4 ms·

Why is it so important that we close the gender gap? Why is it so important that we believe that there is no difference in intelligence between men and women?

• jvanenk 14y ago
  That's a pretty strong claim to make without citing sources.
• jmduke 14y ago
  Statistically, men have a wider variance in IQ score than women do. This means that there are likely to be more highly intelligent men than highly intelligent women in a room, and that the most intelligent man in the room is probably more intelligent than the most intelligent woman. No. This means that there are likely to be more men who scored highly on an IQ test than women who scored highly on an IQ test in a room.
  • pwny 14y ago
    "The only thing an IQ test is good at is measuring how close the test taker is to thinking the same way the test maker does."
  • debacle 14y ago
    I still would call that relevant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_performance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Job_perfo...
• space_unicorn 14y ago
  I think women are just as intelligent as men. I also think that men's and women's intelligence manifests itself in different ways. It is explicitly because of this difference, that I believe having more women in STEM fields can only be a good thing. Advances come when a problem is approached from many different angles, by many different bright minds. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotype. I feel sad for your daughter.
  • debacle 14y ago
    I never said having more women in STEM would be a bad thing - having more people in STEM will always be a good thing, all things considered. However your opinion that women are just as intelligent as men is not backed up by any statistics, and one of the best statistics we have for assessing intelligence, IQ, does not jive with your assertion.
    • pwny 14y ago
      Please do show us statistics though. I'm not saying you're wrong (I genuinely don't know) but you can't say other people don't have data to back their claims when you don't put any data forward yourself. Especially since you brought up the (controversial) argument, the burden of proof is on you.
      • debacle 14y ago
        Actually, since this is an Internet forum, the burden of proof is on neither of us and you may be taking things just a bit too seriously. But if you can't be arsed to Google it, here you are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_psychology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_psychology http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/SexDifferences.aspx http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/SexDifferences.aspx
        • pwny 14y ago
          That wasn't so hard to avoid the guaranteed s*storm that would obviously emerge from claiming one sex was smarter than the other. Also, taking discussions seriously is exactly the reason why I come to HN. I'm sure I'm not alone. That being said, those two links where interesting although they left me with even more questions than when I began. On one hand it's claimed that "The mean IQ scores between men and women vary little." then "gender differences tended to disappear on tests for which there was a male advantage and to magnify on tests for which there was a female advantage" then "These tests have been complied over the years so there is no sex difference." but then oops, "some researchers have concluded that men have slightly higher IQ scores than women" I'll blame that on Wikipedia I guess. To be fair, the research of the second link seemed a lot more serious. I'm no IQ scientist so I won't try to guess things I don't fully understand but it was a good read.
• powrtoch 14y ago
  The article doesn't mention intelligence, and I can't see how it's especially relevant. Yes, the best programmers are going to be very smart, but it seems to me that slightly above average intelligence is perfectly adequate for a successful career in software. Obviously that phrase will describe just under half the population of women. The article is mainly about why so few women become interested in software, pursue it, and stick with it as a career, and not about why they don't get the best jobs or make the same money. While it seems plausible that men and women are probabilistically hardwired to find certain fields more interesting than others, this isn't "intelligence". And of course, everyone thinks they're hiring the top 1%: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/01/27.html
• philwelch 14y ago
  It's not even a question of intelligence, but of interest. Software development is a low-status profession. Lately it has become more highly paid, largely due to a bubble, which raises the social status and gets feminists upset about the fact that there aren't enough women in the profession. If the bubble bursts and developer pay drops to saner levels, expect the controversy to suddenly go away. Feminists aren't nearly as upset that there aren't very many women in the garbage handling industry, after all.