

Are There More Girl Geniuses? - tokenadult
http://www.american.com/archive/2010/june-2010/are-there-more-girl-geniuses

======
frossie
I hate the title because it is linkbait for the obvious conclusion, which it
does reach: Pre-school and school performance is so dominated by non-sheer-
smarts characteristics (such as the ability to concentrate on a long test at
an early age) that trying to derive any meaningful conclusion about
gender/race/size-of-your-nose outlier intelligence patterns is almost moot.

Not only are most people not geniuses, but most successful people are not
geniuses either. What's with the obsession already?

~~~
angstrom
The obsession people have with 'genius' is due to a misguided understanding of
what genius is and an assumption that it somehow makes life significantly
easier. It's the same obsession people have with the lottery and believing it
will solve all their ills. Smarts and money are both capital; through hard
work you can get more.

------
rada
I hate ad hominem arguments but in this case I feel I must. The author,
although a woman herself, has a clearly defined agenda that smacks of
misogynism. Here is a telling quote from her interview with the Esquire
Magazine:

 _There are a lot of homely women in women's studies. Preaching these anti-
male, anti-sex sermons is a way for them to compensate for various heartaches
- they're just mad at the beautiful girls._

Every one of her articles is based on exact same formula: women _claim_ they
are disadvantaged, men _are_ disadvantaged.

    
    
        ARE THERE MORE GIRL GENIUSES?
        American boys have become second-class 
        citizens in the nation's schools.
    
        THE EQUAL PAY DAY REALITY CHECK
        The claim that American women face wage 
        discrimination is groundless.
    
        BASELESS BIAS AND THE NEW SECOND SEX
        Claims of bias against women in academic 
        science are exaggerated; meanwhile men are 
        becoming the second sex in American higher 
        education.
    
        WHY CAN'T A WOMAN BE MORE LIKE A MAN?
        Evidence of gender bias in math and science 
        is flimsy at best.
    

I wouldn't rely on her musings for intelligent insight. The studies she
presents are cherry-picked and her arguments are so one-sided and cliched it
barely qualifies as an opinion piece. The recent article in the Atlantic
([http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-
end-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-
men/8135/)) was much more balanced and insightful.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I don't even understand the point of your ad-hominem.

The author is being formulaic. So what? She is a one-issue writer, and
therefore her opinions are incorrect?

~~~
rada
Ok, let's say someone had written an opinion piece on how Windows is unfairly
portrayed compared to Linux. You read it, and it just seems, I don't know,
off. Perhaps it's the fact that they illustrated their point with a feature
comparison graph dated to 1991 (a fair comparison to the author's use of 1932
data), or maybe it just reads as a long-winded rant as opposed to an
intelligent inquiry into the subject of operating systems. You look into it a
bit, and it turns out that the author was once quoted as saying that Linus
Torvalds is just a loser, jealous of Bill Gates's wealth. You look at their
other articles, and see that every one is the same old template: yay Windows,
nay Linux, yay numbers that support my opinion, nay numbers that do not. What
would you conclude, if not that the author is, indeed, incorrect? I don't have
a problem with a "one-issue" writer but I do have a problem with a evidence-
be-damned "one-sided" writer.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_I don't have a problem with a "one-issue" writer but I do have a problem with
a evidence-be-damned "one-sided" writer._

The author of this article provided infinitely more evidence than you did
(something / nothing = infinity). You've provided no evidence that she is
selectively picking data which supports her. You also provide no evidence she
is incorrect.

All you did is point out that she wrote about similar issues in the past,
which would be true of most articles written by most reporters.

By the way, the citation from 1932 that you criticize is consistent with more
recent results. For instance:

<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/321/5888/494>

<http://www.jstor.org/pss/2889145>

I'm going to speculate that your objection to her is more ideological than
methodological...

~~~
rada
Huh? Now it's my turn to say, I don't even understand your point.

Her citation from 1932 is "IQ Percentage By Gender" and your citation from
2008 (that I _think_ you mean to say supports the 1932 numbers) is "Gender
Similarities For Math Performance". Moreover, your citation is behind a
paywall so that we cannot see any numbers at all. You are not even comparing
apples to oranges, you are comparing apples to some unidentified mass in a bag
that we have no way of judging beyond the fact that the bag is labeled
"oranges".

And no, I didn't just point out that she is a one-issue writer. Please re-read
my post, instead of "speculating" about my ideologies which you know nothing
about.

