FEMALE INTELLIGENCE

Mon, 9 Apr 2012 12:16:22 -0500

"Female Intelligence: Undermined in an ever-Sexist America"

Though it’s become the misfortunate typical belief depraving our society, the assumption America's overall progressed and succeeded past sexism is dangerously inaccurate. Women still suffer disadvantages of sexism underneath patriarchal order, the face withdrawing them from enabling social equality next to men. As starting proof, is it not commonly conceived that laws eradicated widespread recurrences of career discrimination long ago? It sure is, but truthfully that notion precisely is the quintessential sexism America is misconceiving. Barring women today are the same degrading, sexist paradigms that society's proliferated for millennia, amazingly. Such anti-woman lies explain why most people are SO shocked upon finding out that female workers earn on a national average, seventy-seven cents to every dollar earned by male workers (Alexander, 2010)!

Importantly, a common trend of rampant misunderstanding about today’s women doctors, lawyers, police officers and the like exemplifies nowadays: these women who have risen to eminence are quite often considered proof that females have equal opportunities in the workforce, and that it’s just a matter of women choosing continuous integration or not. In reality, such careers are parts to the constricted bubble of socially acceptable careers for America’s modern women. Urgently, however, the big picture of gender inequality is perpetuated by a widespread, sexist pretext that restricts women as a collective (sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously): the false societal belief that women are inferiorly intelligent, or if softer said, just "less inclined" to certain intellectual areas (i.e. just 'less so' in math and science - a more popular of lies), and thus are unmeant for a vast spread of male-dominated careers. From a modern superficial lens, it's quite easy to be misguided into believing that boys and girls are offered all the same opportunities, and that by girls' choice alone many eminent fields severely lack women’s input. What's so inaccurate about that preclusion is it fails to consider how boys in our patriarchal society grow up with more favor and encouragement overall by far, which bo0sts their self-confidence and broadens their potentials early on. Consistently, for matter of sheer fact, illuminating studies decade-after-decade prove parents think their sons are automatically more intelligent than their daughters (Blakemore, Berenbaum, & Liben, 2009).

Society instills into boys from an early age, if you will, the "freedom-to-be", a limitless slate of potential, but oppositely stigmatizes a limited scope of self-confidence for girls. To specify, young males are blessed with mostly high approval in pursuing any prestigious work, whereas young females often suffer societal disbelief in their competency. How can equality be named when our boys are not nearly as misled to self-doubt? How when, in stark contrast, girls suffer a stigma that, so ravishingly perpetuated in society, condescendingly questions female intelligence?! Therefore, although women might in (approximately) a decade outnumber or at the very least long have equaled men in a field like law (which has become very much appropriated to women in recent times), men - across every eminent field, from math to language, science, business and so on pretty unanimously - remain if not predominant, a still substantial number of the overall makeup. And what's so abominable about this sexism is that disbelief in women's intellectual potential is inaccurate, unfounded, and irrelevant according to all credible institutions of science. In fact, many modern-day researchers are now oppositely concerned with the findings of up-to-date, empirical data regarding boys' and girls' academic performances: transparently, recent years reveal that girls outperformed boys throughout school, were likelier to attend and finish college, and were far less likely to drop out of high school than boys (Sommers, 2010).

Another prevailing sexist paradigm that society still purports is one which has never been nearly as likely to riot controversy as it should: the claim that a biological wire predetermines males to just 'be' better in Math than females is a widely accepted, absolute fallacy!!! Contrary to popular belief, this is still not proved by any brain scientist, and has even been proven insignificant by several credible studies recently conducted across schools nationwide! The largest of such recent studies empirically analyzed tests scores of over 7 million students and concluded boys are NOT outperforming girls in Math class nationwide (Hansen, 2008). Surprisingly, even in 1988 psychologists concluded there was only a trivial gap between boys’ and girls’ math abilities, but they admittedly also found that high school boys were more adept to tackling complex math problems. In contrast, however, elite psychologists in recent years have reconsolidated their conclusions based on updated educational data: it all safely proves that these exacerbated, so-called “superiorities” are losing their already feeble trend according to current generational analysis of females' math performances (Malakoff, 2008). So sad to consider that this myth has been a rampantly damaging prejudice against women despite twenty-two years of opposite findings (at least, anyway)!

How then, I MUST demand to know, can society claim equality when men are left to pursue their all-choosing potentials while women are socially deemed acceptable for certain prestigious careers at a SLOW pace?! The contrast should make obvious that until the slow-to-expand belief in women’s competency is acknowledged and promoted everywhere, the status of American men and women will remain unequal. For example, in spite of boys’ and girls' equal performance in science classes and the increasingly evident uprising of eminent females in various science fields, it was found that parents were three times more likely to engage their sons in intellectual conversation about each exhibit at a large-scale science center than their girls (King, 2007)! Parents substantially placing less importance and esteem on their girls has shown its greatest fracture on young gifted girls – a composition equaling that of gifted males by elementary school - whom originally score higher on IQ tests than boys, even. Somehow, these remarkable talents are inconceivably likelier to be downed by society’s too familiar disapproval, each girl a grandiose illustration of society’s great intimidation and uneasiness for females who outwardly demonstrate their grander intelligence without timidity toward their male counterparts (Gurian, Ph.D., 1998).

Ultimately, one ironic, baffling question shiningly illuminates the senior principle of America's sexism: WHY hasn't society unlearned its sexist pretexts, unlearned its perpetualized myth that women are 'intellectually inferior'!? This abusive degradation of women has been damagingly pronounced upon society for millenia, and deserves nothing but immediate abolishment. If each American just dared to embrace an ACCURATE perspective on our sexist America, the moral ultimatum to restructure ourselves would undoubtedly arise. We as Americans must evolve into a nuclear unit of demanding crusaders for COMPLETE gender equality! Sheer proof of every parent’s performance would then easily be shown in whether there is adequate concern that both their boys and girls grow into men and women who had all the same chances. Indeed, this is the picture we must speedily make a reality now: thus, every boy and girl should turn into men and women whose independent pursuits – life goals based on their freely chosen interests and exploration – were sought without the taint of sexist, unfair societal inclinations.

References

Alexander, Susan. (2010, April 23). Unequal pay harms women. Retrieved from
http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-04-23/opinion/20861671_1_paycheck-fairness-actequal-work-wage

Blakemore, J, Berenbaum, S, & Liben, L. (2009). Gender development. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Gurian, Ph.D., Anita. (1998). Gifted girls - many gifted girls, few eminent women: why? Retrieved from
http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/gifted_girls_many_gifted_girls_few_eminent_women_why

Hansen, W. (2008, July 25). No gender difference found in math scores. Los Angeles Times, Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/25/science/sci-math25

Malakoff, David. (2008, July 24). Girls = boys at math. Retrieved from
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2008/07/24-01.html

King, Laura. (2007). The Science of psychology: an appreciative view. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.

Sommers, Christina. (2010, July 1). Are there more girl geniuses?. Retrieved from
http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/are-there-more-girl-geniuses/article_print

Girl Intelligence

FEMALE INTELLIGENCE