Are men more intelligent than women?

Question

I'm asking this question, because I notice men on average score significantly higher than women on SAT exams.

This is both on Math as well as Verbal. I find that especially surprising since people claim that women are supposed to have better verbal skills than men. Yet, men outshine women in the verbal department as well.

View this graph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SAT_by_sex.png

This is all despite the fact that society focuses on girls furthering their education, and tends to ignore boys in comparison. This is all despite the fact that boys on average study less hours and attend classes less frequently than girls. This is all despite the fact that more boys drop out of high school than girls. So why do men score higher when intelligence is measured?

The same for men doing better than women on SAT exams is true for IQ tests -- men on average score higher than women on IQ exams. More men score in the "genius" category than women.

Why is this?

Also, why do men excel over women physically (athletics), but men also excel over women intellectually according to tests that measure intelligence, math skills, and verbal skills?

You'd think there'd be a balance -- women should be smarter than men if men are physically superior to women. Why does empirical evidence show that men excel in both the physical and intellectual realms over women?

Object of Its Ire: You lose. You not only couldn't refute what was said (wiki or not, it's well known that males score higher on SAT and IQ exams than girls), but you posted some irrelevancy about a couple men being "morons". And there are acts of women anyone can scrounge up of them behaving like morons. But if you actually stick to answering the question, you may have gotten somewhere. Didn't you block me from your questions, claiming it's because I don't answer the questions? Hypocrite.

Object of Its Ire: It's pretty pathetic that you have no response other than to use men that receive "Darwin Awards" -- which are nothing more than fake awards that are tongue-in-cheek, unofficial, on a private website, which is highly subjective and meant purely for comedic value. In the meantime, I'm providing evidence from IQ statistics, aptitutde tests, placement exams, and SAT's -- and you're responding with laughable quotes from fake comedy websites designed for entertainment. When you're able to actually refute anything I've said, let me know.

Wendy:

Perhaps that chart on Wikipedia was inaccarute -- I wouldn't know; I'm not going to check. However, those two links you provided do not contradict what I've said, and still show that men still consistently score higher than women in Math and Verbal skills -- despite the fact that women take school more seriously, attend class more, and study longer hours.

floozy_niki: Men only get their intelligence from their mothers? And women get it from both mother and father? That is by far the biggest piece of inaccurate garbage that I've ever read. Intelligence traits are derived from both parents regardless of the child's gender.

WendyG: Do girl who take the SAT study harder than boys who take the SAT? I wouldn't know, I don't have that info. I would think that the fact that girls study harder in school wouldn't change for girls who study for the SAT. It would make no sense why the stats for studying differences between the genders would shift just for SAT exams.
More girls taking the SAT could mean "lower quality" girls bringing down the average, but it can just as equally mean that more "higher quality" girls are taking the SAT as well. So who's to say?

As far as my WikiChart -- you know, I initially just took your word for it and said that perhaps my chart was inaccurate... giving you the benefit of the doubt. Even though I took your word for it, you couldn't leave it at that. You had to unnecessarily make snide remarks ("unlike yours... surprise surprise", "you lost the minute you posted [the wiki link]"). I was thinking we could have a constructive debate, but I must've forgot who I was speaking to.

(cont'd)

So, I decided to actually compare the charts to see what this "difference" is between my reference and yours. Both of your links were the same as each other. So, I just made the comparison with one of your links and my link. Decided to pick a few years. Your link says in 1972, males averaged 531 on verbal and females 529. I compared my chart -- exactly the same. Pick another year -- 1998 -- Math; males 531, females 496. Check my graph -- exactly the same. Another year? 1984. Your graph? Verbal - Males, 511; Females, 499. Math - Males, 518; Females, 478. When comparing my graph of that same year -- IT MATCHED EXACTLY THE SAME ON ALL FOUR. So again, where are you getting the idea that the charts you found were any different than mine, talking about "huge difference"? I think you were comparing the wrong chart lines. There's a color-coded legend on the righthand side of my chart. Perhaps you need to go back to the 3rd grade and learn how to read a graph. LOL.