~~~
yummyfajitas
My citation shows women have less variance in intellect than men (but very
similar mean). Sorry for the paywall, but unfortunately that is where academic
research lives.

Here is a newspaper summary:
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121691806472381521.html>

As for your post, my mistake. I missed the "she is a one issue writer,
_therefore mysoginist_ " bit probably because I assumed your post had some
sort of logic to it.

~~~
rada
You do know that when you quote a post, you have to quote something the poster
actually said, right? Where did I say "she is a one issue writer, therefore a
mysoginist"?

------
jeb
The article seems neutral till the last lines:

 _The developing gender gap in the gifted programs of New York City does not
signal that girls are smarter than boys. Rather, it exemplifies how well-
intentioned government officials and educators can disregard boys’ needs and
abilities and unwittingly adopt policies detrimental to boys’ well-being. It
is a small part of the long story of how American boys across the ability
spectrum and in all age groups have become second-class citizens in the
nation’s schools._

~~~
alayne
Zing. I remember reading/watching studies of classroom settings a few years
ago where teachers were unconsciously giving boys a better learning
experience. It was eye opening. I thought there was a fairly established
result in gender bias studies of education -- boys get more opportunities,
more teacher interaction, and the system encourages them more. Maybe this is
more fair?

~~~
jerf
When was that, _exactly_? Things have changed, from top to bottom. Everything
seems to be totally restructured for girls. The much-better-examined question
is why females are getting more bachelor's degrees then males in college, by a
percentage that if it were any other group would be _prima facie_ proof of
widespread discrimination. [http://iserp.columbia.edu/news/articles/female-
advantage-col...](http://iserp.columbia.edu/news/articles/female-advantage-
college) says 2004 saw 58% female graduation, and the disparity's trend is
_up_ , not down.

We need to wipe out the idea that education is somehow biased towards males
now, and _fast_. The playing field has gone from balanced to stacked in favor
of females and it's _still_ being tipped yet further in that direction.

("Why does it matter?" It is, as the article says, fairly well established
that variance in male intelligence is larger than female intelligence. It is
also fairly well established that progress is made in society in a very
unbalanced manner, where most progress is made by the outliers in skill.
Throwing away the males because the education system labels the usual male
child learning styles pathological because they can't be properly corralled is
not the path to a society able to compete on the global stage.)

~~~
kenjackson
As a male, and father of males, I can honestly say that if any male feels like
they are being systematically being discriminated against in school, they need
to "man up".

Even if there is some gender bias in schools, everything else in society is so
male-centric that the scale still way tips toward male.

~~~
Groxx
Everything else?

How about child-rearing / anything to do with children? Males are pretty often
feared as being pedophiles if they work with kids.

~~~
kenjackson
Fair. There are some places where men have a tougher time. Daycare provider is
one. Figure skating and porn star are probably some others. But all up, it's
still not even close.

~~~
Groxx
[http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/jobpat-
eeo1/2...](http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/employment/jobpat-
eeo1/2008/us/national.html)

With a couple significant outliers (most in men's favor, but not all), it's
actually pretty close. Though I'm not sure what "professionals" relates to.

~~~
kenjackson
It's really not very close. The "outliers" are things like "execute" where men
dominate more than 2:1. The only places where women have more of are clerical
and sales positions.

And really the real question, if you're interested in workforce data is money.
There's a huge gap between men and women:
[http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgr...](http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgrows.htm)

Now of course the standard reply is "they work different jobs". And that's
true. Jobs men work tend to pay more. Why is that? Who knows. And if you look
at the historic pay of fields like psychology, once dominated by men, it used
to pay very well. As women began to play a large role in the field, pay
dropped. Did men leave because pay drop or did pay drop because men left? No
one knows.

