Sharon: I was listening to the news a couple nights ago and a Professor got himself in trouble (Harvard was it?) -- a theory that women's brains are inferior to men in science and math. I thought long and hard about the controversy -- they featured a female scientist who said when she was young, she was told that she would never excel in that department, and she said "Today, I'm a successful scientist." Likewise, I can point my finger at a lot of men who have never made any good with their life and contributed absolutely nothing to science or math or society.
My Mother summed it up nicely when speaking to my Dad once about his accomplishments in Science (Advanced Ham Radio, electronics, et cetera -- stuff that takes that "spatial" coordination in the mind) She told him "the reason you were able to do all that you did, was because I spent all my time keeping the kids off you.
The Professor was repeating a theory which sure reminds me a lot of Alfred Rosenberg's assessment that women are born inherantly inferior to men, and men inherantly are born with the inborn power of conceptualization -- coming up with innovative and creative ideas. I got into a nasty argument with a sexist years ago, and I gave him plenty of examples where women had came up with "concepts" and ideas that were totally new and never done before -- however, when a society is telling women from youth onward, "Beauty is power and your lot in life is barefoot and pregnant and if you don't pursue success in that area of womanhood -- you are not a "real woman". Motherhood, and being a wife is VERY EXTREMELY important -- the pressure is on, and like Betty Broderick -- when it fell apart -- she could not deal with it. The fabric of her life began unravelling. This kind of pressure is not on men. For men, they are raised from youth -- programmed to excel in their academic studies, learning, education, career -- the domestic issue is just incidental.
It's not fair.
When most guys sit down to study their courses -- they have silence, they have all they need to focus and concentrate. Me? I have to deal with being disturbed every 5 minutes -- pulled away from what I may be studying -- and tend to a kid. You tell me that doesn't effect academic progress.
Another thing -- when a guy pursues an education and career, they all give Joe a big pat on the back -- he's done well! When Susie does her's it's often a thankless accomplishment -- it's not that important if a woman is a PhD or if she's on welfare and a single Mom -- a woman by any other name is still "just a woman". The ambition men feel, women lack. Like Gloria Steinem said about how men she knew from College, never had the problem women expressed "How will I juggle my career and family?"
We have very different places where we're *suppose* to be -- and if either gender strays from their god-given position in society -- it's lack of respect the rest of the way.
If I had felt at a young age, I would be respected and accepted and fitting in based on my intellectual and academic accomplishments (like men are) perhaps I would have applied myself more than I did. Perhaps I would have had a successful life. But women have their place -- and I already knew it when I was a young girl. (That's what the female Professor on the News said too -- people were telling her she couldn't do it.)
I've heard it said before if you tell people they can't succeed at something -- they won't. People become what they're told they are.
Ed: Time mag. cover story, "Women Einsteins"
Guiness Book of World Records lists: Marilyn vos Savant (a woman) as having the highest IQ on record
I agree with the Time magazine article, it depends on how people apply themselves, because more neurons form (and more connections between them form) based on increased brain use. So one's social environmental is key.
Polgar raised his two daughters to be chess grandmasters and believed they could become chess grandmasters, and they did. One of his daughters is in the top ten among the world's greatest players, and has beaten world champions in individual tournament games.Also, for centuries men prided themselves on having generally larger craniums and larger brains:
"In overall size, men's brains average 15 percent larger than women's - about two times the average difference in body size. Male supremacists, check your smugness. 'Size in and of itself is not intelligence,' says Lucia Jacobs, Ph.D., a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of California at Berkeley. 'You can't say a cow is smarter than a mouse. It doesn't scale like that.' Much more important is the number of neurons and their structural organization. 'If I had to pick a brain, I think I'd take a female brain,' says Jacobs. 'It's symmetrical, multitasking and more resistant to stroke because language ability is stored in both hemispheres. The female brain is like a Swiss army knife - whereas males get stuck with one big blade.'"Even if there is a genetic component to some people being born with the propensity for growing up a little more intelligent than others (I am speaking of both males and females carrying such genes), it doesn't seem that such people are very lucky at begetting children. As if God had taken care so as not to allow wisdom to spread too much among human beings.
(Based on something Erasmus once pointed out in his book, In Praise of Folly)
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Article last updated October 22, 2005
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