform boys, that means absolutely nothing outside the the school gym. Hell, I love it when women show up the men in traditionally men's sports (Danica Patrick comes to mind) but the premise that women are held down is laughable to anyone who has kids in grade school. Girls and boys have different interests from the get go and there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it.

[RipSawyer]

When I was twelve years old and in the seventh grade the girls were taller than the boys and weighed more. At that age it is not unusual for a girl to be stronger than a boy in her class. Most girls top out in height at around twelve, boys keep growing until as old as twenty one. I reached my full height at seventeen. When Judy Garland played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz she was sixteen but playing a twelve year old girl. The story is that they had to bind her breasts to keep her from looking older than twelve but I had a couple of classmates who already had large breasts at age twelve. Girls reach physical maturity long before boys.