lostonearth35
Phoenix
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Age: 39
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Location: Canada
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 Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:55 am Post subject: Are women REALLY not as smart as men? |
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Not long ago I was watching a video about a so-called psychic on some old talk-show who messed up right on TV, proving she was a fake, because a lady wanted to know what had happened to her deceased husband/boyfriend/father/brother/somerelationidontremember, whose body was never found. The "psychic" claimed he had drowned and was calling to her from the bottom of the sea or some lie but the lady told her he died in the events of 911. So anyway, one YouTuber asked why the people on the show were mostly female and some incredible genius, a male obviously, replied, "Because women are not as smart as men". I furrowed my brow as I tried, with dimwitted difficulty, to process what I had just read. Intelligence comes in many forms and varies in both genders, or so I have heard and believed because I am not as smart as a man and believe everything I hear, uh-duhh.  Women are supposedly more emotional and "feel" whereas men are supposedly more logical and therefore "think". I thought having emotions was a good thing, but people say things like, "Don't cry, you'll upset the other patients", "Don't be afraid", "I was so mad I wasn't thinking clearly". So if that's true are women with Asperger's "smarter" than "NT" women because they're less emotional? But wait, I have Asperger's and get emotional quite a bit! My mother who is NT, almost never cries. She nearly always shows only happiness, anger or excitement. And if I am sad, or depressed, or worse of all crying, she gets upset with me. And by upset I mean usually angry or annoyed. The only time it's okay to cry or show sadness around her is if someone dies or if I'm in a lot of physical pain. And she's... a woman! 
So...are men really smarter because they typically don't show emotions as much or what? And if you found this too long I'm sorry because I don't have the intelligence to write short and simple stuff, which is ironic, because we're not smart enough to read and understand long messages anyway, duh. |
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VisInsita
Raven
Joined: Mar 01, 2012
Posts: 115
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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The whole dichotomy of men as rational, factual and objective versus females as irrational, non-factual and subjective is a concept based on a thought (pattern) how women and men think. This is highlighted very well in the example you gave. The male saw the fact that the audience in the psychic show was predominantly female as an argument to his belief that females are not as smart as men. But at the same time he totally disregarded all those in a very same manner irrational male prophets, all those men with their various made up religions and belief systems, all those alchemists, all those males in the field of parapsychology and so on… Often we go from goal to claims disregarding everything else possibly pointing to the other way.
Here I could bring up also the infamous study of Simon Baron-Cohen (I didn’t bother to check the actual research paper and I fairly admit I might exaggerate it by generalizing a bit). But according to Baron-Cohen female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy, while the male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems. The male brain is directed towards facts and the female one towards emotions. But the things we perceive as facts and as systems are bound to our time and to our normative (maybe even masculine) perceptions. For example, what would happen when some of these intuitive or paranormal or whatever actions seen as female irrationality would be proven scientifically and become "facts"? Or how does e.g. an interactive, emotional and/or social system differ from a “hard matter system” or a folk physics type of system? Isn’t system a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole rather than a synonym for culturally masculine systems?
What is seen as irrational today is the science of tomorrow... |
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Albirea
MEDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC!
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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According to something I learned in psychology class, women are overrepresented in the middle of the bell curve, and men are overrepresented at both ends. So that would explain why some guys seem very dumb and others seem extremely smart.
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Delphiki
Launchie
Joined: Apr 15, 2012
Age: 23
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Location: My own version of reality
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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| women get slightly better grades than guys |
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cozysweater
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Joined: Aug 06, 2011
Posts: 570
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know. There's a lot of societal pressure on both sexes to fit into their respective cultural stereotypes. Also it's been fairly well documented that girls in co-ed schooling fare worse than girls in girls-only classes. (Here's an article I'm too lazy to fact check)
Women are not less intelligent than men. The deck is stacked against us.
Also, I think it should be mentioned that if that was a chat show - the audience usually has no idea who will be appearing on the show that day. You line up with your ticket in hand and sometimes you get Oprah's give-away show and sometimes you get the show about the benefits of colonic irrigation. It can (sometimes literally) be a crapshoot. Maybe those ladies were lined up hoping they'd win a car. |
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Stargazer43
Scruffy-looking Nerf Herder
Joined: Nov 07, 2011
Posts: 1421
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:38 pm Post subject: |
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I've known extremely intelligent people of both genders, I personally don't think men and women have any significant difference in terms of intellect. I think that the few that appear to exist are purely based on societal and cultural expectations rather than actual intellectual ability. And intelligence is not nearly so important as how it's used. You could be the smartest person on the planet, but if you don't use your intelligence it's no good to anyone. Or, if you are simply average but use everything you've got to its fullest, you could accomplish some pretty amazing things!
