Are Women naturally more Intelligent than Men?

It was an interesting day. During the morning I fitted Carmen with new Pocket Rockets and she exclaimed "Oh these are great". It was not her first pair of T Rockets and she has plans for another pair soon. It made me think that in the few years that I have been promoting the T Rocket range of sandals, women, generally have been more receptive than men to the thesis of natural movement (meaning zero elevation, midfoot striking, and so on). I wondered why? Perhaps women are less threatened by novelty, perhaps men are too macho in their mindset? Of course I am generalising but it is true that I have found women to be more inquisitive and open to the concept of minimal footwear.

Later in the day I was pleased to meet my friend Dr Bernhard Zipfel for a light lunch. While Dr Zipfel is the Collections Curator (palaeoanthopology) at the University of the Witwatersrand  he is also a  T Rocket wearing podiatrist and is known as the "evolutionary podiatrist" amongst his colleagues. During lunch and without any prompting Bernhard asked me if I had noted any difference in the response of men and women to T Rockets. Indeed I had, I replied adding that it had occupied my thinking earlier that very morning. We chatted about women being more predisposed towards open flat sandals for regular leisure wear. Perhaps this means they are more willing to wear sandals for outdoor athletic pursuits. But I wasn't sure. Perhaps women are simply more intelligent, I said. And yet again perhaps there is an inbred male need to play the role of a defender (or even aggressor) and this does not sit comfortably with open sandals.

Well, the argument about women being more intelligent took a little knock later in the day when I went to run our local Thursday night time trial. After running barefoot from my home to the sports ground I sat on the field putting on my sandals while the crowd assembled for the start of the time trial. There was muted chatter. At this point a women turned around and looking down at me, still sitting and the grass and tensioning my P Rockets, she said: "Did you have a wardrobe malfunction?" What an inane, neolithic and unnecessary utterance! I was speechless and simply stared back with a benign and featureless expression. I know that some people have struggled to accept that not everybody runs in motion control shoes but to still embrace such sarcasm was in my opinion almost prehistoric and definitely not very intelligent. And on top of it coming from a women .... I was devastated.

And so while I still argue that many women have figured out a few things about running that many men have not, I will not generalise! There are still a few that are trapped in their own cerebral intransigence, and even seem to harbour some resentment to minimally shod runners. These few include both men and women.