PhD, Associate Professor T.V. Artamonova¹
PhD, Associate Professor V.V. Steshenko^2
1Bauman Moscow state technical university, Moscow
²Volgograd State Social and Pedagogical University, Volgograd

Keywords: anthropometric characteristics, students, gender, masculinity, femininity.

Background. A wide range of humanitarian scientific disciplines has been involved in gender research for the last decade since gender issues are increasingly relevant for every social life aspect and strata, in-cluding sports [8]. It is a common belief in the modern sport communities that masculine athletes have better success opportunities than their feminine peers [4, 5]. It was back in 1993 that N.A. Kornetov [7] mentioned that “it is the individual position on the andro- meso-gynecomorphism axis that determines the fundamental sexual differentiation and its traits”. This statement was verified by further analyses of an-thropometric markers of androgenic biases in young males of different body types [3, 6]; plus studies of gender-specific morphology and functionality in athletes competing in the discus and spear throws and shot put [10]. As reported by E.P. Vrublevsky [4], sporting females (who are naturally more masculine than their unsporting peers) virtually always develop powerful shoulder girdle – notably wider than the pelvis; and this finding was supported by E.V. Svistunova [9] who classified broad shoulders and power-ful neck with masculine traits and wide hips and chest with the feminine ones. M.L. Butovskaya et al. [2] complemented the set of masculinity traits with low finger index, large face size, relatively broad shoul-ders and narrow hips; and noted that the young females with the masculine facial and bodily proportions are normally tested with the masculine behavioral models. Masculinity and femininity are commonly in-terpreted as powerful and fragile aspects of body build, respectively, albeit in actual modern reality it is not always true. Thus T.V. Artamonova and V.V. Steshenko [1] reported masculinity traits often found in the relatively fragile young men, and femininity features in the individuals of massively built physical types. Later studies found actual gender anthropometric characteristics and their combinations and inter-relations being quite diverse and contradictory. These contradictions may be due to these issues being still underexplored by the modern sports science.
Objective of the study was to rate and analyze the 19 year-old’s gender masculinity/ femininity-specific anthropometric characteristics.
Methods and structure of the studyю We sampled for the study 19 year old Volgograd State Social and Pedagogical University (VSSPU) students (n=34 including 15 males and 19 females) who were tested by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) to rate and analyze the masculinity and femininity traits. We used a standard set of anthropometric tests to obtain the neck size, wrist size, chest size, shoulder width and pel-vis width in cm; and found the Tanner sexual dimorphism index (cm) by the pelvis width being deducted from the triple shoulder width. We run a Pearson correlation analysis to find significant correlations be-tween the anthropometric characteristics and gender indices – first for the sample on the whole; and then for the male and female subgroups (sexual dimorphism indices) and masculine/ feminine subgroups (gen-der indices).
Results and discussion. Given in Table 1 are anthropometric characteristics of the sample.

Table 1. Anthropometric characteristic characteristics of the sample, cm

Male gender subgroups were found significantly different in the neck size (notably higher in the mascu-line individuals) and chest size (higher in the feminine individuals). We found no significant anthropo-metric differences in the female gender subgroups: see Table 2.

Table 2. Gender type (masculine/ feminine) anthropometric characteristics of the sample

As reported by V.Y. Burgart et al. [3], the Tanner sexual dimorphism index is largely determined by the testosterone-specific shoulder girdle growth process in men versus the estrogen-specific pelvis growth process in women. This is why, as emphasized by the authors, shoulders expressly grow in the teenage period with the pelvis growing to a lesser degree. We calculated the Tanner indices for the masculine and feminine subgroups in sex groups to find them being significantly higher in the masculine versus feminine subgroups within the same sex groups; and higher in the male group versus female group: see Table 3.

