How Men and Women Badly Estimate Their Own Intelligence 928
theodp writes "In investigating the question of whether men are smarter than women, British researcher Adrian Furnham came up with some startling results. His analysis of some 30 studies showed that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ, but women underestimate their own intelligence while men overestimate theirs. Surprisingly, both men and women perceived men being smarter across generations — both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and their grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers. And if there are children, both men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters."
IQ != Intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
You're forgetting (Score:2, Insightful)
That intelligence != knowledge
Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
In my own family, my mother is a medical doctor, while my father never made it through college, and despite this reversal, I have caught myself falling into the same traps and patterns that society at large puts out as truth that women are inferior to men in certain fields of study, if not all intellectual pursuits.
The important point here (Score:5, Insightful)
both men and women perceived men being smarter across generations
What's important is not reality but our perception of it. Men 1 - women 0.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Or that despite having more votes than men, it's somehow men's fault that we haven't had a female President and few female Senators. Subscribing to a lower set of standards is convenient when demanding reparations, but it's not the way to actually earn any sort of meaningful respect. What happened to women a century back and earlier has precisely nothing to do with the present day.
Women aren't stupid, but there's a shocking lack of interest in actually using any of it.
Different intelligence: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in North Carolina, women try to act dumb. Actually, there's nothing hotter than a good-looking drunk dumb chick. I met my wife in a bar, and we discussed physics and religion and still managed to get to a first date, but the funny thing is on other occasions I'd pretend to be a pilot, and she'd pretend to be a dumb blond stewardess. Actually, around here some of the guys try and act dumb, too. We've got a strong anti-intellectual culture. One thing that's a sure turn-off to a southern man is a woman who thinks she's smarter than him.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:3, Insightful)
Well duh, that's what happens when people grow up in families with 14th-century gender roles. TFA:
Same idea there, and I suppose the divide is exacerbated by pop culture. Women are frequently depicted as being able to succeed based on their appearance as well as more negative traits. Sexual promiscuity is assumed to be a synonym for "empowerment". That moves the focus from intelligence and personality to "I can be rich if I release a sex tape". Even the "wholesome" teenage role model Miley Cyrus has been reduced to pole dancing. [smallscreenscoop.com] It's a shame given the number of female pioneers [wikipedia.org] of geekdom. [wikipedia.org]
Also, they don't care (Score:4, Insightful)
Believe it or not, I live with a women and she could care
less about an IQ test. I would also like to go on record as
saying that she is much smarter than me Iloveyouhoney.
Re:IQ != Intelligence (Score:3, Insightful)
Allegedly GWBush was has a fairly high IQ (well at least 120+) yet, outwardly at least, he may not seem it.
That's because having a high IQ (a nebulously defined quantity anyway) or being intelligent has no bearing on the ability to lead, being a puppet, or even having the ability to speak without sounding like a chimpanzee. Indeed, I find many charismatic, smooth talkers to be shocking simple-minded.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
What happened to women a century back and earlier has precisely nothing to do with the present day.
Do you honestly feel that the bias against females in the workplace or academics has been alleviated? It continues to this day. You can't fault a female for trying to hide their intelligence. A large part of American society still frowns upon the outward expression of intelligence (as many of us here may have experienced) of any kind. For women much more so. This feels like a very glib interpretation of the plight of the women in the modern age. Criticizing misguided attempts at forcing equality does not mean that inequality does not exist.
Re:You're forgetting (Score:5, Insightful)
That intelligence != knowledge
I prefer ignorant != stupid. Ignorance can be fixed by gaining knowledge or understanding. Stupid is the inability to learn.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps if women (who complain about this) should get off the self-pity train and do what the rest of us do when we feel like we aren't getting a fair shake: square off, prove up and go down in flames if necessary. I'm pretty sure it was Dear Abby who said that nobody can take advantage of you unless you allow it. There's no bias against women in the vast majority of workplaces or academics. The only bias that exists is that people generally respect and trust coworkers who are straightforward in their interactions and behave in predictable (or predictably unpredictable)- and people who don't speak up because they are afraid of being shot down are not being straightforward, and doubly so when they finally get fed up and have a meltdown. It's got nothing to do with peepees and 'jay'jays.
