julietsierra
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Joined: 9/26/2004
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Well, notwithstanding the direction dilemma, emotionality and all that, I find it kind of ironic that someone is reducing the functioning of the brain to a rationale that is so darn simplistic as to be amazing to me.
When looking at gender differences in IQ, you can't just presume something biologically lacking in one or the other of the genders. There is much more to it than that. You also can't reduce life success to the number represented by these tests.
1. Gender differences in play: When girls are steered toward dolls, tea sets and the like, while boys are steered toward cars, trucks, balls and those kinds of things, we are setting the stage for their learning. Girls develop imagination (not a bad thing). Boys play with physics. One is eventually measurable on an IQ test, the other is not.
2. Gender differences in education: Study after study have shown that on average, education, while taking part in whole class environments, is typically directed to the boys in the room - especially in the area of the sciences. This is why teachers are pulling popsicle sticks to call on individual students in the classroom rather than just looking for the raised hand all the time.
3. Gender differences in being given opportunities to take risks and be challenged. Girls are kept safe. Boys are encouraged to take risks. When someone takes risks, they develop the capacity to think quickly, and in an analytical manner. All things that ultimately, contribute to IQ measurements.
For more information on gender differences and their effects on girls, I'd suggest the book "Raising Ophelia." It's interesting and quite frankly, a bit dismaying.
In addition to this, there are obvious gender biases in psychological research, despite the move toward eliminating this. More often than not, females are measured against a male norm rather than on their own, and while on this test, it might appear that measuring one against the other was the intent, the problem is that we don't know how it was set up.
If females were the norm, an entirely different set of criteria may or may not have been used. When people cite that this gender is better than that gender, there should be some acknowledgment and proof that there was a concerted effort to eliminate gender bias. Without that, the conclusions of the study are suspect.
Additionally, conclusions from any body of research should be able to be replicated, and the findings that males and females score significantly differently on IQ tests is in the minority, with most psychological reserch supporting the idea that there are no significant statistical differences between male and female scores. So, again, the conclusions of this study are suspect.
For just one article on this subject, may I suggest http://psychcentral.com/news/2006/12/29/male-gender-bias-in-psychology-research-continues/
It is peer-reviewed and if you're going to make assertions as to the societal implications of the information you read about, you need to, at the very least, be informed of more than just the idea that females are 4 IQ points behind males.
In addition to gender differences in both education and research, there are also environmental considerations that play into the scores derived from IQ. This can include everything from socioeconomic background to nutrition to the early introduction of games and activities that develop logic, such as chess and musical training to even personality differences and child ranking within families.
While It is important to have enough intelligence to make decisions and be independently functional, there is negligible proof that bigger IQ numbers translates to greater success in the market place. In fact, about the best thing you can say about an IQ test and it's findings with regard to future market success is that while you have to have enough, having more doesn't buy a whole lot.
Interestingly, one scientist, Stephen Jay Gould, in his book "The Mismeasure of Man," holds that rather than be an indicator of success, IQ tests have historically been used as a rationale for scientific racism. He says,
"…the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups—races, classes, or sexes—are innately inferior and deserve their status. (pp. 24–25)"
This isn't to say there is no use for these tests or that they are somehow lacking in statistical stability. However, Gould and others do point out that while these tests are indeed stable, intelligence can't be based on IQ scores alone but must also take into account many other aspects of mental ability.
So, equating success differences between women and men to merely an IQ score is simplistic at best and doesn't address the wide range of abilities not measured by an IQ test.
And I haven't even begun to talk about anatomical differences in brain studies between males and females, the effects of video games on the development of the brain, multiple intelligences and the effects of real life experiences on IQ
In short, there is a LOT that goes into the determination of an IQ score and even more that goes into determing the relationship between intelligence and success. And while an IQ score is an interesting piece of the statistical puzzle, it does not measure such things as perseverence, willingness to work, memory and many other things that are considered indicators of success.
So, getting back to the original post, I think society is safe for now from the statistical implications of the differences between men and women's IQ scores and what it means with regard to their economic success. And to the OP specifically, since, as you state, you are average in the IQ department, with the willingness to work, the ability to persevere and memory enough to remember that just because you're male doesn't make you better, you'll be safe from all those females of the 4 point lesser IQs.
juliet
< Message edited by julietsierra -- 7/14/2007 3:42:20 AM >
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RE: Women are...stupid and bossy and men listen? - 
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