Why
Isn't Female Intelligence Discussed Enough?
Aristotle
may have avoided the error of believing that women have fewer teeth than men,
according to a phrase that is quoted in one of Bertrand Russell's chapters
titled "Keeping errors at bay." He may have intended to say that men
perform better in cognitive tests than women because they have more wisdom
teeth.
Even
though Aristotle was twice married, it appears that he was unaware of both the
wisdom that women could possibly hinder and the opinions of his wives. Women
are limited to domestic duties and held back by the ingrained cultural idea
that they were created only for reproduction.
Even
during a time when women lagged significantly behind males in terms of
intelligence due to their limited access to education, the measure of such
gendered intelligence has been around for aeons. James Flynn's latest study,
however, claims that "those women in the west have scored higher in IQ
tests than those men." The main justification he gives is either those women
struggle to balance a profession with raising a family, or that they have
always had potential that was suppressed for years.
Both
men and women tend to have strong convictions about the intellect of their own
sex at times. However, one's enthusiasm for studying shouldn't be determined by
their gender. Women do pursue science degrees, for instance, but very few of
them are allowed to continue their studies in the field. The social
conceptions' default system limits women's perceptions that "they could also
be there or become scientists." For non-binary people and trans women, the
situation is even more dire. Their brilliance is not only contested and
rejected, but it is also frequently obscured and never taken into
consideration.
Not
only that but in her book "A room of one's own," Virginia Woolf, a
famous author, created an imagined Shakespearean sister named
"Judith." Woolf approached literature in a very unique way,
highlighting the strength of the woman in a new way. Similar to this, Mary
Wollstonecraft argues that women have been denied and still are denied equal
policies and opportunities in her 1792 article "A defence of rights for
women." The realisation that affirmative action programmes for women must
be expanded is even more crucial.
We
need to stop thinking about how intellect has historically been assessed and
tested via IQ tests and other such exams. This is so that the instrumental part
of comprehending human intellect can be generalised. In other words, there is
no need to take the tests to find out how extraordinary one gender is if women
performed better on IQ tests than males and vice versa. Additionally, it's
necessary to go beyond the gender binary.
History
shows that women have historically enjoyed less privileges than men. Results
are obvious because so few women have been able to advance into positions of
leadership or decision-making in modern society. This is the outcome of
centuries of oppression, which stunted the advancement of women and consigned
them to unpaid household work.
The
gender intelligence movement, according to the Gender Intelligence Group,
"does not emphasise gender." It claims that once we understand the
reasons behind why men and women act and think the way they do, we will be better
able to understand human inclinations and form strong bonds with one another.
Of
course, it is important to not only promote the inclusion of historically
oppressed women but also to foster an environment in which they may thrive.
Opportunities must be created, and the best infrastructure must be constructed.
After all, the purpose of this study is not to emphasise how clever people are
classified according to their gender, but rather to demonstrate that everyone
is brilliant in some way, regardless of their gender.
In
conclusion, although men have historically been arrogant and have believed that
they are at the pinnacle of intelligence, this cannot genuinely be at the
expense of women and other marginalised genders. That will never be the case.
As defined by Russell, "a man is merely a fleeting episode in the life of
a small planet in a little corner of the cosmos," and since intelligence
is one of our strongest traits overall, this can only be understood by
remembering the human hubris about intellect. that neither as men nor women are
we intelligent. But being human is intellect.