The Weakest Gender Challenge is a competition between men and women that women win around 95% of the time. This blog explains the background and history of the challenge, as well as specific versions that exist today. This innovative competition provides a new perspective on gender differences and greatly empowers women.

Gender Discrimination

Although gender equality has improved in recent decades, we still live in a world with rampant gender discrimination. Women now outperform men on every academic level, but a woman in the private sector still earns an average of 77 cents to every dollar earned by a man (Custer and James 2013). Women in many professional fields, like law, are readily hired for their intellect, but the ratio of men to women who are selected as partners within the first seven years of practice is approximately 4:1 (Taylor et al. 2012).

Apparently, the “powers that be” do not rank intelligence, academic ability or work ethic as the top criteria for advancing in today’s world.

A survey conducted among 120 male business leaders in 2013 found deep-seated insights that explain, at least in part, why men at the top often view women as inadequate for professional leadership. The respondents indicated a wide variety of reasons to justify gender discrimination in the workplace, including the perception that all women will need excessive leave time for maternity and child care, a perception that women are less focused, and even the observation that women end sentences with more “up talk” than men, which apparently reveals a lack of confidence.

While these perceptions may or may not contain truth for an individual woman (yes, we are actually individuals!), perhaps the most perplexing suggestion from this survey was that women are inferior because they are physically weaker. Or so men think.

More than 90% (109/120) of the survey respondents selected men as the physically superior gender, and around 83% suggested that such differences put women at a “major disadvantage”. This is a shocking result. Even if it is proven that men are physically superior, by some arbitrary metric, why do 83% of men consider this to be such a grave defect when less than 20% of today’s fastest growing sectors involve physical labor? Would communication and conflict resolution skills not be more valuable in today’s economy than the ability to hold a jack-hammer upright for two minutes?

In summary, the general viewpoint held by most men is:

Men perceive that they are the physically stronger gender Men highly value physical strength, equating it with general capability Therefore, men view themselves as more capable in most/ all areas because of these first two assumptions.

Most women want to fight this perspective by downplaying the importance of physical strength in today’s world. If they can convince men that literacy skills supersede the ability to drive a tractor or lay pipe, they reason that men will drastically change their viewpoint and accept women as equals.

But changing world views is never quick, or easy.

A New Perspective

An innovative research group at a large East Coast university looked at this problem from a different angle. They questioned assumption #1 instead of #2, asking, “Are men really the physically stronger gender?”

Although it seems obvious that men in general are physically stronger (we picture football or weight lifting), this group posed the question, “What if men are also the weaker gender?”

Many in this research group had worked in the healthcare sector and they observed that men usually required more time for recovery and needed more pain medication than women. So they asked, “What if we tested to see which gender is weaker?”

The Weakest Gender Challenge

This group conducted a 12-question survey to establish a Weakest Gender Challenge. They surveyed 240 women and 232 men in the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, in the summer of 2014. The most interesting part of the survey were the responses received when asking each gender, “What do you think is the weakest body part of the opposite gender?”

Here were the results:

Men ranked the following female body parts as weakest:

Toes (54%) Arms (18%) Breasts (14%) Private parts (10%) Other (4%)

Women ranked the following male body parts as weakest:

Groin area/ testicles (74%) Back (10%) Eyes (7%) Legs (5%) Other (4%)

The clear “winners” of this survey were toes for women and testicles for men. The groin area for men seemed obvious, but toes for women came as a somewhat mysterious surprise. A follow-up survey revealed that men think of womens’ toes as weak because they are:

Small Ticklish Often painted red or pink. Men are very visual, so girlie colors like pink stand out to them. And men are taught if something is feminine it must be weak. As one survey respondent stated, “It’s impossible to imagine a woman could overpower a man with her toes.”

The Six Kick Challenge

The Six Kick Challenge is a version of The Weakest Gender Challenge. It was the first contest created between toes and testicles.

How to play:

The woman tells the man, “I’m not saying I will do this, but if I did kick you in the groin do you think I could hurt you?” Surprisingly around 75% of men respond, “No.” She gives him a chance to change his mind. If he will not admit he has a physical weakness, she gets the green light to prove him wrong. She starts by kicking him (barefoot) softly in the groin twice. If he doesn’t go down (he probably won’t) she tells him the next two kicks will be “medium” and asks if he would like to back down. If he doesn’t back down she kicks him twice medium. If he goes down he loses. If he doesn’t go down she tells him the last two will be “hard.” She asks him if he’d like to back down. If he doesn’t back down she gives him two last kicks- hard ones. If he doubles over he loses, if not he wins.

Although 75% of men think they can win this game only about 10% of men actually win.

The Toes for 15 Challenge

The Toes for 15 Challenge is an adaptation of The Weakest Gender Challenge that mixes physical and psychological components. It uses the same two body parts, but in a way that is more mentally strenuous.