In other words: lead, follow or get out of the way: the choice is yours.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Try finding room at a shelter if you're a man that's been abused in general, especially so if the abuser is a woman. Or having to wait in line after the women have had their shot at the local homeless shelter. Good luck getting the police to protect you from an abusive woman. Or how mysteriously 1/5 of boys being sexually abused is conveniently rounded to virtually nothing when 1/3 of girls being molested is rounded up to most. Here's a hint those numbers are probably almost identical, women just don't admit that that happens to men as well.
It's really easy to claim that women are getting an unfair deal when you write off all the things which men have to put up with. Men are subject to conscription when there's a draft, women aren't. Men don't get any say in how a pregnancy turns out, but are still required to pay up in full, even in cases where the woman intentionally got herself pregnant. Including a shockingly common occurrence for her to stick him with the tab fore somebody else's kid.
The bias isn't going to go away until, women as a group decide to grow up and take responsibility for the crap they do to men. Men have taken much more responsibility for what they've done than what women have. Blaming men for things like female insecurity over looks, is just bigoted, that's not something that has anything at all to do with men, that's something that women do to each other.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Or that despite having more votes than men, it's somehow men's fault that we haven't had a female President and few female Senators. Subscribing to a lower set of standards is convenient when demanding reparations, but it's not the way to actually earn any sort of meaningful respect.
To assume that it's a "fault" that you haven't had a female president or that "meaningful respect" is a serious driver is very male-oriented thinking. Thing is, women aren't defective men, they're their own people with their own motivations. Only about 20% of women are motivated primarily by extrinsic factors such as pay and status, compared to about 60% of men (source: Susan Pinker's The Sexual Paradox [susanpinker.com]. Women are far more likely than men to be motivated by intrinsic factors such as feeling that their work is doing some good.That means that fewer women reach the top because most women would rather be doing something they enjoyed. (For what it's worth, women consistently score higher than similarly qualified men for job satisfaction -- Pinker again. There's more than one glass ceiling, but we don't notice the job-satisfaction one because we choose male-oriented measures of success.
There is another reason fewer women reach the top, though: although the average intelligence of men and women is about the same, the variance is significantly higher in men. So women are right: if somebody does something really dumb then it probably was a man. But the other side of that coin, which women tend not to like so much, if that if somebody does something really smart, that probably was a man too
And for those whose mouse is hovering on the "flamebait" button, remember that this is about averages. Nothing I've said means that a woman can't be stunningly intelligent and can't be driven by money and power -- just that they tend to be less extreme and more sensible.
Re:IQ != Intelligence (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me see. For eight years, he did whatever he wanted with no regards to what anyone else would say, left the consequences for his successor to clean up, and 'one-upped' his dad by killing off Saddam. His friends made enormous amounts off the government in no-bid contracts that will never be investigated. The administration showed an almost unbelievable amount of utter disregard for the the constitution but never had to face the courts. Yep, that sounds like he was too stupid to plan things out.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop right there.
Exactly what part of Miley Cyrus is "wholesome"? There's so much psycho-sexual pathology going on in the whole Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus phenomena that I'm betting there will entire textbooks written on the topic.
There will be an entire appendix just on Billy Ray Cyrus' uber-mullet vs Hannah's hooker wig.
The Miley Cyrus sex tape will be released in 3...2...1...
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not bigoted. You conveniently left out the part where spousal abusers that happen to be female are treated far less harshly than males are. And that the police rarely enforce the law when it's the women that's doing the beating.
Despite the fact that spousal abusers are just as likely to be women and that the abused are just as likely to be men, there are very, very few resources that are available fore men that are in that situation. Trust me on this, I know from personal experience that women can get away with hitting men in public and people don't do anything about it.
Perhaps you should shove your bigoted views so that we can actually get some sort of progress. It's easy to claim the moral high ground when you conveniently pretend to be stupid.
