As we all know, women can do everything a man can do, just better. This was demonstrated to me yet again when I got a prescription for physiotherapy. It’s not a big issue, but during working out I noticed that my left shoulder joint seems to have a reduced range of motion compared to my right side, which I blame on sitting in front of a computer and typing on a keyboard all day long. You almost invariably end up in an asymmetric position if you push a mouse around or have multiple monitors on your desk. Anyway, I thought I better get this checked out. An ultrasonography at my GP revealed that there is no underlying issue. The doctor remarked that there are no physical obstructions and that the condition of my shoulder joint was exemplary.

With a prescription in hand, I drop by the nearest physiotherapy provider. For two sessions they paired me up with some dude who was in reasonable physical shape. We worked a lot with targeted resistance, i.e. he pulled back my arm with both hands and asked me to push forward and hold. I did not break a sweat but there was a clear element of exertion involved. He also suggested some exercises I could try at home, which were based on using my body weight. This was all fine, and within a week my original issue was basically gone as the full range of motion has been restored. There was still minor tension on the left side, though.

For my third session, I had the doubtful pleasure of working with a young woman. That ditz was probably only 18 or 19 and did not seem to have a lot of experience. I would not be surprised if I had been one of the first patients she got to work on without supervision. She also tried using resistance, but it was a complete disaster. She told me to “try to move” my arm inwards as she was using her strength to restrain my movement but with minimal physical exertion I managed to move my arm. Had I used my full strength, and had she held on, I would have thrown her into the wall, and I am saying this without any exaggeration. I think she was quite embarrassed by this, so she did not repeat this particular exercise and spent the rest of the session massaging my shoulder, with hardly any pressure because she was simply not strong enough.

This chick was also woefully incompetent. I could not help but ask her for exercises I could do at home, and her suggestion was to get a plastic water bottle, fill it without about half a liter of water and, starting from a 90 degree angle, make an inward movement “to build strength”. Imagine the starting position of a hammer curl, with the difference that you move your arm inwards by about 45 degrees instead of upwards. I would almost have told her that I do hammer curls with about 40 times as much weight but kept it to myself.

You can probably easily see where the problem is. There are jobs where women are unable to fulfill basic requirements. Of course, we grant that they are every bit as intelligent and stress-resilient as men because the brain is not subject to evolutionary changes. Yet, this still means that there are physical tasks women are just completely useless at. In my example, I am quite sure that if I had had this chick as my physiotherapist from the start, I would have made zero progress. This is probably a small price to pay for equality, but let us be real here: there are jobs that should be completely off-limits for women because, in order for them to get qualified for those professions, standards have to be lowered to such an extent that basic standards can no longer be maintained. First, you get women and then you get some African rocket scientists who do not quite grasp human anatomy and who end up seriously hurting their patients. Of course, there are other jobs where those failures would be even more obvious. I think I saw footage of Swedish policewomen who were unable to restrain one single rocket scientist, so this means that any society who indulges in this kind of gender-equality LARPing only ends up knee-capping itself.