Sports psychologists observed that athletes were most humiliated when they lost a timed competition by a large margin. For example, if a football score is 35-3 at halftime, the losing team feels humiliated and just wants the game to end. But they most go back on the field.

Using these findings, researchers created a timed challenge between men and women. Here’s how it works:

This game also places toes vs. testicles However, this is a timed game that lasts 15 minutes. For the man’s safety, the woman is not allowed to kick. She is only allowed to press with her toes.

Even more men thought they would win this matchup, as 85% of men thought they could last 15 min. For cases in which women had a pink or red pedicure, the number rose to 96%. Apparently, it’s nearly impossible for males to accept that something feminine and (in their mind) weak could overpower the very thing that makes them male.

In reality only about 5% of men could endure. This is particularly devastating to the egos of most men. Actually, on that topic, many women revealed secrets that helped them prevail both physically and mentally!

Physical Secrets

The vast majority of women who handily won this game used both big toes to put pressure on one testicle. Apparently, we just need to overpower one for the man to wave the surrender flag.

Most men cave within six minutes. Although some women take the easy win, about two-thirds of the women who participated really turned it up mentally after the men caved. They backed off a bit physically, but then really turned up the mind games (which we are naturally better at anyway…)

Mental Secrets

The most effective mind games involved the woman playing dumb or acting sassy. This approach rubs in the fact that men really are the weakest gender.

Also, a case study in Ohio found a strong correlation between toe color and humiliation. Around 55% of the men who played against natural (no polish) toes admitted they felt humiliated, but those numbers rose to 74% for pink toes and 91% for red toes. Several men said red was hardest because it’s a feminine color but also a color of power. Apparently, men don’t like thinking of us as both female AND powerful!

Here are some quotes from women who played successful mind games:

Sarah from Orlando:

“I’m soooo sorry…does that really hurt? Gosh I’m hardly even trying!”

Michelle from Sacramento:

“Wait…I’m really confused…I thought men are the stronger gender, but it seems when I wiggle my pretty red toes you can’t hang!”

Lexie from Cleveland:

“Oh, come on, you’re being such a cry baby…suck it up!” (Sound familiar??)

Men confirmed that the 15 minute timed game with a sassy woman was extremely difficult. Here are some quotes:

Darren from Madison, Ohio

“I made the mistake of playing this game with my ex. She made sure to keep me right near my pain threshold to prolong this game, then she crushed me in the last minute. Devastating!”

Anthony from Houston, Texas

“I really thought I would win this cause I’m big and athletic, but my girlfriend’s like 5-1. Not only did I lose my pride, I lost a bet and now I gotta wash the dishes for the next two weeks.”

James from Syracuse, NY

“I tried both games and lost both. In the beginning the kicks were scarier, but the worst part is the toes game when the girl gets sassy. You wanna give them a beat down but you can’t!”

Conclusion

In conclusion, The Weakest Gender Challenge provides some methods that women can use to help men see that we are really equal. It uses the male ego and false beliefs, like physical strength determines a person’s worth, against them. I think most women would agree the purpose of this challenge is not to beat men down but to help them see a different perspective- one in which we both have strengths and weaknesses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are you? Who conducted this research?

I’m a grad student at a large East Coast university. When this research was first conducted, I joined several friends and colleagues in making a Facebook page and a blog post. The purpose was to encourage broad dialogue through the research process.

We quickly realized the publicity was a mistake. We received a lot of hate messages, were insulted and accused of being feminazis (even though 3 out of 8 were male) and even were threatened with a law suit.

As our society is still so male-dominated, such topics cannot be openly discussed without fear of retribution. We wanted to start disseminating this information, while protecting ourselves at the same time- therefore, specific names are not yet mentioned.

Isn’t this challenge a little extreme?

Yes, it is. It’s actually pretty crazy. But so is gender discrimination. It would be great if we could sit across the table from men and have a meaningful dialogue that transforms their perspective on discrimination. But that doesn’t seem to work. Men are wired physically, so how better to get through to them than a physical challenge in which something very girlie beats something very masculine?

So are you promoting physical violence?

Absolutely not. Keep in mind that men are given MANY chances to back down and admit they have a weakness. In the kicking challenge, they are asked three times if they would like to back out before they even get to hard kicks. All men have to do is admit the truth- they have a physical weakness women don’t have. Most women I know would respect men greatly for admitting the truth. Most women would prefer them to admit this before any kicks or toe presses start. It’s only when they act arrogant and superior and refuse to acknowledge the truth that we really want to kick them in the balls!

You really think this will change men?

Actually, yes. Early results show this gets through to men. It’s a bit like a woman’s football team beating an NFL all-male team – it makes a shocking statement that they get.

This is ridiculous…there is no way it would work!

Men usually make this statement. It is natural for many guys to mock this challenge. However, would those men like to play the game and prove their strength? I have discussed this with five different men who mocked me and this competition, but for some reason they always found an excuse to not play the game.