Table 3. Tanner sexual dimorphism indices for gender subgroups, cm

Therefore, Tanner index may be recommended for indirect gender qualification purposes. The higher is the Tanner index, the more masculine is the individual. The correlation analysis found the gender index of the sample on the whole being directly correlated with neck size, wrist size and shoulder width (see Table 4), albeit some male and female subgroups were found free of such correlations. Having split up the sam-ple into the gender subgroups, we found the gender index in male masculine subgroup being significantly correlated with neck size, wrist size, chest size and pelvis width; and no such correlations were found in the feminine subgroup. It should be emphasized that the correlations for the sex groups on the whole were less expressed than for the masculine subgroups and, hence, may apparently be attributed to the contribu-tions of the masculine individuals.

Table 4. Gender indices versus anthropometric characteristics in the sample
 

Conclusion. The study found the anthropometric characteristics being higher in the male versus female sex groups and masculine versus feminine gender subgroups. The study data and findings may be helpful for the further studies of the constitutional variability logics versus the physical development rates in teenagers and for the relevant cross-cultural studies.

References

1. Artamonova T.V., Steshenko V.V. Morphological criteria of gender identification. Uchenye zapiski universiteta im. P.F. Lesgafta. 2017. No. 7 (149). pp. 7-11.
2. Butovskaya M.L., Veselovskaya E.V., Kondrateva A.V., Prosikova E.A. Anthropology and Psychology for Sport. Identification of psychosomatic complexes in martial artists. Medicine for Sports. Proc. I All-Russian Congress (Moscow, September 19-20, 2011); Available at: http://www.sportmedicine.ru/medforsport-2011-papers/butovskaya.php (date of access: 20.06.2017).
3. Burgart V.Yu., Medvedeva N.N., Zaliznyak I.A. Anthropometric markers of androgenic saturation in young men of different body types. Estestvoznanie i gumanizm: col. works. v. 3, no. 1. Tomsk, SSMU publ.. 2006. pp.64-66.
4. Vrublevskiy E.P. Selection and training of athletes in athletics in context of sexual dimorphism. Zdorovye dlya vsekh. 2010. No. 1. pp. 51-54.
5. Zamchiy T.P., Koryagina Yu.V. Sexual dimorphism in morphological characteristics of power sports athletes. Sovremennye problemy nauki i obrazovaniya. 2011. No. 3; Available at: https://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=4676 (date of access: 25.06.2017).
6. Kolokoltsev M.M. Motor qualities of youth students with different indices of sexual dimorphism. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2016. No. 6. P. 14.
7. Kornetov N.A. Integrative anthropology: from medicine to philosophy. Novye idei v filosofii. 1997.no. 6. pp. 32-41.
8. Lubysheva L.I., Badrtdinova A.A. Gender-specific socialization challenges for women engaged in traditionally men's sports. Teoriya i praktika fiz kultury. 2017. No. 5. p. 2.
9. Svistunova E.V. Art therapy methods for diagnosis and correction of gender identity disorders. M.: MSPU; Available at: http://www.phil.gu.se/sffp/reports2/27. Svistonova.pdf (date of access: 25.04.2018).
10. Grets I.A., Grets G.N., Silovanova I.M. Estimation of score of sexual dimorphism by morphofunctional characteristics of elite throwers. Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. 2013. no 5. p. 68.

Corresponding author: artamonova-70@bk.ru

Abstract

Objective of the study was to rate and analyze the 19 year-old’s gender masculinity/ femininity-specific anthropometric characteristics.
Methods and structure of the study. Sampled for the study were the 19 year old Volgograd State Social and Pedagogical University (VSSPU) students (n=34 including 15 males and 19 females) who were tested by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) to rate and analyze the masculinity and femininity traits. We used a standard set of anthropometric tests to obtain the neck size, wrist size, chest size, shoulder width and pelvis width in cm; and found the Tanner sexual dimorphism index (cm) by the pelvis width being deducted from the triple shoulder width. We run a Pearson correlation analysis to find significant correlations between the anthropometric characteristics and gender indices – first for the sample on the whole; and then for the male and female subgroups (sexual dimorphism indices) and masculine/ feminine subgroups (gender indices).
Results and conclusions. The study found the anthropometric characteristics being higher in the male versus female sex groups and masculine versus feminine gender subgroups. The study data and find-ings may be helpful for the further studies of the constitutional variability logics versus the physical de-velopment rates in teenagers and for the relevant cross-cultural studies.