Volleyball is often played by both males and females. However, many believe it to be true that the sport was designed to be played predominately by women. There is a decent amount of evidence that may lead one to believe this to be true despite the fact that males tend to have a height and strength advantages over women. However, that is not was is taken into consideration when one gauges whether or not a player is “good”. The female volleyball players have their own advantages in their own way just by being female.
Females, are more often than not, more flexible than a male would be, enabling them to reach their arms out further for a potential “bump” or “pass”. They are also able to get lower to the ground which makes them a better candidate to dig out a “spike” or “hit” as seen in the image below.
UCLA Women’s Volleyball player digs out a spike
Females also have a “hidden” advantage over the males who play volleyball. Females have the ability to dive for balls and not feel as much pain as a male would for the fact that the males testicles often hit the floor with a decent amount of force as compared to the females vaginal region is often less effected by the dive.
Males are often present at women’s volleyball practice in order to train the girls to get the females accustomed to hitting the ball over a larger blocker and returning spikes with a males force behind it. However, many schools do not offer a male volleyball team such as Penn State University for the fact that the sport is not that big for males as compared to Penn States Women’s Volleyball Team winning back to back national championships.
These “hidden” advantages the women possess are also made evident in the average number of scholarships handed out. On average, there are four and a half full ride Division 1 scholarships handed out to males and 12 given out to females. If there were not to be a science that females make better volleyball players than males, there would not be such a large imbalance between the number of available scholarships for volleyball male and female volleyball players.
Males are often referred to as being dominant athletes. However, this is clearly not the case in the world of volleyball. Females, in the volleyball world, are clearly the dominant players.
Sources used:
https://news.illinois.edu/postmarks/spring_2014/volleyball.html
http://espn.go.com/espnw/title-ix/article/7959799/the-silent-enemy-men-sports
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_men%27s_volleyball_schools