Which is sort of ironic, since you've just proven my point, women are held to a lower standard, and these sorts of ignorant bitchy outbursts just reinforce the idea that women can't form a cogent argument.
I think (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, they can't say that the way an average man thinks makes him more suited for work life and the way a woman thinks makes her more suited for nurturing tasks. When they want to say something like that they have to find a way around it by saying something like "men tend to have a logical/rational thinking process, whereas women tend to have a more empathetic thinking process". emotion != intelligence/reasoning. One is subjective and one is objective. I can reason with you and prove that my ideas are right, however I can't ever prove to you that my feelings are right. One way you are open to being persuaded the other way you just state that you have a right to feel that way and so what you've chosen to do is right.
These are also obviously averages. I personally think my mother is more intelligent than my father, even though my dad finished highschool and my mother dropped out. Similarly in university I took physics and I think the girls in the class were on average smarter than the guys. This could be due to a selection bias though: for a girl to go into physics she has to overcome the society stereotype that it is a men's profession and women can't do it, so it could lead to only the most gifted women trying the field.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Or that despite having more votes than men, it's somehow men's fault that we haven't had a female President and few female Senators. ... What happened to women a century back and earlier has precisely nothing to do with the present day.
What ignorance.
In 220 years, there have been 38 female Senators.
Of those 38, slightly over 1/3rd were appointed, not elected.
None of them were in office until after 1920.
Why 1920? Because until then, women were not treated as equal citizens.
Hell, there are still States that have never elected a female Senator.
I could give you other examples, but it suffices to say that the
inequalities and prejudices of the past almost always linger far into the future.
Re:IQ != Intelligence (Score:3, Insightful)
The perception of George Bush as stupid is more a reflection of the very human need to believe that the King is not evil, and blame his advisors for leading him astray.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
But he wasn't arguing that woman are equal; he was arguing that they are not inferior.
Huge difference, especially in context of a study that looks at perceptions.
No, "equal" is not the same as "not inferior". Sure, we're different, not equal, certain things work better in certain scenarios, worse in others (you provide your own example at the beginning), but that doesn't mean one is universally inferior to the other.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Nearly the entirety of biological evidence is against it being an artifact of culture.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
"14th-century gender roles"
Mankind didn't evolve in the 14th century. Mankind evolved over millions of years. Feminists, today, are trying to redefine what men and women are. They blame culture for all the differences between men and women. But, various drugs have measurable different effects on males and females. Similar experiences in sports have vastly different results on their bodies. No matter how much some would like to pretend that there is no difference between men and women, it remains a fallacy.
As for intelligence - I've read many an article over the years, both before and after the advent of the internet. More women's intelligence are closer to the center of any scale, while more men are found at the far ends of any scale. Meaning, an idiot is more likely to be a male, and a genius is more likely to be a male.
Granted, IQ tests reflect whatever the authors consider to be important. Design a test that places greater importance on remembering actor's names, recognizing colors, remembering details of friend's and family's vital details, women will almost ALWAYS score higher than men. Design a test that places greater importance on spatial recognition, mechanical skills, and computing RBI's and such, men will almost ALWAYS score higher.
Gender roles? Since we've spent millions of years LEARNING our gender roles, I see nothing wrong with them. They work. They have ensured the survival of our species all this time.
Go ahead - mess with the roles, and teach the kids new ways. Tell the little girls that they don't have to be little girls, and little boys don't have to grow up to be men.
Has anyone noticed that the most "modern", "advance", "civilized", and "liberal" nations in the world have a decreasing fertility rate, while the barbarians continue to breed? Has anyone noticed the invasion of those "civilized" nations taking place all around us?
Let's wait another 100 years or so, and see how this all works out. Change those roles, and experiment, while the rest of the world retains the old roles. Don't be at all surprised if the Muslims and the Catholics inherit the world. The old fashioned roles WORK! Damn fools.
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:5, Insightful)
The concept of an intelligence measure is absurd (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't even have a very good definition of "intelligence". How can you measure something when you can't even define it?
