@hahaha01357 - I’m not sure any of us are denying the difference in average muscle mass between men and women. But I would suggest that our culture has primed us to be much too quick to use that difference as an explanation/justification. For example, using it to explain the different performance of pre-pubescent kids who haven’t yet had their big dose of natural testosterone. Or using it to explain why armies are male-only… when there are many historical examples of women getting into armies as long as they could pass as male, and when (as you say) there’s no physical reason why women with above-average strength can’t be great athletes and warriors.
War isn’t wrestling; it isn’t won by armies of Conans. In most historical contexts, warfare depends on weapons wielded by large numbers of underfed commoners. People of average or less physical strength could and did win wars through numbers or use of tech like pikes and bows.
One kind of warfare where physical bulk offers a huge advantage is the “Trojan War” style where each army takes it in turns to send out its strongest champions to duel one-on-one, using weapons that reward brute strength. But this is hardly an example of warfare being “nothing if not practical”. It requires others to hold back even when there would be an advantage to piling in, and as the Greek tradition suggests, it’s highly vulnerable to a coward with a bow.
Which brings me to the main point: war is a mix of practical and cultural considerations like everything else. The way armies are constituted, trained, and operate has a huge amount to do with their home culture, in peacetime as well as war. It takes a pretty rare cultural/political situation for the limits on war to be eroded and for it to become a purely logistical/tactical exercise in efficient attrition.
Modern Westerners, especially Americans, have a culture that prizes pragmatism (especially technological pragmatism) very highly; we’re fond of cautionary tales about warrior cultures that fell apart because they prized cultural elements like “honor” above practical ones and so didn’t update their tech/tactics quickly enough. But sometimes the real “practicalities” of war have much more to do with culture and politics, and not with who has the most muscle, tech, or ruthlessness. As the example I’ve seen closest up, the Afghan mujahidin beat back the Russians and are holding us in a stalemate primarily (though of course not exclusively) because of cultural and political factors.
In short: I’d suggest the reason why armies tend to be all-male is clearly cultural as much as practical, even in an era when musculature was more important in weapon-wielding. The practicalities of a mixed-sex army would not be a decisive factor in a non-patriarchal society.
@Cataphrak: I’m an admirer of pedantry, as long as it’s consistent. It’s not particularly kind for self-confessed pedants to call people “dishonest” for not reaching their rather exceptional standards, though.
