Although it's still believed by many people, there's no real evidence indicating that women are less intelligent than men. This was commonly believed until women in Western societies were given the opportunity to prove themselves. Since the 80's women in the Western world make up a sizeable majority of college graduates.
Is this because our parents give us a preferential treatment? Available scientific evidence indicates the opposite. Parents save more for their sons' college education than they do for their daughters.1 We are also proving our abilities in math. For SAT scores in math above 750, the male to female ratio between 1996 and 2008 has dropped from 2.7 to 1.9. For a twelve year period, that is an incredible accomplishment and thus if given the right conditions we will likely prove ourselves as good at math as men.
Finally, we are not just succeeding at math and college, but outside of education as well. Although we make up a small minority of hedge fund managers, female hedge fund managers are more successful than male hedge fund managers.3 Thus, in the coming years, we will increasingly take our rightful place among top business managers and CEO's.
The idea that men are smarter than women didn't go away after we were given the opportunity to prove ourselves, it merely took a new shape. Instead of being less smart than men, we must be more average! It can be rationalized through biology, by pointing out that women have two X chromosomes, while men have one. Thus, whatever unique trait is found on a woman's X chromosome is balanced by her other X chromosome.
However, theories are not useful until they manage to stand up to scrutiny. People who think boys are more likely to be extremely intelligent point at IQ studies, where boys were overrepresented among the highly intelligent. However, what these people forgot is that parents have to sign their children up to take the IQ test in the first place.
Parents are more interested in their son's intelligence than their daughter's, thus we find that sixty percent of children tested for giftedness are boys. When we actually look at the children whose intelligence is tested however, we find that girls don't perform any worse than boys! In fact, of those with a very high IQ, we find as many girls as we find boys, indicating that we produce just as many geniuses as boys.4
Girls who are intelligent are unfortunately overlooked and feel afraid of coming out and revealing their talents to the world, because they do not receive enough encouragement. Instead we are taught when young that our value is derived from our beauty.
If we are just as intelligent as men, the question becomes why history ever turned into his-story in the first place. Surely if we are just as intelligent as men we should have seen more successful female rulers and inventors? There are a few explanations for this. One thing to keep in mind is that we underestimate the power of women throughout history for various reasons. Women as regents often had more power behind the scenes than they did in public.
Many women in power were forced to take on the role of a man. This is a tradition that still exists in Yugoslavia, in the form of "sworn virgins", women who can take a position of power if they choose never to have sex and dress like men.
When women did rule a country, they were often forced to remain chaste, as sex was seen as an act of a man overpowering a woman. Hatshepsut is an example of a female Pharaoh of Egypt who had to take on a male role. Later rulers tried to eliminate her from history, but unsuccessfully. We don't know how many female rulers were successfully eliminated from history or recast as men.
This same phenomenon sometimes occurred with inventors. Women were banned from most scientific organizations and often published using male pseudonyms. The success of women in science is only now become more broadly known as history is reexamined.5 We have a bright future ahead of us in science, as the scientific community is discovering that scientific fraud is very common. A single fraudulent study that goes undiscovered is very damaging to the scientific process and studies show that men are overrepresented among those who commit scientific fraud.
However, there is one aspect where we will always lag behind men and which led to history turning into his-story. That aspect is physical strength. A woman's body grows in a manner that allows her to carry a child for nine months. Thus we are genetically predisposed to storing more fat than men. We are also less tall than men. Throughout history, men could thus rule by physically intimidating us and overpowering us. Sadly, men even had the ability to force us to carry a child against our will for nine months. Eventually men can cease physically overpowering us by turning their rule over us into tradition and patriarchy is the result.
Patriarchy takes different forms in different societies and thus patriarchy in Western society was historically less oppressive than in Islamic society. Men were officially(!) not allowed to have sex slaves in Christian Europe and expected to remain monogamous, whereas in Saudi Arabia slaves were legally sold until the 1960's. Still in every patriarchal society the fact remains that women have been exploited and oppressed, it is merely a difference of degree.
As I believe I have shown in this essay, when given the freedom to develop our intellectual skills we will take our rightful place in society on equal footing with men. The only factor that can still prove a significant barrier to our emancipation are the societal structures and mentalities that perpetuate patriarchy.
One of these factors is the patriarchal glorification of male physical strength. When we look at the sixty-four highest paying sports contracts in history, we find that all of them have gone to men!6 In many countries, most millionaires under forty are professional sports players and of course all of them are men.
Women in sports are not given the attention that men are given. How many people choose to watch women's soccer, compared to men's soccer? Entire industries are built on male interest in watching other men play with balls. We could attempt to force people to pay more attention to women in sports, but I do not believe this to be realistic or desirable.
As a woman I refuse to perpetuate patriarchy by spending any of my money on professional sports. The same physical strength that is glorified in boxing, football, soccer and baseball is the physical strength that has allowed men to rule over women through intimidation and violence since time immemorial.
When 1.1 billion dollar in subsidies are given to the Minnesota Vikings to build a giant stadium, you are watching men perpetuate patriarchy.7 It may not happen with the conscious desire to reinforce the rule of men over women, but for us the outcome is the same. Without such subsidies, could sports teams hand over millions of dollars to male athletes?
When we look further, we find that the entire culture surrounding sports is toxic. Women stand at the sidelines as cheerleaders, using their sex appeal in an effort to drive the crowd wild for a group of men who are the center of attention. In race events, women serve as "pit babes". I have no desire to serve as a marketing tool for men, valued only for physical beauty and youth.
To reward men with sport contracts worth millions of dollars because they are stronger than women makes as much sense as it does to reward women for the fact that our eyes can perceive more colors than men's. Instead, let our financial rewards go to those who have done the most to help other people. I expect my government to end the subsidies that go to professional sports. In addition, I wish to see legislation put in place that puts a cap on the exorbitant contracts given to sports players.
References
1 - http://majorsmatter.net/gender/Readings/Gendered%20Kids.pdf
2 - http://i.imgur.com/sspag2C.png
3 - http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/15/us-hedgefunds-women-idUSBREA0E07K20140115
4 - https://www.giftedchildren.dk/attachment.php?attachmentid=1854&d=1366750364.
5 - http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/nov/21/royal-society-lost-women-scientists
6 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_sports_contracts
7 - http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2012/05/4957_vikings_stadium_31.html
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