Women have attenuated exercise pressor responses compared to men; however, their cerebrovascular and ventilatory responses have not been previously measured. Furthermore, recent evidence has shown that posture change can influence the response of the metaboreflex but this has only been tested in men. Young and healthy men (
n
= 14; age: 21 ± 2) and women (
n
= 11; age: 19 ± 1) underwent 40%
MVC
static handgrip exercise (
HG
) for 2 min followed by 3 min of post‐exercise circulatory occlusion (
PECO
) in the supine and 70° tilted postures. In supine position during
HG
and
PECO
only men had an increase in ventilation (Men: Baseline: 12.5 ± 1.7 L/min,
HG
: 18.6 ± 5.3 L/min,
PECO
: 17.7 ± 10.3 L/min; Women: Baseline: 12.0 ± 1.5 L/min,
HG
: 12.4 ± 1.2 L/min,
PECO
: 11.5 ± 1.3 L/min; Sex × Time interaction
P
= 0.037). In supine position during
HG
and
PECO
men and women had similar reductions in cerebrovascular conductance (Men: Baseline: 0.79 ± 0.13 cm/sec/mmHg,
HG
: 0.68 ± 0.18 cm/sec/mmHg,
PECO
: 0.61 ± 0.19 cm/s/mmHg; Women: Baseline: 0.87 ± 0.13 cm/sec/mmHg,
HG
: 0.83 ± 0.14 cm/sec/mmHg,
PECO
: 0.75 ± 0.17 cm/sec/mmHg;
P
< 0.015
HG
/
PECO
vs. baseline). When comparing the response to
PECO
in the supine versus upright postures there was a significant attenuation in the increase in mean arterial pressure in both men and women (Supine posture: Men: +23.3 ± 14.5 mmHg, Women: +12.0 ± 7.3 mmHg; Upright posture: Men: +15.7 ± 14.1 mmHg, Women: +7.7 ± 6.7 mmHg; Main effect of sex
P
= 0.042, Main effect of posture
P
< 0.001). Our results indicate sexually dimorphic ventilatory responses to
HG
and
PECO
which could be due to different interactions of the metaboreflex and chemoreflex. We have also shown evidence of attenuated metaboreflex function in the upright posture in both men and women.