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Gender and intelligence

08:35 / 22.04.02

Maybe this is just a subsub of the feminism topic, but I'd like to get some sort of discussion going based on the topic of gender intelligence alone. Has this been done yet?

Are there women who choose to supress their intelligence to "fit in"? We will clearly find the answer to this question when we attend any random frat party.

Based on the fact that the term "stupid bimbo" is a female stereotye that many women conform and confine themselves to- we have evidence to conclude that the male gender (as a whole) is just plain smarter than us chickys- much in the same way that we have evidence to conclue that the male gender (as a whole) is just plain ruder.

"You tell us we're stupid bimbos or rude assholes and we'll be stupid bimbos and rude assholes. You tell us we're jumpers and we'll ask how fucking high. Thanks for defining us so we didn't need to do it for ourselves!"

The constant stereotypes of both genders influence the unenlightened to take on these stereotypes- viva la black dude talkin like dis and gay dude like thisp. When enough females have taken on the "stupid bimbo" stereotype we are left with a frightening truth: guys are smarter!

Deconstruct baby.

08:59 / 22.04.02

I don't know that there are that many women who consciously choose to suppress their intelligence in order to fit in as a 'stupid bimbo' - who did you have in mind? I can see that there might be certain situations in which women (and men) are unable to realise their intelligence (e.g. poor education, lack of good employment prospects), but, given that these situations are not always alterable by the people who suffer as a result of them, I am not entirely sure that it's appropriate to blame 'all women who appear to me/us to be bimbos' for submitting to a stereotype (which they might object to quite strongly).

Um, what I think I'm saying is, be wary of categorising people according to your own ideas of what constitutes appropriate behaviour... they might not appreciate it...

09:13 / 22.04.02

Girl sees movie where token female in high heels twirls her hair around with accompanied girly giggling. Girl sees lots of movies like this. Lots of commercials. Lots of friends who behave much like the token females in the movies. Girl realizes that she hasn't been acting like your average female, and she starts to feel a little bothered by this. Suddenly she's supressing her own intelligence because she feels it is unacceptable and out of gender role.

"Um, what I think I'm saying is, be wary of categorising people according to your own ideas of what constitutes appropriate behaviour... they might not appreciate it... "

Um, I have absolutely no ideas of what constitutes appropriate behavior, for I know such a thing doesn't exist. Ideas of what constitutes one to be a stereotype are not relative in the sense that "appropriate behavior" is. Ideas of what constitues one to be a stereotype are based on the masses popular definition of this stereotype itself. Stereotypes are created by and based on the masses- some kind of popular vote deal. This isn't relative. It's the election.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:48 / 22.04.02

More generally...define gender, define intelligence...

10:20 / 22.04.02

Define more... define generally... define define...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

10:52 / 22.04.02

Actually, those things are relatively simple to define by comparison with concepts like gender and intelligence.

The latter can be measured, although no one is quite sure what those measurements mean. It can be attributed, though not reliably. It has never been properly defined by science.

The former is even more elusive - a created quality, it was initially seen in binary terms, but here of all places we should be able to do away with that. The kind of self-editing you suggest is an artifact of perceptions of gender roles probably based on that dualism, but it exists in a polygendered world.

I wasn't just being obstructive, Rage. I was thinking about your topic.

The Natural Way

11:23 / 22.04.02

I'm right there w/ you Rage. I know loads of people who "dumb themselves down" in public (myself included, sometimes) - it's an easy, obvious social tactic - but it's not only limited to women. I suppose it's a fairly standard "Flight" option: by acting that little more bimboish we're effectively telling others "Hey, I'm available/approachable - I won't bite..." It sucks, but, hey-ho, there you go.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:46 / 22.04.02

Welcome to my entire life.

But moving swiftly on...I wrote an article once on something not dissimilar to this - the college phenomenon where women who have presumably arrived their on academic merit seem to make a conscious decision to sacrifice their identities in order to gain entry to misogynistic societies. The girlfriends and aspirant girlfriends of whatever the University sport is often provide good examples of this.

I'm not sure that I would still represent this thesis in quite such black-and-white terms. But I do seem to perceive a weight of societal expectation on women not to surpass or humiliate the menfolk. It's changing, but not perhaps as quickly as it ought to.