But I still believe my fundamental point. If you're a man and you're not doing
as well as you like and it's because you think women have done you in, I just
personally have a low opinion of you. Not that you'd care about my opinion,
but that's just my take. And I'll raise my kids, to the best of my ability, to
not believe that they can't get a fair shot in life because women run the
show.

~~~
Groxx
And a lot of those top-level ones are rather entrenched by owners of the
businesses & their family connections, which are often _dominated_ by male-
only thinking. The top tiers are often a very insular world all its own, it's
no surprise they're changing so very slowly. Sad, but not surprising.

Pay-gaps measuring across the board are rather meaningless, aside from showing
a cultural bias for _hiring_. There's definitely a significant pay gap, but a
lot of articles like that one take male-income / num-males and compare it to
female-income / num-females. More point-by-point comparisons show a smaller
gap per-job (I usually see 5%, sometimes 10%. Significant, but not 25%
significant like the article lists). For psychiatry in _particular_ , it's
also become an over-crowded field; to compete, and to get the average-joe on
their bill, the average-joe psychiatrist must lower their cost.

edit: as linked by tokenadult, I point this out for _consideration_ of the
results, but not as an _explanation_ :
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox#Berkeley_se...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox#Berkeley_sex_bias_case)

I'm not discounting the entire thing by any means, most of the purpose in the
comment is because the issues around child-care are utterly ridiculous. I've
run across a fair number of men who have run flat against (spiked) brick walls
in their attempts, followed by rather massive repercussions for simply
_trying_ to be single fathers (lost jobs, criminal investigations (finding
nothing), near-eviction from their community, etc). I've not heard of parallel
situations for females as bad as many of them have encountered, in relatively
recent years. Going more years back, certainly, things were blatantly
downright misogynistic in many areas.

As to the last paragraph, that's a better way of putting it than your original
post. I overall agree :)

~~~
kenjackson
Regaring child-care. A similiar, if not far worse, example that comes to mind
for me is domestic abuse. When I was in college I rode with the domestic abuse
team for our local police department (many police stations have programs for
this, if you're interested).

I was shocked by (a) how much domestic abuse happens, (b) how violent it is,
and (c) how much leeway the men get. Officers routinely push the women to not
press charges, because it will "likely escalate the situation" or frankly, "we
probably can't do anything until he kills you or worse, and that doesn't
benefit you does it?".

And the crazy thing is that in the US domestic abuse is about as good as it
gets worldwide. In other countries men can kill their wives if they have
affairs or even get raped. And if you count the number of victims of sexual
violence in this country, women far outnumber men.

~~~
Groxx
There are two sides to the abuse issue as well, though. There's _definitely_
that mindset among a lot of people, more than enough in policing positions to
make it true, and it's disgusting.

There is, however, a _massive_ selection bias in the stats for abuse in
particular. Where men are abused, they're either congratulated (if sexually)
or told to "man up" (not selected specifically because you used it, but
because it's the phrase). There's a _lot_ of evidence (and growing) that it's
far more common than is admitted, though I'm not at all implying it's as much
as women get abused.

It's another of those situations where, instead of support, men live with it
or are ridiculed where women are protected (lies by should-be-protectors
aside). If you look at it with a bit of history in mind, it's pretty obvious
why this exists: men were the only ones with any real power and wouldn't allow
abuse, and they were more unchecked in their own abusing.

~~~
kenjackson
I don't disagree about the underrepresentation. I know in prison populations
it is relatively common. And while its underrepresented in day to day life, I
don't think it budges the needle much. While I saw some domestic abuse by men,
it wasn't common (I saw about twice as many calls from a male partner in a gay
relationship than men in straight relationships... both were really rare).

But I think this argument is symbolic of the debate. You think men don't get
the support they need by society for sexual abuse and that women are
protected. Whereas I think women are abused more frequently, and the
protection mechanisms are controlled by men.

