Women's World Cup and the enduring gender question

These days I'm following the women's soccer world cup for the first time.

Obviously, one is constantly tempted to compare the game to the men's variety, which brings a few surprises and a few expected results. For example, nobody is surprised that women's soccer is a little slower and less powerful than men's soccer. And most people are probably not too shocked to hear that women's soccer statistically includes fewer fouls, cards, injuries and feigned injuries. This would mean that women's soccer is likely to be a little more pleasant, though less exciting, to watch.

But for me, being a newcomer to women's soccer, there are a few surprises. For one thing, it seems that there are many young, young players (starting with 16-year-olds, which is almost unheard of in men's soccer). The important countries are different (and this is one area where the USA aren't the outsiders in soccer, having won two of the five women's world cups so far and being the only country to have made semifinals every time).

But what really surprised me is that it seems that there are far more errors, particularly at critical moments like when it's a striker with only a goalkeeper to beat. The easiest and most obvious explanation is that these are the moments of greatest pressure, and these women aren't as accustomed to this kind of pressure as their male counterparts. The World Cup games are taking place in sold-out stadiums, which is nothing new for world-class soccer playing men but is something that female soccer players aren't used to (some of these ladies play for clubs whose games are attended by only a few dozen fans on average).

But I wonder if there is another reason. It's obviously dangerous to talk about the differences between men and women, particularly if you're going to say something about men being better at something. But I often hear that women are better at multitasking. Sometimes this claim comes in connection with "but men are better at focusing on a single task", while sometimes it's just left at "women can multitask, men can't." If it is true that men are better at focusing on a single task, this may be one area where men are at an advantage. If you're a striker in a one-on-one against the opposing goalkeeper, a single-track mind set on getting the ball in the net might be more useful than the ability to multitask.

For the record, I don't think this is likely to account for most of what we see. I don't know whether women are really better at multitasking or that men are better at focusing. My personal observation doesn't confirm this. I think that it's more likely that these women have less experience in high-pressure contexts and therefore choke more frequently when the stakes are high (it is even possible that they don't choke more frequently, and that it's just my imagination).

But it makes me wonder how many of the differences one sees here can be attributed to gender at all, and how many are just the nature of the sport. Maybe the male soccer stars foul and dive more, not because they're men, but because they're superstars. Maybe women would act the same way if the stakes were as high. The foul statistics in women's soccer are rising just as the popularity of women's soccer is rising as well, and stars like Marta are already showing the sneaky tactics like diving and feigning injury that we've all grown to hate in men's soccer.

Would women be playing more like men if the context in which they were playing were more like the context in which men play? In its broader application this is a very current question, and a very controversial one as well. To what extent do women and men behave differently, and how much of that is because they are different vs. because their conditioning is different?