Q & A: Gender differences in super powers

An excellent follow-up question came after the nutshot one, so I thought I'd go ahead and answer that one here and now.

Q: You mentioned that it is men who are the strongest of those with super strength in your stories. Are there any powers that women have in greater numbers than the men?

A: Yes, there is, and in fact, it might be interesting to you all if I go ahead and tell you how the more common powers divide up along gender lines.

Men dominate in those with super, super strength. Women, however, dominate when it comes to super speed. The fastest speedsters are all women. In fact, it isn't until #19 that a man breaks the top 20, and he is like a snail compared to the fastest woman. Superhuman scientists theorize that this is because women's muscles don't bulk up like men's muscles do, so their super strength can be dedicated to speed.

Women also dominate in telepathic powers related to reading minds. However, men dominate in telepathic powers dedicated to "pushing". It didn't take long to notice the pattern of men having "aggressive" telepathic powers while women had "communication" telepathic powers. So far, there are no telepaths that can both read minds and "push" people to do things that they want them to do. Neither gender seems to dominate in telekinetic powers, as there are too few purely TK wielders to make any accurate assessment of how this power divides among the genders.

Women dominate in super senses related to smell and hearing, while men dominate in super sight. The other two senses are harder to evaluate, so there are no official test results yet on super taste and touch.

Men overwhelmingly dominate in powers related to energy discharge. Superhuman scientists theorize that this is related to the fact that the presence of testosterone has something to do with the quick and massive energy production that is necessary for such energy discharges - and of course, men have testosterone in greater quantities than women. Women who are able to discharge energy are only able to emit a glow of light rather than energy with any strong concussive force.

Female teleporters generally create portals to step through, while men generally teleport by popping out of sight to re-emerge somewhere else. Female teleporters are able to teleport others so long as they are able to keep their portal open, while men can only teleport themselves.

Male flyers are the fastest flyers while female flyers are able to maneuver far better than the men. Most superhuman scientists make the analogy that male flyers are jets while female flyers are helicopters. Most men can't hover in one spot, but nearly all the women can.

When it comes to "sonic screams", women far outnumber the men. The best "sonic screamers" have a pitch so high that it can't be heard, but it can cause your eardrums to rupture and could cause cerebral hemorrhages. Men who can do the very low bass pitch "sonic screams" sound very much like a foghorn and have an eerie effect of rattling you down to your bones.

Men far outnumber women when it comes to "thunder clapping" - that is, slamming their hands together with such force as to create a shock wave. This is easy to explain: Men's hands are bigger and the men are generally stronger. Women can only make "baby booms" when compared to the men's shock waves.

After these basic powers, it breaks down to gender ratios that are not complete yet. That is, there's not enough of each gender of a given power to make the determination of whether it is a male or female dominated ability. For some powers, only one person seems to possess it.

For instance, the super known as Alloy is the only known super who has the ability to merge otherwise unlike substances into one combined substance, such as combining steel and a bolt of cotton into an substance that has the softness of cotton but the durability of steel (and which my costume is made of).

And I am the only known super with multiple powers. I have flight, strength, super senses, speed healing, and super speed. Note that I have these abilities in a lesser degree to those who have the same powers (that is, there are stronger women than me, there are faster women than me, etc.), but none of them have the combination of abilities that I do. There are, so far, no men who have multiple abilities like I do. so it's unknown whether it is men or women who will be more likely to have multiple powers.

As more research is made available, I'll let you all know what they are.