Wendy: What specific "years" are we talking about? So we can check. LOL.

WendyG: Hey Wendy, I asked you to name the specific years from your chart that didn't match up with the same years from mine? Because as far as I can tell, the my chart was accurate and matched with yours.

LOL! Looks like WendyG went silent on us! Which is strange, since she's usually so hawkish and adamant about responding and arguing. I proved that my chart matched with hers (she claimed mine was inaccurate), and then she made the claim that the years she checked were "way off". Funny that she didn't tell anyone what years they were so we could check and verify. All of the years I've checked matched perfectly. Since she couldn't back up her claims, instead of admitting she was wrong, she just runs and hides. Should I just go ahead and claim Victory #3 over Wendy "The Arguer" G, or will she back up her claim and prove me wrong?

Deirdre: I can't say women scoring lower can be compared to certain races scoring lower than others. I think certain race groups score lower as a result of socio-economic status, less opportunity, aftereffects from oppression, poorly-funded programs/facilities for education, poverty, crime, etc.

But the same can't be applied to gender, because a wealthy white community will contain both men and women. Both genders in that community will have access to the same educational facilities. Still, more focus for education is centered around girls moreso than boys -- so unlike certain races scoring lower; with gender, education is actually in women's favor.

Liz O -- actually, Chyna was defeated by a Joey Buttafuoco in a celebrity boxing match. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLWWDoN85E

There are plenty of male wrestlers and fighters than can easily defeat Chyna. Buttafuoco isn't even a trained fighter.

Answer 1

LycraSpandex, yes, men are more intelligent than women. Fact.

the bear,

Woman or man, anyone who chooses to argue with the mentality and ignorance of a child, I shall treat them as such.

"Boys are not more intelligent that girls"

Either you don't understand what he said at all, OR you were so emotional that it blinded you to logic and you simply haphazardly lashed out. Because if you actually read carefully, you will notice that his argument is logical, as it is supported by facts/statistics, something which your argument is devoid of (prove me wrong). Therefore, by attempting to refute the facts by counterarguing is a logical fallacy and thus amounts to nothing. Nice try though.

"you are an idiot if you believe that."

You're calling anyone an idiot who believes men are more intelligent than women. Its a fact that men are, indeed, more intelligent than women - this has been supported by trends in IQs tests, SAT scores etc (take a look at any of those links I provided). Under your logic, any person who believes men are, on average, physically stronger is idiotic. Now do I have to tell you how utterly ridiculous and idiotic YOU sound when you argue against the facts, in a position that's not even supported by ANY evidence? Here's a tip, next time you might want to establish causation between your assertions and your conclusions. Your argument had a complete lack of deductive reasoning. Get it now? Idiot.

Moving on, I know in today's politically correct climate, it's acceptable to say that women are more intelligent than men and that men are 'dumb buffoons', but the facts say otherwise:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=405056&in_page_id=1770

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4183166.stm

http://www.livescience.com/health/060908_brainy_men.html

http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=49849

You get the picture.

EDIT:

Notice the 'thumbs down'. Interesting. But I thank you for reinforcing how politically incorrect it is to speak the truth.

EDIT:

Liz O,

"As far as men being physically stronger than women....I'd love to see any man take on "Chyna" from the WWF, Joanie Laurer is her real name. "

Already been done. She lost to a 46-year-old Joey Buttafuoco in a celebrity boxing match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuLWWDoN85E

Answer 2

Wow what a firecracker you set off. I see a lot of Argumentum ad Hominems against the questioner but not a lot of evidence. Also pointing out the Darwin awards as proof of male idiocy is a hasty generalization. How many men didn't commit those types of acts? One would have to compare the men who did those acts to the ones who didn't. Also arguing against wikipedia is no good unless there is a specific reason for arguing against it. Otherwise it sounds like more ad hominem attacks.