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a plausible hypothesis, but what strikes me as odd is that the male-dominated fields that study wars in the modern era mainly focus on the 2nd, which you consider a female interest. I see it as more of an era thing: 19th-century historians of war mostly focused on strategy, generals, treaties, etc., while modern historians are much more likely to write books on motivations, cultural factors, impacts on civilian experience, etc. Taking that approach even further, folks like Bourdieu [wikipedia.org] and Foucault [wikipedia.org] were male as well..,
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a hint those numbers are probably almost identical, women just don't admit that that happens to men as well.
Actually, guys do it to themselves by underreporting abuse because it doesn't fit with the traditional notions of gender, (citations at bottom [child-abuse-effects.com]), though I agree the numbers probably are equal, and may even be higher for boys because of the expectation that they won't report it.
Good luck getting the police to protect you from an abusive woman
Most police are male, so honestly this is another of those cases where it has to do with guys own expectations of other guys.
Men don't get any say in how a pregnancy turns out
In cases of having the kid, I only agree with you if the guy wore a condom and did everything in his power to prevent pregnancy. In cases of aborting the kid, only if the guy legally obligates himself to raising and supporting the kid. Yes, the woman gets more say 'cause it's her body, so forcing her to either abort or give birth to a kid she doesn't want is a violation of her rights over her own body. That's just a matter of how the universe assigned biological functions.
Blaming men for things like female insecurity over looks, is just bigoted, that's not something that has anything at all to do with men, that's something that women do to each other.
Both genders are at fault here. Women drive each other crazy in part because men keep making it matter. Granted, even if men didn't care, women would still fight over looks, but men are still a big part of the picture. I've got friends in a religious community-the major reason they get drama about looks is 'cause of marriage. Hell, a bunch of comments on this thread basically say "me want hawt girl."
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree that defined gender roles are a good idea. Ignoring the concept of sexual discrimination entirely, they by definition reduce every single person's career choice by 50%.
Also, notice how the barbarians tend to starve and die of disease a lot, largely due to their overbreeding?
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
As a warmish rather than hot chick, I think, in general, that the smarter the man the more he values intelligence. Or that's what I keep telling myself, anyway.
Re:Also, they don't care (Score:3, Insightful)
Believe it or not, I live with a women and she could care
less about an IQ test. I would also like to go on record as
saying that she is much smarter than me Iloveyouhoney.
How much more could she care less? Could she care 10% less? 50% less? Could she possible care 100% less? If she could care 100% less, it says to me that she actually cares a lot about an IQ test.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose you could be purposely obtuse and come away with that! I think it's fairly clear that if most jobs can be done by men or women and the society treats women as "equivalent" to males then most women will chose to work rather than have children. Since doing a good job raising children is WAY more work then most 20th century jobs, it's understandable. If your mom didn't have at least 2.1 to 2.3 children, assuming a developed country, then she contributed to the decline of your ethnicity. This has a number of consequences including the difficulty in funding retirement programs, like Social Security and Medicare, and replacing workers as the workforce ages.
Another statistical flaw (Score:5, Insightful)
He presents it as a paradox that, on the average, people believe that their mothers were less intelligent than their fathers, and their grandmothers less intelligent than their grandfathers.
However, it is no paradox for men to be more intelligent than the women they marry (on the average), even though men and women have the same average intelligence. This merely requires that women tend to marry men more intelligent than they are, while men tend to marry women less intelligent than they are.
Of course, this give problems at each end of the scale-- men at the low-intelligence end of the scale and women at the high intelligence end of the scale both will tend to be unmarried. I'm not sure that this isn't the case, though!)
(Actualy, since the survey was of the children, not the actual couples, the statistics quoted will still be reasonable if, on the average, when a higher-intelligence women marries a lower-intelligence man they have fewer children than when a lower-intelligence woman marries a higher-intelligence man.)
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:5, Insightful)
Emotional intelligence certainly can put food on the table. There are a number of high-paying jobs that rely primarily on relational finesse and emotional manipulation. Marketing/advertising, counseling, business management, negotiation, etc...