But then, as Nick seems to be leading on to, are different forms of "intelligence" gendered?

13:18 / 22.04.02

These days, I make a conscious effort NOT to dumb myself down. In my personal experience smart, strong women can definitely be threatening to men, but my feeling these days is that aspect of my personality filters out the "riff-raff" for me. I wouldn’t really want to hang with someone who was intimidated or felt threatened by those things.

That said, when I was younger I consistently dated people who (I thought) were much smarter than me. Looking back, although intelligence has always been a turn-on for me, I think one of the reasons I did that is because subconsciously, I could be "dumber" than whoever it was I was dating; I could fulfill that "you’re so brainy!" role and still be my relatively brainy self. Definitely my first two serious boyfriends consistently made me feel like I was not, and never would be, as smart as they were.

These days I refuse to compromise my intelligence for any man. If you can’t deal with it, I don’t want to be involved with you is basically how I feel. Intelligence will surely always be a major attractor for me, but I’d much rather be someone’s intellectual equal; not only is that healthier, but it’s definitely more fun.

wembley can change in 28 days

13:49 / 22.04.02

I have been told that this is an easily-observed phenomenon in North America (dumbing down on purpose for social reasons ... actually, this may explain why I haven't had a date in yonks), but that in other cultures, it's not so prevalent. I think I had this conversation with my roommate after one of her French classes. A person in North America who uses an extensive vocabulary and speaks well is usually viewed with suspicion. The underlying message is "I'm smarter than you are," and it's found implicitly rude. Whereas in France, apparently, someone who is a good speaker is admired. Has anyone else noticed such a difference across cultures?

14:12 / 22.04.02

i certainly noticed at school how the other girls would look at each other and giggle whenever anyone (alright, me) said anything that required more than one braincell to comprehend. i never worked out if it was because they were incapable or unwilling. i think i notice it more when girls/women deliberately dumb themselves down, because i think they have more to lose by doing so. in my one and only relationship with a man, i remember him very early on making sure i knew i was fairly intelligent but 'slower than the rest of us' i.e. him and his male friends. a friend said she also had a boyfriend do this. the rules were clear - don't outsmart me. (then again, this was the man who thought i was going to run away with henry rollins, so he's probably not your average example).

i notice the women at my workplace are in two groups - the serious, intelligent ones and the 'bubbly' ones. there is one woman in particular who i find i automatically make inane 'banter'-ish remarks to. which i hate myself for. then again, nearly all of the men only ever want to talk about football - the 'laddish' culture i think makes it difficult for any bloke who want to be any other way.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:19 / 22.04.02

Cool, have been talking about this today.

Think there are lots of factors that make people deny their intelligence...and 'intelligence', as Nick points out, is a very vague term. not hassling, Rage, just that I tend to presume people are talking intellect/educated type intelligence, which is something I've certainly downplayed at times to be accepted in certain social groups. (eg to digress slightly, i was talking in counselling today, about my primary school, where if you were clever you were bullied to fuck, and where I know I spent a lot of time trying to downplay/disguise the intellectual/'finds school easy' side of. This often combined with a strongly demonstrated normn of girls deferring to boys in the social school space.)

Not sure if that's relevant, but I've known certainly known plenty of women who've downplayed the critical parts of their intelligence for fear of appearing agressive/demanding. Again, done this myself at times. Still do, probably.

And Nick, if we're talking about this kind of downplaying in relation to expectated notions of woman, what matters is whether the environment someone's in runs on the dualistic/gender-fixed model or not. Yeah, there are places like this, that don't, but there are plenty of places that do, especially if you're talking about formative experiences.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:39 / 22.04.02

SFD, slightly nervous at your opposing of serious and bubbly... I can, depending on where and when you find me, be both of these.

Over this past weekend I've been on a residential course, a very intense space.

And I've giggled with someone over a sweepstake on who would sleep with who, left a space that felt unsafe rather than confront someone, argued violently and passionately with a man about gender politics and constructions, plaited someone's hair etc etc

Point being, it's a really dodgy validating of traditional masculine qualities (the laddish thing) to denigrate someone for being 'bubbly'... you're calling someone a bimbo, and how male and objectifying is that?