Onto the question. It is my understanding that the latest studies show men ahead of women by 5 I.Q. points when they are older than the age of 14. The study done in England was done on "80,000 people and a further study of 20,000 students". This is just one study and needs to be replicated several times before it becomse psychological canon. There are also other studies that show that men and women have equivalent scores on I.Q. tests.

Men and women do seem to become intelligent in different ways. Men seem to use more gray matter in their brains. The function of gray matter is "to route sensory or motor stimulus to interneurons of the CNS in order to create a response to the stimulus through chemical synapse activity". Women seem to use more white matter in their brains. White matter is "the tissue through which messages pass between different area of gray matter within the nervous system". Quoting from wikipedia: "Using a computer network as an analogy, the gray matter can be thought of as the actual computers themselves whilst the white matter represents the network cables connecting the computers together". So men and women just use different parts of their brain to achieve the same result: intelligence. Men use the 'computers' more and women the 'cables' more.

As for why there are more male geniuses, that answer is unknown. More research will have to be done in that area. By the way you forgot to mention that men are more affected by mental retardation than women are. I mentioned that because of your comment "the fact that society focuses on girls furthering their education, and tends to ignore boys in comparison". Perhaps men should be recieving more aid to fight against this. Just a little food for thought.

Studying psychology myself I know that there is a debate right now raging over this very topic. The fact of the matter is that people have their egos invested in the outcome (just look at all the posters you have here). I think in the end we'll find that we are more alike than different.

Edit:
Girls doing worse on the math section of the SAT might be due to something called stereotype threat. I don't have any alternative explanation for the results on the verbal part of the SAT as women are stereotyped to be great at that.

Answer 3

Well, we should examine other tests of intelligence other than SAT (and IQ exams) before we pass this judgement. There are so many other exams in which the scores of males and females are close to equal.

Men do not always score higher when intelligence is measured. Maybe men have better test-taking strategies or maybe they studied properly..there are so many factors. There is no evidence anywhere that proves one gender to be smarter than the other.

Granted, men are usually physically stronger than women.

I am not a feminist, but I believe men and women to be equal as intellectual beings.

Answer 4

It's an interesting question, and one of the reason studies were done on emotional intelligence (or EIQ, there are a bunch of names for it). IQ alone is not enough to be successful, there are all kinds of social skills that go into it as well. Body language counts, diplomacy skills, perseverence, etc.

This is one of the reasons why parents who have their children's IQ tested often don't share the results with them. If you believe you have less potential, you will achieve less, and there's a lot of pressure involved with being found extraordinary.

Any standardized testing is going to miss the mark somehow, the real measure of "intelligence" is whether or not someone knows how to function successfully in the world, which includes interacting with other people. You can lose an argument--even if you're right--if you can't present yourself well (on your feet), and I've yet to see a test which compares men and women in life this way.

Answer 5

They probably occurred together and at the same time in history. Unfortunately it is possible that men back then restricted women from things like learning and other things, kind of like how many men do this today. I have and read the book "Clan of the Cave Bear" and although it is a work of fiction, the main character who is a human woman living with her adopted Neanderthal family, she displays remarkable intelligence and strong will.

Answer 6

I found another chart that shows that yours is completely inaccurate. Wiki is good for definitions...that's about it.

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0883611.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883611.html

So, are men more intelligent (on average)? No. Are women more intelligent? No.

And why do more men score in the "genius" category than women? For the same reason that more men are below average intelligence than women. The X chromosome is believed to be the "experimental" chromosome of the species; it allows for more variation among intelligence and other factors than the X chromosome.

As for physical superiority, yes, men are stronger, but women are physically superior in other ways. Women are BIOLOGICALLY stronger...women fight diseases better, and live longer.

The bottom line is neither men nor women are "better" than the other, both have their strengths, and we could go round and round all day with "but men are this" and "well, women are this"....BOTH are human, and whatever differences there are are meant to COMPLEMENT one another, not separate.

