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'Fun, rooted in science... May this book give all women strength for the times we now live in.' Cat Bohannon

A myth-busting vindication of women's physical strengths

For decades, Starre Vartan - like most women - was told that having a woman's body meant being weaker than men. Like many women, she mostly believed it.

Not anymore.

Following a half decade of research into the newest science, Vartan shows in The Stronger Sex that women's bodies are incredibly powerful, flexible, and resilient in ways men's bodies aren't. Tossing aside the narrow notion of the tall, muscular man as the measure of strength, Vartan reveals the ways that women surpass men in endurance, flexibility, immunity, pain tolerance, and the ultimate test of any human body: longevity.

In interviews with dozens of researchers from biology, anthropology, physiology, and sports science, plus in-depth conversations with runners, swimmers, wrestlers, woodchoppers, thru-hikers, firefighters, and more, The Stronger Sex squashes outdated ideas about women's bodies.

It's a celebration of female strength that doesn't argue \"\"down with men\"\" but \"\"up with us all.\"\"\"",{"_816":835,"_818":848,"_789":1123},"Atlantic Books, Limited",{"_816":835,"_818":823,"_789":1047},{"_816":835,"_818":853,"_789":1049},{"_816":835,"_818":856,"_789":857},{"_816":835,"_818":862,"_789":1128},"2025-10-28",{"_816":835,"_818":865,"_789":1130},"384",{"_816":868,"_818":731,"_789":869},{"_816":868,"_818":875,"_789":873},{"_816":868,"_818":877,"_789":873},{"_816":868,"_818":882,"_789":1135},"09/12/2025",{"_816":868,"_818":886,"_789":1137},"40.0",{"_816":868,"_818":891,"_789":1139},"3",{"_816":894,"_818":895,"_789":1141},"Womans Health,Sociology,Gender Studies",{"_816":894,"_818":731,"_789":1143},"Womans Health;Sociology;Gender Studies",{"_816":894,"_818":901,"_789":1145},"WOMHEA,SOCIOL,GENDER",{"_816":894,"_818":905,"_789":1147},"WOMHEA;SOCIOL;GENDER",{"_816":894,"_818":907,"_789":1149},"HEALTH & WELLBEING,SOCIETY & CULTURE,FEMINISM",{"_816":894,"_818":912,"_789":1151},"HEALTH & WELLBEING;SOCIETY & CULTURE;FEMINISM",{"_816":894,"_818":915,"_789":1153},"HEALTH & WELLBEING,SOCIETY, CULTURE & TECHNOLOGY,FEMINISM",{"_816":894,"_818":919,"_789":1155},"HEALTH & WELLBEING;SOCIETY, CULTURE & TECHNOLOGY;FEMINISM",{"_816":894,"_818":922,"_789":923},{"_816":894,"_818":925,"_789":1158},"NON FICTION;NON FICTION;NON FICTION",{"_816":894,"_818":927,"_789":1160},"SCI",{"_816":894,"_818":933,"_789":1160},{"_766":1163},[1164],{"_769":116,"_770":-5,"_130":1165,"_209":1166,"_780":1170,"_786":1171,"_17":1100,"_790":1173,"_792":1174},"gid://shopify/ProductVariant/44876164366533",{"_773":1167,"_775":776,"_130":1168,"_35":1103,"_778":1169},"The Stronger Sex Cover Image","gid://shopify/ProductImage/38628729094341",1339,{"_782":783,"_784":1137},[1172],{"_752":753,"_789":1100},"9781805460893",{"_794":1175},[1176],{"_797":1177},{"_799":116,"_133":1178},{"_752":729},{"_130":1180,"_17":1181,"_742":1182,"_761":1183,"_813":1185,"_764":1237},"gid://shopify/Product/8902696829125","With My Own Hand","with-my-own-hand-the-secret-life-of-marie-maitland-scotlands-sixteenth-century-sappho",{"_35":1184},"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0625/6679/3413/files/978-1-0354-4916-3.jpg?v=1782872251",[1186,1188,1190,1191,1193,-5,1195,1196,1197,1199,1201,1203,1206,1208,1210,1211,-5,-5,1212,1214,1216,1218,-5,1220,-5,1221,1222,-5,1224,-5,1225,-5,1226,1227,-5,1228,1229,-5,1230,1231,-5,1232,1233,-5,1234,-5,-5,1235,1236,-5],{"_816":817,"_818":17,"_789":1187},"With My Own Hand The Secret Life of Marie Maitland, Scotland's Sixteenth-Century Sappho",{"_816":817,"_818":820,"_789":1189},"DOUGLAS ASHLEY",{"_816":817,"_818":823,"_789":1109},{"_816":817,"_818":826,"_789":1192},"HEADLI",{"_816":817,"_818":829,"_789":1194},"ADS",{"_816":835,"_818":836,"_789":837},{"_816":835,"_818":17,"_789":1181},{"_816":835,"_818":841,"_789":1198},"The Secret Life of Marie Maitland, Scotland's Sixteenth-Century Sappho",{"_816":835,"_818":820,"_789":1200},"Ashley Douglas",{"_816":835,"_818":846,"_789":1202},"

'A really thrilling discovery . . . This is a real extension of our knowledge of women of the period, engagingly told' - Philippa Gregory

'It held me captive from the first page to the last. Utterly breathtaking' - Tracy Borman

The youngest of the Maitland siblings, Marie had watched her elder sisters be married off one by one, destined to take up the unavoidable path for women in sixteenth-century Scotland. However, as she neared marrying age, her father, an influential judge, poet and Keeper of the Privy Seal under Mary, Queen of Scots, went blind and suddenly needed someone to act as his scribe and secretary. In taking up this role, Marie indeed avoided the unavoidable, dedicating her life to her father's work. After his death, she put the finishing touches on the Maitland Quarto, long recognised as significant for its preservation of the poetry of the male great-and-good of sixteenth-century Scotland.

A rare feat for a woman at the time, but Marie's story doesn't stop there. For hidden in the pages of the Maitland Quarto, historian and translator Ashley Douglas discovered Marie's own secret lesbian love poetry. Penning such poetry in the hostile climate of post-Reformation Scotland, with its suffocating tightening of moral control over society, was an incredible act of bravery. Unable to sign it directly, Marie, insistent on her voice and love being known, littered the manuscript with clues to its true penmanship. Clues that, until now, have remained unseen.

Building on her initial discovery of Marie's poetry, in With My Own Hand Ashley Douglas draws on a vast range of newly unearthed primary historical records to tell the fascinating story of Marie and her manuscript, in full, for the very first time.

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Tales Of The Suburbs

LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains

by John Grindrod