Which leads me onto something else that I'm rahter surprised that no-one's mentioned Namely that in our culture, conceptions of what is valuable and what is not are shaped by patriarchy. Like, duh.

Meaning that certain sorts of qualities associated with the 'masculine' are valued (and before someone yells, I'm talking about traditional/long-ranging assertions in western culture when I talk about masculine and feminine, not what, if anything, they 'really connate' or what they mean to you.) more than those associated with the feminine. And that 'intelligence' as it seems to be me to be being used here is a collection of characteristics that have been associated with the male, or that men have had more opportunity to develop.

14:52 / 22.04.02

plums: the serious v bubbly thing *does* seem to be two definate, different camps at my workplace. not saying that's how it is in the world at large, or that someone cannot be both.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:52 / 22.04.02

Plums - no argument. Just getting the ideas out there to move the discussion right along.

I have one friend who frustrates me deeply on this score. I've known her for years, and I know she's very bright. She's also very pretty, and she talks about pine nuts and clothes most of the time, and you basically have to corner her with a blunt object to get her to admit that the last thing she read was by Dostoyevsky and she wasn't convinced by the motivation of the female characters against a backdrop of agrarian/proletarian patriarchy, but nonetheless considers the work fascinating both emotionally and for the insight it grants into...etc.

The odd thing - or maybe it's not and I'm being dense - is that she loathes being noticed just because she's physically attractive. She went to a very hothousey school which emphasises academic brilliance and is apt to get very stern with anyone who says they don't want a career. Her family is full of chronic over-achievers...I don't see where the pressure came from to hide her light.

Still. That's people, I guess.

14:52 / 22.04.02

Thank you, Plums, for saying what I was trying to say earlier. Must learn not to dive in head first without composing thoughts... But, to say something other than'I totally agree': I'm conscious that I;ve been very lucky in that my friends and acquaintances have rarely been the kind of people who try and put each other down (aggressively) because of their behaviour, and I'm also very lucky in that I've moved among people who are pretty similar to me in terms of educational background, etc. Among my friends, the concern is less likely to be that someone is acting like a bimbo, but rather that s/he is acting like a doormat - slightly different, perhaps. I'm not comfortable with calling someone a bimbo, or assuming that s/he is less intelligent (whatever that may mean) than I am, because s/he acts in a different way to me and my social group. I also think that, in a situation where women are expected to kowtow to the male ego, women who acquiesce in the company of men are probably not like that with women, and there is probably a very good reason for their acquiescence.

14:56 / 22.04.02

sorry, read your post more thoroughly now. i am talking about specific women who are loud and giggly, in order, it appears, to be popular. women who i have never heard in over a decade of working with them, have one serious conversation. i didn't use the term 'bimbo'.

15:00 / 22.04.02

plumsbitch said: Which leads me onto something else that I'm rahter surprised that no-one's mentioned Namely that in our culture, conceptions of what is valuable and what is not are shaped by patriarchy. Like, duh.

Meaning that certain sorts of qualities associated with the 'masculine' are valued (and before someone yells, I'm talking about traditional/long-ranging assertions in western culture when I talk about masculine and feminine, not what, if anything, they 'really connate' or what they mean to you.) more than those associated with the feminine. And that 'intelligence' as it seems to be me to be being used here is a collection of characteristics that have been associated with the male, or that men have had more opportunity to develop.

Strangely enough, I was discussing this very topic over the weekend: certain qualities associated with gender roles - and yes, because of a continuing patriarchal structure being I think at the base of our society, "masculine" qualities are valued over "feminine" ones. This was something I was trying to get my head around, in a way, in the "How Ya Gonna Act?" thread I started.

Definitely in terms of gender-mapping we know that the myth is that women are allegedly more emotional than men, and men are more logical than women. I'm wondering if the discomfort others (men and women, really) feel over a woman who comes off as more intelligent (and yes that is a bit of a vague term) is due to the fact that she's "bettering" a man, which is of course stepping outside a gender role to some extent, or displaying adeptness in a traditionally non-feminine area, or something different entirely?

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:06 / 22.04.02

This is a good topic, Rage, ta for raising it.