Further, emotional intelligence does other useful things such as bringing about peace between individuals, families, or even nations. While men at large would default to settle disputes through violent means, women would do it peacefully by default. This also means women do well at solidifying familial ties and promoting cooperation in communities, which is why it is now very well known that the best way to help a poor developing country is to give women what they need to be successful, as opposed to what the male leaders would request.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:3, Insightful)
It's possible that I overstated my case. I don't intend to tell any woman that she may or may not do any job at all. Nor, men.
What burns me up is the push by the liberals to have our school systems working hard to OVERTURN all the role models we've learned. I've actually counseled young men and women that they SHOULDN'T get married and have kids as soon as they graduate from school. (Either high school, or college) I've encouraged them to explore the world, to try different jobs, to get some "life experience" before they are tied down to half a lifetime of raising kids.
Yes, some of the more outrageous claims that boys and girls are just alike, and that they can do exactly the same things, yada yada yada are getting discredited. Finally. I've been hearing that trash for decades.
Your parenthetical (Or with a woman staying home while her wife goes out to earn money. Or both partners doing some share of child-raising and money-earning.) You lose me with that. Homosexuality is a dead end, and it contributes to those more traditional groups gaining more and more strength, relative to the "civilized" nations and cultures. Gay marriage and the declining fertility rates go hand in hand. Whether it is causative or not, the correlation is there.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:1, Insightful)
Gender roles and gender rights are not the same thing.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps if women (who complain about this) should get off the self-pity train and do what the rest of us do when we feel like we aren't getting a fair shake: square off, prove up and go down in flames if necessary.
"Square off, prove up and go down in flames" is a very male metaphor (and mixed). Why do you think women should act like men? Most of us don't have the testosterone for such an aggressive approach to life.
Women aren't on the self-pity train any more than men. We would just like things to be fairer becuae we tend to like thing to be fair. That's not inferior to your competitive approach or superior either.
I'm happy to listen to men complaining about where they are disadvantaged (family law courts for example). I happy to listed to anyone who feels they are being treated unfairly. It's not a victim competition - in this world we all get the rough end in some way or other.
Troll Bait (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest factor is that if you take any group of people and split them into two groups. One gets taught that they don't have to provide for themselves, so anything they accomplish is just for their own gratification, and the other is taught that no one is ever going to hand them a free lunch, so they better figure out how they will support themselves, I think we can all figure out which group is going to end up smarter.
It is made abundantly clear to very small children that men need to earn their livings, and women earn a living if they want to. Even in today's society, little girls are informed that they can marry/sleep their way into being supported. No doubt, there will be a certain percentage of people that will end up dumb even if they believe they will need to support themselves, and some people will end up smart even if they don't NEED to be. The reason that it appears that there are more smart men then women isn't because women are not given credit. It isn't because evil men keep them down. It is because the group of smart women consist of the women that WANT to be smart, and the group of smart men include the men that WANT to be smart combined with the group of men that feel they NEED to be smart for survival. It should be no surprise that you get better results from the group that needs it for survival.
If women want to become men's intellectual peers, they need to start sleeping with men for their looks instead of their wallets. They need to make sure that starting at a young age, little girls are taught that they should pay for everything when they date men. Both young boys and young girls need to be taught that it is a woman's responsibility to financially support men, and that if a man supports them financially, the woman is a bum, and unworthy of being in a relationship.
Get these ideas instilled in our youth, and you will see more smart women and fewer smart men.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:male genital mutilation (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be mutilation...but it provides strong protection against HIV, a rather deadly disease.
So do condoms. Also, the one study that showed anti-HIV effects was found to have used cherry picked population samples.
What's always bothered me is that people insist on doing it to children. If it's so helpful, then parents would naturally wait until the child is old enough to choose for himself. I've always suspected that the reason it's done to children is that it's a part of culture, and that parents know that when the child gets old enough to choose for himself, their reaction will be "Oh, HELL no.".
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that men are brutish, ugly creatures who prefer to punch each other rather than discuss disputes rationally. Well, I guess the majority of scientific consensus reached prior to the sexual revolution in the 60s was pretty bloody what with all the fistfights and gunshot wounds.