My sympathies rest with all victims, but I just have trouble sympathizing with
men as a group.

~~~
Groxx
I'm arguing for support for _victims_ , and that people should quit separating
them by sex / race / etc once they're identified as such. The greater the
separation, the more likely we'll get "separate but equal", which never is,
instead of progress. Someone who needs support is someone who needs support,
what else really matters? If the mindset were closer to this, people who
needed help would get it, _real_ statistical data could be extracted, and
systemic problems exposed instead of everyone (rightfully) doubting any study
that goes against what they currently think because there's so much wiggle
room.

edit: but as I've said elsewhere, I'm an idealist, and I recognize that such a
thing isn't ever going to _actually_ happen to total equality. I just think
it's something which should be aimed for, explicitly, instead of using the
"but there aren't as many <group X>es with <problem Y>" ethical crutch.
Especially for something like this, where the only wall is purely a cultural
one, not one where there isn't enough funding to do more.

------
amalcon
What about relative application numbers? These things are partially self-
selected. The first thing that occurred to me when I read the main
observations in the article* was, "What if the proportion of girls in the
programs is higher because more girls (or parents of girls) want to
participate in the programs?" Wanting to participate (and especially having
parents who want one to participate) would not necessarily be correlated with
intelligence anyway.

*- That 1) gifted and talented programs in New York are tending to have more female students, and 2) this cannot be explained by suggesting that there are more gifted and talented girls.

~~~
tokenadult
_What about relative application numbers?_

That's a very good question. I think the study of application to graduate
departments at the University of California: Berkeley (often used in
statistics textbooks as an example of Simpson's paradox) showed that what
initially appeared as a bias in favor of male applicants was actually, when
analyzed department by department, neutral admission or bias in favor of
female applicants.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox#Berkeley_se...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox#Berkeley_sex_bias_case)

The self-selection involved in applying or not for a special program is surely
relevant to analyzing bias, as you correctly point out. A different issue that
other commenters here mention is whether participation in a school program at
early elementary age has any necessary relation to adult career paths at later
ages.

------
Groxx
Well, there's _this_ one at least:

<http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/>

------
strebler
"The greater variance of males on intelligence tests is one of the best-
established findings in psychometric literature"

And this is supported by a graph from 1932? I'm not saying it isn't true, but
surely there is more recent data to support one of the "best-established
findings" of that field.

~~~
trunnell
The data are from 1932 but the analysis is more recent:

 _here is what a group of Scottish psychologists found in 2002 when they
analyzed the results of IQ tests given to nearly all 11-year-olds in Scotland
in 1932_

------
tkahn6
According to the graph in the middle of the article (unless I'm reading it
wrong) it would seem that there are _more_ male geniuses.

The graph then, would seem to indicate that the sort of tests that determine a
child's eligibility for entrance into the gifted programs in New York either
a) do not track with IQ tests or b) filter out children with IQs lower than
say 95 (therefore making more girls eligible than boys).

~~~
strebler
I had the same initial reaction to the graph, but she seems to be using the
graph to show that reality may be at odds with the enrollment numbers. Data
from 1932 does seem quite out of place in an article addressing "recent
trends".

She goes on to suggest that the gifted programs are more targeted to girls -
things like verbal-oriented tests and needing to "sit still" for periods of
time.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The 1932 data described in the article is important because it covered nearly
the entire population of a country for a particular age group -- uneven data
collection could not have skewed the results. Uneven data collection is the
great enemy of psychological public policy, since politicians can so
conveniently project their dispute onto the people that were not sampled. The
1932 Scotland data slams that door shut.

Other testing programs since then have showed a slow, steady rise in the
average IQ, called the Flynn effect. However the relative shapes of the male
and female histograms have been quite constant. (Ditto for the relative shapes
of the racial curves.)

~~~
tokenadult
_Ditto for the relative shapes of the racial curves._

There has been some convergence, that is lessening of a gap, among race and
ethnicity groups in the United States as a matter of group averages.