It may be that a background is a fiercely competive, where the means of competition is intellect (I'm an odd case in that my family background *is* pretty like this, but school experience 'taught' me that it definitely wasn't 'cool' to be clever. boys *and* girls were valued for appearance, for giving the teachers shit, for being 'hard', basically. talking about schizo

) but this if excellence is equated with/ achieved as a result of competitiveness, you're already not talking about the intelligence in isolation, but moving, as I suspect you were already, Nick, onto *why* that intelligence is valued.

And competitiveness is a very interseting quality when considering gender construction, in that I'd say it's pretty difficult to bring up a female child in the west (or in many commnities, come to that) so that they'll wholeheartedly feel positively about being competitive... comes to close to aggression for it to be a thing that women do.

Many of my brightest or perhaps sharpest female friends have been at some time conflicted about this quality, I'd argue that whatever your background there's a strong 'no' on women being as competitive as men, which is not to say there can't be a demand for a woman to be as achieving as a man... which is a recipe for trouble.

Nick's example is interesting in that in factoring in physical beauty, we've got a characteristic which is much more expected of women, but isn't as much of a factor in male formation....

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:53 / 22.04.02

Interestingly, beauty can be wildly destructive in men, because of its rarity. The beautiful men I have known deal with it far, far less well than the women.

The Apple-Picker

17:25 / 22.04.02

How many of you, women, have ever been directly counseled to disguise your intelligence? Or at least directly told that it is unbecoming?

The first man to ever do so (to me) was very sensitive, so I was shocked by his advice. To make sure I hadn't misunderstood him, I asked, "You think I should act dumb?" "No, that's not what I'm saying. Just maybe you don't need to show your smarts so much."

At dinner a few months ago, a family friend said, "I don't want a girlfriend who is smarter than me."

Men have asked me to stop trying to impress them with my vocabulary.

And two men with whom I associated for a few months repeatedly sneered, "You're too smart for your own good." The interesting thing about their method was that while at the same time they told me I was too smart (as if one could be), they also called me clueless, space-cadet, other epithets designed to make me aware of how flakey and dizzy they thought I was. It's not at all a good thing for you to be smart; be silly, instead. No, wait, you are silly.

When I wouldn't yield to the first "insult," the two of them (no matter how unintentionally) effectively diminished my self-esteem so that I at least wouldn't *express* my intelligence.

I wasn't trying to assert my intelligence. I wasn't even aware that I was a chronic social rule-breaker in that sense. But the cudgel was wielded to get me back in line; it worked. I was scared of saying what I thought, knowing that it was unbecoming of me to be smart, and I was too proud to appear dumb. --The result was my silence.

I just wonder how often this lesson has been so explicit for others, as it has been for me. Because I usually tend to focus on the implied pressures even when I have these obvious instructions in front of me.

17:52 / 22.04.02

ApplePicker: The interesting thing about their method was that while at the same time they told me I was too smart (as if one could be), they also called me clueless, space-cadet, other epithets designed to make me aware of how flakey and dizzy they thought I was.

I haven’t, to my recollection, been told specifically to "dumb it down," but I have absolutely had these space-cadet/airhead/etc. type comments thrown at me, generally by boyfriends when I was involved with (when I was younger and, er, stupider). Looking back I think it’s obvious they felt threatened and felt a need to denigrate my intellectual ability. My best girlfriend, who’s one of the smartest people I know, had the same thing happen to her, until she met her husband, who contends that one of the reasons she fell in love with him was because he made her feel that she could be her smart self and he wouldn’t make her "pay for it."

21:11 / 23.04.02

Nick, sorry for jumping. You're right- "ingelligence" indeed holds many loose definitions. I'm really just sick of all those pseudo intellectuals who respond to all POV's with "it depends on your definition of the word [word]" or "define [word]" when they have nothing that is truly worthy of contribution. You, on the contrary, have raised some good points.

"How many of you, women, have ever been directly counseled to disguise your intelligence? Or at least directly told that it is unbecoming?"

::Raises hand::

Worse, actually. I conunseled myself to disguise my intelligence all throughout school. (though I did drop out and get my GED when I turned 16) This was due to the herddies making fun of me for those extra brain cells. It got to the point where I dropped out of gifted classes due to shame and began carrying myself in a way that I now find sickening. I would utter phrases like "I dunno" and "whatever" and twirl my hair around while giggling "cutely". I took this too far, and eventually was thought to be retarded by many people. To this day I still talk like a bimboid middle schooler, but at least I'm actually saying stuff.