Nevermind the fact that both sexes have the tendancy to resolve disputes through violence, let's perpetuate the stereotype of woman as a "meek, caring little creature" and man as a "strong, willful monster."
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
> Despite the fact that spousal abusers are just as likely to be women and that the abused are just as likely to be men,
>
What?! Seriously, how is this gibberish modded insightful?
Please provide a _single_ link verifying this claim. The claim that spousal abusers are "just as likely to be women".
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
It helps that a drunk woman will actually talk to you if you try to make conversation, instead of staring at you like you're a moron or a rapist.
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah the emotional intelligence argument. When a wealth women loses all of her money in a scam job I would just love to ask her "It's a shame you lost all your money but how did you *feel* about the transaction?!?".
Isn't falling victim to a scam artist exactly the definition of low emotional intelligence? Susceptibility to being manipulated by someone who can parrot your deepest emotional needs?
Re:male genital mutilation (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, that's my reaction. While an infant doesn't have the ability to store the memories of the pain or loss in a way that can be recalled later.
That's not exactly a stirring argument. It boils down to "Let's do it now because we can get away with it.".
As for HIV...have you tried sex with a condom? It doesn't feel that good. Bareback is immensely better.
You do know that people who have the procedure done in their adulthood report massive loss of sensation right? Cutting off the patch of skin with the largest group of sensory clusters on that part of the body isn't completely without effect. That being said, you'd be an idiot to go bareback with a HIV positive partner even if they were on the pill, which means you'd be using a condom anyway. Lower risk of transmission isn't the same thing as "no risk".
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
Caveat - I don't know if I qualify as "smart".
You're right in my personal experience. Fell in love (and married) a woman who is smart. Didn't know it at first, just thought she was major league hot.
I suspected (after intellect won over pride) I had targeted the right one when I was mouthing off about a topic I thought I knew, and she handed me my ass. With ruffles and flourishes.
After getting over it, realized I actually want and need real. 28 years, three kids, several careers later, still in love with her - unreservedly.
Course she =STILL= has to tell me "Hey, my eyes are up here". Hey, some things are simply guywired...
Any young /. whippersnappers laughing at this can get the hell off my lawn. Look for the ones who make you consider with both controlling parts of your body.
There are reasons for misreported abuse stats (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:male genital mutilation (Score:3, Insightful)
there is a perfectly effective and cheap solution to aids, it's called the condom.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
Condom shouldn't be necessary in the eyes of the law. It's much more common than it should be for women to go on a contraceptive course, genuinely or just to get the man to let his guard down, then secretly stop taking the pills when they decide they want a baby.
All that should be necessary for a man to get out of all child obligations should be that he registers his opposition to having the child as soon as he knows the woman is pregnant.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think he was making it out to be some sort of conspiracy. I think the finger he was leveling was more along the lines of "well, according to women none of these things ever happen".
He has a point. I recently read a lengthy article discussing the supposed "gender gap", where about 15 years ago a feminist group purchased a "study" claiming that girls were falling behind in American education - when in fact the opposite was true; girls did better in school, were happier, and more likely to go to college even then. After all the resulting chaos, that is even more true than it was - and still, women are somehow the repressed ones.
I digress, but it illustrates my point. We forced the president of Harvard to resign because he suggested that women and men were better at different things. God forbid a man attempts do say damn near anything that even timidly suggests a weakness of women - yet the very same women who would destroy that man can't seem to shut up about how men destroy the world.
There's a lack of women in engineering! Oh noes! Let's push them into it. But there's also a lack of male nurses and lawyers, and nobody seems too fussed.
IOW, there's a lot of blame for women as well. A man, let alone politician, can hardly suggest that boys/men need any help because he'd get eaten alive for "ignoring the multitude of problems women in America face everyday" or something.
Re:Different intelligence: (Score:3, Insightful)
Relational finesse and emotional manipulation have their counterpart in men - reason and logic.
That sounds flamebait. Let me try again.
Women tend to favor and pursue the emotional methods when interacting with people. If you can sway somebody's emotions, you've won.
