Who is smarter: Male or Female?

[-Demosthenes-]

Which do you think is the smarter sex? Everyone better vote, I went through 2 rough drafts to get to this one!

 

 

PS: YT, hope I didn't give you a migraine.

[-Demosthenes-]

Here's that article again. Who's Smarter--Men Or Women?(Brief Article)

[YT2095]

not at all, it`s my job

 

I vote, it all depends, on average they are both the same, but each has more specialised areas generaly speaking that the other, that`s not to say however that Men don`t have the edge

[-Demosthenes-]

I've read some stuff that says that men have more spatial skills, but poorer reasoning.

[YT2095]

the word "Reasoning" is a very general term, you`de need to specify more accurately.

[-Demosthenes-]

More like they understand abstact things better, things that we can't see, like ideas and stuff like that. I'm not sure!

[YT2095]

having taken an array of these "tests" myself, i actualy come out more or less 50/50, a reader of these wouldn`t know if I was male or female from my results, I seem to have a "perfect" ballance with all aspect of life )and beleive me they ask about all aspects!). there`s only one or 3 areas I fell down on as a Deffinate "don`t like" other than that, I was bang in the middle

and going on the idea that I`m quite ordinary, I have NO REASON to suspect that others would get the same results, be they male or female

 

ballanced is ballanced dude

[MishMish]

Think first you're going to have define some terms, and would think "smart" a good place to start.

[-Demosthenes-]

Who has more Intelligence, referring to a general mental capability to reason, solve problems, think abstractly, learn and understand new material, and profit from past experience. Intelligence can be measured by many different kinds of tasks. Likewise, this ability is expressed in many aspects of a person’s life. Intelligence draws on a variety of mental processes, including memory, learning, perception, decision-making, thinking, and reasoning.

 

You got it?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Depends on their education! (duh!)

[Neurocomp2003]

yeah i agree, it depends on their education...but in the past men...because of course on all the chauvanistic ideals of rthe past.

[iglak]

it does not depend on education.

intelligence is more the capacity to learn and make the "correct" choices, and should not depend on education.

 

i would say it depends on the culture. if women believe they are less intelligent than men, then that would be the case for that culture, simply because they don't have the motivation to be intelligent. possibly some brain developement horomones were not sent (that's sort of a theory of mine that i've posted a couple of times but no body responded to...).

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Well, women certainly have good memory

Other than that, there is nothing much different, I suppose.

[Skye]

Feminine men or masculine women

[MishMish]

Presumably men and women have different strengths, generally speaking, in different spheres.

 

One reason asked for a definition of "smart" however is because of the innate capacity question. Are abilities which remain largely non-conscious, for example, but which serve functioning in the world considered part of "intelligence" or not

 

Bar-on Cohen has devised his "brain type," based on what he calls the systemizing quotient and the empathising quotient. As I have seen it used this is a screen for finding those on the autistic spectrum. Men are reportedly the better systemizers, women the better empathizers, and he carries the analogy to refer to male, extreme male etc brain type, questionable but those are the terms he uses, while those on the autistic have the extreme male brain (good systemizing, poor empathisizing)

 

His not terribly good book elaborating the matter makes clear he thinks the terms indeed valid as generalizations, though obviously not when referring to a specific individual (I have the extreme male brain by his criteria but am female.)

 

But also seemed to me that those abilities he uses as female strengths refer essentially to non-conscious processes not only in ability but application, whereas the systemizing abilities he refers to as male seem to refer to innate predispositions but conscious application.

 

And will allow could have misunderstood some of what he said, I will blame the lack of cohesion in his book...

 

At any rate, when considering intelligence seems people are usually referring to innate abilities coupled with conscious application, hence my question

 

Iglak, have seen reference to a recent study that girls who were explicitly told before some math test (I think) that the test was not gender biased did better than girls who were simply given the test, giving support to your culture argument for the expression of intelligence

[YT2095]

in addition to the above post, it also has something to do with right or left brain dominace (the hemispheres), according to studies, one part deals with logic maths etc. the other with more artistic, lingual skils. the emotion base is the medula it`s seated underneath and in the middle of the 2 halves (the primitive brain).

so right/left dominant plays a part as well as the points mentioned in the post above this

[MishMish]

YT, short answer yes, was focussing on Ba-on Chohen's primarily because of the conscious/non-conscious question. Given the recognition of different types of "intelligences," made me question if intelligence has come to be applied to what would previously have been considered more instictual, esp when considering differences and caught up in the "esteem building" movement

 

Plus, of course, have yet to comprehend much less absorb much of what all have been reading to comment further...

[-Demosthenes-]

No one's voted male? How sad.

[ke86]

i agree with iglak. i also think it has to do with the subject.

[YT2095]

conditioning and mindset does play a major role also. there are a good many women out there that will simply state "I can`t do that" for instance, how many women out there would change a fuse in a plug? not many! and I`ve seen this 1`st hand many many times, my wife was somewhat similar at 1`st, but after a few "You can do it`s and here`s how" talks she`ll grab a screw driver or a power tool and get stuck in like she was born that way, she doesn`t have to think to twice now or even ask half the time , it`s a confidence thing with many women and that`s all.

she`s discovered that she can solder use a multimeter, identify the good bits and useless bits in broken stuff I strip down (I just leave her to it, I`ve got 100% faith in her). work out her own S/ware probs, fit a hard drive... the list is endless, all these things she`de have never dreamt about before, LOL, sometimes I even ask her for advice with some stuff! she`s got no college or even high school certificates (I don`t have that many!) but I`de have her on my team anyday!

it`s all about confidence and conditioning, very little to do with the Male /Female thing at all

[-Demosthenes-]

But women are treated different, so they would have diffferent mind sets, right?

[YT2095]

yup

[apollo2011]

In my opinion, I think that whoever votes is going to vote for their own sex. The people who vote Both the Same...

 

This theory isn't working...

[fafalone]

I voted for "depends" because it largely depends on the task. Generally speaking, men are better at things like math, while women are better at things that involve intensive multitasking and creativity. On the multitasking part, there is a clearly established biologocial component; in women, the corpus callosum is much larger than in men... this is the part of the brain that transfers signals from one side of the brain to the other, and subsequently women are generally better at multitasking.

[Glider]

Yep. There is also known to less functional lateralisation in the brains of females to begin with.