03:16 / 24.04.02

"... act like a dumb-shit and they'll treat you as an equal..."

If school's too easy, be the fool - laughter=one of us... beats getting bullied.
If you really can't stand it, start killing braincells - solvents/alcohol/anything... may backfire, though.

09:04 / 25.04.02

To reiterate previous points: dumbing down is a common defence tactic, I also spent much of my school life actively pretending to be less smart in an attempt to enamour myself to (or at the very least, pacify) certain groups.

However, it seems a common female flirtation technique - men will (generally) preen and pose and attempt to appear as wise and knowledgeable as possible (that competitive thing again) while girls will often submissively bow to the man's 'superior knowledge' (ick) and generally give a more vapid impression. This has to be cultural in origin.

IIRC, Alfred Binet, during the process of creating the first IQ test created a comprehensive list of the questions and exercises that he felt most accurately measured natural intelligence. He created a completed test form and was ready to publish until the first dry-run results began to come in and he noticed a strange fact: women consistently scored higher than men in his test. Realising this was impossible (of course!) he recalled the test and modified it so that the questions in which women scored well were de-emphasised to redress the balance back in favour of men.

Just a bit of trivia for you...

12:55 / 26.04.02

Still feeling a bit tender over a particularly awful fight with my Mom – we patched it up but before we did she told me I "read too much" and was "too feminist" and "knew too much and lorded it over the rest of us" (I presume she means my family) .

I was kind of dumbfounded, as I pretty much just act like me and, though I think I’m more intellectually bent than the rest of my family, I was previously unaware that I "lorded" that over them. And of course – I don’t really know how one can actually read "too much."

Also what happens when you read too much? Do you get sick with ideas?

Maybe it’s because I’m reading (ah, that devil again) a book at the moment that takes place partly at the turn of the 20th century, but I’m wondering if even this is related to the idea that women shouldn’t have too many ideas rolling around in their pretty little heads. Would my Mom lob such "criticisms" to my brothers? I can’t see it. And why was my being "too feminist" tied into that list? Earlier in our argument my Mom said something to the effect of, "Oh, why don’t you just put on a NOW shirt, Miss Gloria Steinem." Which of course was meant as an insult but I found it absurd. Probably because I read too much.

Is it just me? I find it curious. Not to mention depressing.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:04 / 30.04.02

Blimey, love, that is depression, but I think is all too widespread, there is still a great suspicion(sp?) of women who don't hide their intelligence, or their 'intellectual bent', more specifically. That it strikes at the perception of what is 'womanly' in much the same way men who are macho, in a 'smalltown' mentality, are basically considered to be 'poofs', ie unmanly men.

There's a huge underlying feeling/history in alot of cultures that to be intellectually sharp and independent is somehow unwomanly.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:05 / 30.04.02

"I also think that, in a situation where women are expected to kowtow to the male ego, women who acquiesce in the company of men are probably not like that with women, and there is probably a very good reason for their acquiescence. "

This is interesting, Kit-Cat, can you expand on it? Not sure I've got the sense of what you mean.

08:11 / 01.05.02

Yes, I wasn't very clear, was I? Um, I was thinking about pub culture back in Pompey, and the experience of seeing some of my friends get involved with violent men... I used to see (frequently) women who, when in the company of other women, were bright, forthcoming, intelligent, resourceful etc etc; and who, when in mixed company or with their partners, acted in a completely different way, as subservient props to their partners. Now, it seemed to me that women were expected to act in this way because that's what pub culture told them to do - it was the dominant social and sociable culture, if you see what I mean; and a woman who tried to go against that dominant culture would be singled out for criticism as a 'tart', or as weird, or as untrustworthy. Therefore women who wished to be accepted within that culture, and to avoid potentially violent clashes, acquiesced by behaving in a subservient way in mixed company - an impulse which wasn't nearly so prevalent in female-only company.

10:05 / 01.05.02

To what extent do you all see this dumbing down forced on women by men? What I'm asking is if there is an element of self policing - a resignation to the fact that women should behave in a certain way and a subsequent acquiescence to this?