Why aren't women placing higher in competitive shooting?

[Scratch]

How come women aren't better at shooting sports?
I understand why men are faster runners than women. That is to say, if you have an Olympic gold medal male runner, and an Olympic gold medal female runner, I think the male runner will be faster because physically, they have stronger muscles so they should be faster. Same thing with sports like weightlifting, swimming etc...

But why with shooting sports? I would think that males and females could have the same speed trigger fingers, the same speed hand to eye coordination, the same accuracy, have the same speed reloads, the same speed draws, the only thing that I think males would have an advantage on, could be running but there's not "a lot" of running usually in shooting sports, so why aren't the top shooters like Lena Miculek, Jesse Duff, Julie Golob, and Janna Reeves... ever beating out the male shooters.

One thing I can think of is numbers. There are just so many more male shooters than female shooters that the chances of the women beating the men is statistically challenging. Eventually yes, a female shooter will be number one, it just hasn't happened yet. But I really don't buy that answer as there's been so many competitions, and I don't think a female shooter has ever been the number one shooter.

My other theory is that men have a greater "drive" to shoot fast and accurate, more than women do. Let's face it, I'll bet some of even the best competitive female shooters, still prefer the color pink over camo, and prefer to go shoe shopping than hunting. So "maybe" men have more of a "will" to shoot better than women, but still... I'd think that there'd be at least one female shooter who could be the top two or three in the country.

Im not trying to be sexist here, as I feel that women actually "should" be just as fast and accurate as men. I just don't understand why they're not.

Any thoughts?

[Rip Van Winkle]

I guess it would depend on how you define "better" and which shooting sports you're talking about. Shooting sports which require strength and speed are doing to be dominated by men, it's basic physiology.

On the other hand, I just reviewed the scores of the 2017 National Matches at Camp Perry. I came in 370th out of 1111 competitors in the President's Match. I was beaten by 18 women, the high scoring woman came in 14th overall.

I'd say she preformed admirably.

[xd ED]

Completely anecdotally, but there is

Kirsten Joy Weiss


You're welcome.

Seriously, I think RVW nailed it:
action shooting sports, where strength and speed are critical, the male physique with prevail.
However with precision shooting, it's simply numbers of the participants who have been at it for a long time.
Rifle matches I've been at don't have even 10% women participation at this time. But many of them are highly competitive.

[Holland&Holland]

Come watch the gals on the high school trap team I coach and tell me they aren't as good as the boys. Both captains this year are females.

Better yet bring your shotgun along and be prepared to be humiliated by an 8th grade girl.

[Erud]

In the various Highpower disciplines, women are some of the best of all time, even though they are a pretty small segment of the crowd. Nancy Tompkins, Sherri & Michelle Gallagher, Trudie Fay, Alice Bull, and lots of others.

In my experience, female shooters seem to be much better equipped to learn a sport like shooting than grown men. I think we all think that we should naturally be awesome at it because we are men, and then don’t like to be taught anything about it from anybody else. Or maybe it’s just me that’s like that...

[snatiep]

All of my Sisters and my Mom are better shots than I am.

My buddies have made similar comments about their sisters, Moms, and wives.

[Rip Van Winkle]

Or maybe it’s just me that’s like that...

I think all of us fella's let our egos get in the way.

[mmcnx2]

Medically and statistically specking women have a slightly higher heart rate. Which in certain shooting sports could have an impact on the ability to control breath and have a shorter 'calm' zone for getting off a shot. That said women statistically are easier to teach and learn at a slightly faster pace. In the end I suspect it is more a participation numbers issue, less women in shooting thus less 'good' women shooters. As a USPSA RO and shooter I always wondered why they have men and women divisions. Kind of like professional fishing - gender really does not make a difference.

[Scratch]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying women aren't as good as men, I'm saying they are. I'm also completely aware that there are many many women shooters waaaaaaay better than me, but I know there are male and female classes in some of the shooting sports and I'm wondering why. I can't see a clear advantage that men have in shooting over women.

EDIT: I just went to steelchallenge.com looked at the results, and saw that there were males and females mixed in the results with no different classes. So it looks like the males are competing against the females which is the way I think it should be, but I saw on 3gun nation, that they still have a "high lady" winner so maybe they don't. I guess they might group everyone together and still give out just a "high lady" award too... That might be possible.

I don't go to many comps anymore so I could be completely wrong and maybe they do treat women the same as men. I dunno.
Ignore me and go back to your regular scheduled programming.

[usnret]

Medically and statistically specking women have a slightly higher heart rate. Which in certain shooting sports could have an impact on the ability to control breath and have a shorter 'calm' zone for getting off a shot. That said women statistically are easier to teach and learn at a slightly faster pace. In the end I suspect it is more a participation numbers issue, less women in shooting thus less 'good' women shooters. As a USPSA RO and shooter I always wondered why they have men and women divisions. Kind of like professional fishing - gender really does not make a difference.

Because men don't like getting beat by women.

[smurfman]

Shooting is a physical sport as the shooter generally has to deal with recoil and often gun weight. It can also be some what of an endurance race depending on the number of rounds required in a match. Upper body muscle mass helps mitigate this somewhat and men tend to have more than women.