Also, emotions have nothing at all to do with intelligence. There's no reason to think that because someone is more or less emotional, that it directly correlates to increased or decreased intelligence. |
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shrox
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Posts: 3254
Location: OK let's go.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Idiots are isolated cases of over generalization. |
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auntblabby
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
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Location: the island of loveable toy humans
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:16 am Post subject: |
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| the highest scorer on a written IQ test, was marilyn jarvik [married to the inventor of the jarvik 7 artificial heart] who scored 228. she has a smartiepants newspaper column called "ask marilyn." |
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shrox
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Location: OK let's go.
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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| auntblabby wrote: | | the highest scorer on a written IQ test, was marilyn jarvik [married to the inventor of the jarvik 7 artificial heart] who scored 228. she has a smartiepants newspaper column called "ask marilyn." |
Wait, some chick is smarter than me? |
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Anemone
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Age: 48
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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Women's IQ scores are closer to the mean than men's are, but according to Arthur Jensen in The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability, the distribution of g (general intelligence underlying tests and only imperfectly measured by them) is the same in both sexes. So the differences in IQ scores are an artifact of testing. (For example, people with low IQs typically have tests administered verbally, and girls/women typically have stronger verbal abilities, so at the low end of the distribution they will tend to score higher. I don't know why women don't score as high as men at the high end on regular tests. The Mega Society type tests include verbal items to make them fairer to women, but they rely on the kinds of verbal items that men typically score higher on, rather than the kinds of verbal items that women typically score higher on, so those tests are ridiculously biased. Boys, do your homework!)
See Diane Halpern's book Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities for a lengthier explanation. |
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MotherKnowsBest
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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| In the UK we used to have a grammar school system. Children went to the same primary school and then sat an exam when they were 11. If you were smart and passed this exam you went to a grammar school and if you failed you went with the rest of the rabble. In order to maintain a fairly even split between the sexes at the grammar schools, the mark needed to pass was higher for girls than boys. |
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edgewaters
hibernating
Joined: Aug 17, 2006
Age: 40
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Location: Ontario
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 3:45 pm Post subject: Re: Are women REALLY not as smart as men? |
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| lostonearth35 wrote: | | So anyway, one YouTuber asked why the people on the show were mostly female and some incredible genius, a male obviously, replied, "Because women are not as smart as men". |
Well, half the population is below average intelligence and it's hardly as if they all like the same thing. Demographics are still in play, and whatever is being marketed to dumb people still has to find a target audience, it can't just be marketed to all the people who are stupid. So you will find dumb things attracting dumb audiences from pretty much any section of the public. No gender or ethnic group is immune, and there will always be examples of dumb things that appeal mainly to the dumb members of a particular group. But, only dumb people think this is reflective of the broader group. |
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auntblabby
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
Joined: Feb 13, 2010
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Location: the island of loveable toy humans
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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| shrox wrote: | | auntblabby wrote: | | the highest scorer on a written IQ test, was marilyn jarvik [married to the inventor of the jarvik 7 artificial heart] who scored 228. she has a smartiepants newspaper column called "ask marilyn." |
Wait, some chick is smarter than me? |
if it makes you feel any better, she is WAY smarter than me  but she is a distantly cool creature, AFAIC, as most hyper intelligent people are. IOW, having some leavening kindness matters far more to me, than pure brute force mental horsepower. |
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Joker
Sinn Fein
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Age: 24
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Location: North Carolina The Tar Heel State :)
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| To have a topic about which gender is smarter is non sense in my opinon what does gender have to do with intelligence? |
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auntblabby
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
Joined: Feb 13, 2010
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Location: the island of loveable toy humans
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| Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Joker wrote: | | To have a topic about which gender is smarter is non sense in my opinon what does gender have to do with intelligence? |
just my jejune jotting, Joker, but maybe intelligence either 1]expresses itself differently in each gender, or 2]each gender has different strengths in cognition.  |
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