Men tend to see this as unimportant, and rely on the facts of the matter. I'm right because my formula says I am, or I'm right because I make sense and you have a flaw in your logic.
Men rely on their argument being heard by somebody who fundamentally runs on the same rules as they do. Women don't much care - the emotional methods work on anyone.
Since so few people seem to have even a shred of logic nowadays, I'd say women have the advantage.
My point is, don't say that men's first step is violence. For most things, it isn't. We both try our hand at argument. Men getting violent and kicking the crap out of someone seems to be roughly analogous to a woman getting "bitchy", to use the colloquialism. Both can be equally damaging, but violence is usually over very quickly.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, as a man I'd argue that that's true for any man.
I *know* that I'm better at some things than a typical woman. I *know* that men are inherently better at some things than women - at the risk of making a pun, they have the balls to take risks. I've seen a lot of men try math or science and succeed, and a lot of men try math and fail. Yet, I've rarely seen women "give it their all" in one of these fields, because women don't seem to try things that they aren't sure they can do.
Yet, I *know* that when men fuck up, they fuck up big. All of the stories about some guy lighting a match to see into his gas tank, or something similar, are about men. Less extremely, you have men who overextend their superior abilities and get killed. An EE (probably) won't be able to wire your house to code - but he may try and die. Women, again, don't try what they think they'll fail.
In short, men seem to be very good at some things, and forget that they're not that good at everything else - hence the abject stupidity. Women seem to be more constant - less super-bright spots, but a more even glow. Our society can't survive without both sides of the coin. If women had no power, men would destroy society. But if men had no power, we'd all get along but nothing would ever get done.
I know I come off as a douche. Sorry; there's no nice way to say it.
Dunning–Kruger (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminds me of the cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how incompetetent individuals overestimate their competence (did anybody say middle manager?) while the truly competent underestimate their competence (aka. depressive realism). Maybe competent women are more vulnerable to depressive realism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism [wikipedia.org]
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
ah here comes the march of the self-labeled intelligentsia who's really just a plain jane neurotypical who's actually jealous of those who can do the real work, so he makes fun of the way they dress or their lack of skills with mating or other such banal activities.
average engineers can chat up women and get the job done okay-sorta. they're the ones who built the machines that pump out ECS motherboards.. you know, the boards that fail 3 weeks after install? then there are the really good engineers who build stuff that works so well, it disappears from public consciousness. yeah he sucks at the bar scene but he doesn't care that much really.. after all, sex is easy enough that one can pay to get it..and the hand works just fine in a pinch. really though, who needs all the icky drama that the avg relationship brings when there are plenty of other things to do?
I find it funny how people like yourself project your hierarchy of needs onto others who (as youy say) aren't much like you at all, and then make fun of them for coming up short. Have you ever stopped to wonder if they CARE that they don't get pussy every other night? ..or that their tie doesn't match their shirt? ..or that they're not wearing a tie at all (oh the horror!!).
get some real skills and you'll see how much better life is when you don't have to care so much what other people think of your superficial attributes.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:1, Insightful)
Men rape women, not the other way around, because it succeeds in spreading their genes more widely, with nothing but a single night's work, while women have to actually birth the child and usually raise them.
I don't rape women, do you?
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not an aggressive approach. It's an assertive one. What other options are you proposing? Sit there, take it, then whine to Oprah that you're being treated unfairly, meanwhile the people you're accusing of treating you unfairly may not even be aware of the supposed disparity? If acting with self respect and preventing yourself from being taken advantage of is a "male" trait, what's the "right" way for a woman to do it? No, crying in the workplace - which i've seen many times- is not it.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Xenophobic? Because I dislike ILLEGAL ALIENS? Hardly. Look at Mexico. It isn't composed of just "Mexicans". There are Latinos, there are Azteca, there are Mexicans (mostly composed of "Mestizos" - a term that has gone out of fashion) and there are several of those "indigenous peoples" mentioned in the article - Mayans and others.
Mexico has been engaged in a quiet campaign of genocide against those "inigenous peoples" since AT LEAST the time of the revolution.