Equipment is probably a factor too, firearms have had centuries of development towards men with maybe a few decades of very rudimentary change towards women at best. Firearms for women are basically men's guns with cosmetic changes that are thought of by men. More importantly, fitting equipment for women is probably done from a male perspective, I.e. how would I correct this issue in a man. Being built differently in muscle and bone structure. women likely need a different "fix" even if very subtle. The shooting community is discovering this as can be seen in the women's models of firearms but there is a long ways to go.

When one gets into the upper levels of compitition the little things become more important. It is what distinguishes the winners from the contributors. Men have had centuries of progress in the usage of firearms and efforts in equipment and philosophy have been geared to make firearms more effective in the hands of men. More women will rise in the sport and show up on the winner's podium as more is learned but ultimately, men will most often reside there as there are some physical advantages that men have.

[goalie]

In this thread we find out who never shot Highpower and got smoked by some of the elite women.

[smurfman]

In this thread we find out who never shot Highpower and got smoked by some of the elite women.

The question is not whether the top women shooters can "smoke" me but why they do not smoke the top rated male shooters in a given shooting discipline. I've competed in various shotgun sports and have more than once been beaten handily by women, many times regularly by the same women, but I have not seen women regularly beat the top men for high overall honors. When a woman does take HOA at a significant event it is well publicized which in itself is an anecdotal example of the frequency of such happenings.

Do I think women can be competitive in the shooting sports? Over the full spectrum of skill sets definitely yes. In straight head to head competition of the top women and the top men competitors in a given shooting discipline will women consistently beat men? No, not as a group. An idividual woman may beat the men on occasion but not regularly. As a whole woman may be close to men but they will still lag.

Given time and study, equipment will change to better address women's needs. Changes in teaching to better transmit knowledge and skill will also be developed to assist women. The one disadvantage that women won't overcome consistently is the physical differences between the sexes. That will be the ultimate deciding factor at the highest levels of competition.

[Rip Van Winkle]

In this thread we find out who never shot Highpower and got smoked by some of the elite women.

The question is not whether the top women shooters can "smoke" me but why they do not smoke the top rated male shooters in a given shooting discipline. I've competed in various shotgun sports and have more than once been beaten handily by women, many times regularly by the same women, but I have not seen women regularly beat the top men for high overall honors. When a woman does take HOA at a significant event it is well publicized which in itself is an anecdotal example of the frequency of such happenings.

Do I think women can be competitive in the shooting sports? Over the full spectrum of skill sets definitely yes. In straight head to head competition of the top women and the top men competitors in a given shooting discipline will women consistently beat men? No, not as a group. An idividual woman may beat the men on occasion but not regularly. As a whole woman may be close to men but they will still lag.

Given time and study, equipment will change to better address women's needs. Changes in teaching to better transmit knowledge and skill will also be developed to assist women. The one disadvantage that women won't overcome consistently is the physical differences between the sexes. That will be the ultimate deciding factor at the highest levels of competition.

Erud above named 5 women, all national champions, who routinely beat their male contemporaries.

Want more examples, check out junior shooting, where female shooters dominate. Not many boys in these pictures.



http://www.mrra.org/downloads/matchresults16/juniors/2016_CMP_National_2nd_Place_Champions.pdf
http://www.mrra.org/downloads/matchresults16/juniors/2016_National_JO_3PAR_Champions.pdf

[Erud]

In this thread we find out who never shot Highpower and got smoked by some of the elite women.

The question is not whether the top women shooters can "smoke" me but why they do not smoke the top rated male shooters in a given shooting discipline. I've competed in various shotgun sports and have more than once been beaten handily by women, many times regularly by the same women, but I have not seen women regularly beat the top men for high overall honors. When a woman does take HOA at a significant event it is well publicized which in itself is an anecdotal example of the frequency of such happenings.

Do I think women can be competitive in the shooting sports? Over the full spectrum of skill sets definitely yes. In straight head to head competition of the top women and the top men competitors in a given shooting discipline will women consistently beat men? No, not as a group. An idividual woman may beat the men on occasion but not regularly. As a whole woman may be close to men but they will still lag.

Given time and study, equipment will change to better address women's needs. Changes in teaching to better transmit knowledge and skill will also be developed to assist women. The one disadvantage that women won't overcome consistently is the physical differences between the sexes. That will be the ultimate deciding factor at the highest levels of competition.

It’s just numbers and odds. I don’t know about every shooting sport out there, but the ones I shoot the ratio of of men to women nationally is probably about 20:1(just a wild guess, but you get the idea). Locally, there are basically no female shooters. At any given match, there is going to be a bunch of shooters of a certain level where if any one of them wins, no one will be surprised. Even if you are one of those shooters, winning a match is still a difficult thing to do. You can’t make any mistakes, have any equipment problems, or just encounter bad luck and still expect to win. Even if all of those things go right for you, there are still a bunch of other excellent shooters that could just flat out shoot better than you did. So, if you go to a big national level match and have 40 top male shooters and 2 top female shooters with all having comparable skills, you are going to see a lot more wins by men. That said, the women I mentioned earlier did more than their share of winning championships and setting records while they were actively competing. Heck, Sherri Gallagher was basically unbeatable in OTC Highpower, and set a 3-day aggregate record at the NRA nationals around 2011 or so that will probably never be broken. She was also the Long Range World Champion in 2011, which is no small feat. I have no doubt that she could get back in the game today and be back in top form within months if she wanted to.