EDIT--"Despite the fact that women take school more seriously and study harder" (paraphrasing). Perhaps. But the point is do the women who take the SAT study harder than the the men who take the SAT? THAT'S what we're comparing. MORE women on average take the SAT...as someone else said, this could mean that are more "lower quality" women taking the test than men, and skewing the results.
As for your wiki chart, it shows HUGE differences in the results between men and women. The charts I found (that are well referenced, unlike yours...surprise, surprise) show the differences to be just a few points, in most cases.
Most people seem to understand pretty well why wiki is useless for proving a point. That fact is that anyone at any time can go in and edit the content to change the very nature of what's "factual". In fact, I could go in right now and edit the page you've posted, to have it show whatever evidence I wanted to use against you. This page is also unreferenced...where did this chart COME from? Anyway, you lost the minute you posted a wiki link.

EDIT--Uh, ok. And the years I compared were WAY off.

Answer 7

Maybe we are losing our intelligence because men prefer other men over us....so we have lost our minds! LOL! Just kidding.
I don't agree with your statistics. Men are solvers of problems....that's why they are better at Math. Women are more emotional/verbal and caring....that's why we are better at English.
As far as men being physically stronger than women....I'd love to see any man take on "Chyna" from the WWF, Joanie Laurer is her real name.

Answer 8

Well first off I mean you show one study saying one thing and I will show you another saying just the opposite. I think part of the problem could be that people tend to focus more on a boy's education than a girls. We still have that idea that a man should be able to get a good job and support a wife and kids. So perhaps we focus more on boy's education for that reason. I as a rule find more women are better at grammar and spelling in the real world than men. I know about everyone is better at English than I am!! =) I do not think it is due to any mental difference than men. It could be in the way that the majority of educators teach may play to skills and so on that men are better at understanding. Women do tend to get a little more stressed out over tests I have noticed while I was in college. This could play a factor in it. I mean if you get very stressed out over a test then you are less likely to do well on it. That goes for both men and women, but perhaps girls as a rule get more stressed out than boys do. I have met some brilliant women in my time, some that could and do far outshine the men in their area of expertise. In short I would say to be careful about when you cite studies and so on. Like I said for every study out there, there is always one that says the opposite. You do know you are going to catch all kinds of heck for this question. I like the question and think it is a fine one to ask. I am just saying you know that you will get some mad answers to it.

Answer 9

Men never get sick of brain-weighing - if they are not brainier than the Irish in UK, they are brainier than the Malay in China, or the Finns in Sweden - but when they have an afternoon to spare, they try to find proof men are brainier than women, instead of getting an education.

What's with the boys who might have to stay an extra term in the first school? What about the boys looking for work they can't find because they can't read. What about these grammar-less, badly-spelled questions in GWS? Don't even know how to use the spell-check? All MALES using English as a first language too!

Answer 10

No, men aren't smarter than women.

Both have different smarts: men are smarter in linear thinking such as mathematics (and science since science involves a lot of math), and women are better at language.

But on average, men have an IQ of 5 points higher than women. Also, men tend to vary more: there are more men at the genius end of the scale, and the retarded end of the scale, than women.


EDIT: Wendy, they fight gender-neutral deceases better, but the reason they live longer are as follows:
- more money spent on women's health (8x more on breast cancer than prostate cancer)
- women are more targeted by ads promoting a healthy lifestyle, such as Curves, etc. In all the ''eat healthy'' commercials, it's always a woman, too.
- more men do stupid thing and die, screwing the results
- more men drink & smoke

In some countries, women & men live just as long.

Answer 11

- Yes -

and before jumping to a conclusion - ask yourself this:

do you believe in evolution?

If you do, it is only natural that men are smarter than women, aswell as stronger - a direct result of our evolution from hunter-gatherer, in which gender roles (whether it was right or not) gave men the more phsicaly and mentally stimulating. Making it necersary for them to adapt to cope with their conditions. So Darwinism affirms this, but in the end, does it matter? Who cares whose smarter? It's like saying - isn't it strange that Einstein was smarter than Mr.Average Joe?