When those Azteca feel that it's time to move on, they will start on the United States as it's next target. Care to peruse their "Patron Saints"? Visit here. http://blogs.uww.edu/introtolatinamerica/2009/11/01/patron-saints-of-the-mexican-drug-underworld/ [uww.edu] Look closely - NONE of these saints has anything to do with Catholicism - these are the icons of death worshippers and criminals. Azteca - the people who regularly raided what is now the SW United States for victims to sacrifice atop their pyramids.
I'm all for LEGAL IMMIGRATION - that is where people apply for immigration, follow the rules, and eventually become naturalized, and swear allegiance to their adopted country. ILLEGAL ALIENS are an invading force.
Xenophobic idiot. Whatever. Open your eyes, and look at what is going on. There is conflict in this world that you don't see, and are happy to remain blissfully unaware of.
Re:They believe it because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
All I can say is, Slashdot seriously needs some women posters, because this shit is shameful.
Re:Extroverted people are rated as 'smarter' (Score:1, Insightful)
far surpassing verbally those normally extroverted people(particularly females).
The females of your class are smart enough to remain less involved and more observant in situations where males compete each other. Once they have determined who the alpha males are, they will move in.
The males are also genetically hardwired to try to show off in front of an audience to increase their "male rating" to get better females.
The genders may not be measurably superior/inferior to each other, but they are undeniably different.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
My observation as a female is that men prefer "hot dumb blond chicks" (in bars etc) over more regular gals per se, without intellegence being factored in at all. Dumb, smart, pfft, she's hot.
As a warmish rather than hot chick, I think, in general, that the smarter the man the more he values intelligence. Or that's what I keep telling myself, anyway.
Actually, most intelligent men think the same thing about women... That women go for large dumb men (i.e. football players, etc)
Re:Well, Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
I could not agree more with everything you just said.
People seem to confuse equality of outcome, or even equality of opportunity, with equality before the law. The first one is impossible to guarantee because different people have different abilities, the second is impossible for much the same reason, but you also have to add in different degrees of luck.
The last one is the only one that matters in any real sense. We should strive to treat all people with respect and dignity, but not force someone to be hired (or not hired) due to an accident of birth. Let employers hire the best candidate for the job, and don't assume that just because one gender dominates a field it must be due to societal bias. Maybe men just tend to enjoy sports more so you see more of them in sports-related careers; and maybe women just tend to enjoy being around children more so you see more of them as teachers. It doesn't mean there's a concerted effort in either cases to keep the other gender out.
Re:There are reasons for misreported abuse stats (Score:5, Insightful)
It goes beyond the stereotypes, because men tend to be more physically abusive while women tend to be more socially abusive.
That's a fallacy, at least in my experience. I've been attacked just one time by a man in the last 20 years (and he's a certified nutball who was discharged from the Marines because of his temper), while I've been attacked three times by three different women in the last two years just because of something I said.
Boys learn early that physical violence is intolerable; you can't beat ALL the other kids up. Girls never get this lesson. Most boys are taught "never hit a girl". Girls get no such antiviolent learning.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Part of the problem is that the women's movement has fell victim to the belief that being equal means doing what men do. It doesn't. It means demanding respect for yourself as a person and the choices you make, whether that choice is to stay at home, to work in a traditionally female role, OR to be the CEO of a Fortune 500. The "women's movement" has, deliberately or not, lowered the societal value placed on traditionally female roles, and by extension the women who fill them, which does a disservice to both the people who fill those roles and the people who depend on them.
Re:If women are so smart . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not the original poster, but as someone who has been married over 11 years to an intelligent woman:
You have to talk to this person, every day, for the rest of your life. Sometimes about things that are complicated or intensely personal (e.g. child rearing, in-laws, etc). If your partner has a hard time articulating their thoughts about issues it can be very frustrating. Especially if the issue is why they're mad at you right now. Yes, being personable is good, and the difference between an IQ of 180 and 140 probably doesn't matter, but in the end, smart is better than dumb. To sum up, communication is the cornerstone of a lasting relationship, and if you and your partner don't communicate well with each other you will have problems.
--
JimFive