Health Beyond the Blog: : Starre Julia Vartan’s “The Stronger Sex”

Vartan’s new book redefines what physical strength means for the human body and debunks the age-old myth of women being the “weaker” ones.

by Ananya Dash

Journalist and author Maryn McKenna interviewed Starre Julia Vartan about her new book, The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us about the Power of the Female Body, on Oct. 22, 2025, for the Health Storytelling live Q&A from the Center for the Study of Human Health.

Vartan, a geologist turned science journalist, blends her writing about the strength of women’s bodies with stories of her upbringing. Raised by her grandmother, Vartan discusses her childhood where she stacked piles of wood, moved stones around, and dug holes for gardening projects, as a part of her daily chores, at her home. Pursuing these activities made her feel strong and capable — but she became the “weaker” sex when she stepped out in the world. She was constantly reminded that her physical strength was less than that of a man.

Vartan realized that societal notions of women’s physical strength didn’t match her own understanding of it. She recalls the strange experience of being confused about her own strengths, but didn’t really know the science of it. When she researched a story on women’s strength, she finally realized that women are as strong as men and maybe, even, the powerful sex, which she goes on to show in her book.

Society and science have defined strength from the perspective of what men’s bodies can do best. Women out-perform men when it comes to longevity, diseases, famines, and even, survive more often in neonatal ICU when they are just babies – owing to their immune systems, hormones, and more. Sports science also explains the differences in young kids’ strength comes from the types of sports they engage in, not from the differences of their sexes. Unfortunately, being drawn to one sport over other, as a result of cultural notions, does prime what strengths females gain in their lifetime, as compared to males.

Vartan shows us that there is no one way to define strength and our lens of looking at it has been faulty for too long. Her book is a reality check on how patriarchal notions of society feed into the science of female body. It helps us to redefine our understanding of physical strength and ultimately, teaches us to be aware of our biases to be stronger and healthier, irrespective of our sexes.

The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us about the Power of Female Body is available on Bookshop.org. The Health Storytelling Author Q&A series is available on YouTube and continues at 6pm on Nov. 19, 2025 with Eram Alam, PhD. Please RSVP here for Alam’s Q&A on her book The Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare.