"IQ Tests and Gender"
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Perhaps one of the areas where IQ tests have met stiff opposition is in the correlation of scores in IQ tests and gender. As it turns out, men on average score higher than women on various IQ tests - by as much as a whopping 4 IQ points! Obviously, this has not been greeted with enthusiasm by feminists, who have always argued that women are equal if not better than their male counterparts. They have thus argued that the superior score by men on most IQ tests is caused by how the tests are designed and by extension what we define to be 'intelligence'. And indeed it has been observed that by designing the IQ tests differently, it becomes possible to (exactly) reverse the trend - a situation where men trail women by a whopping 4 points - again.
In actual fact, this discrepancy in masculine and feminine IQ test scores lies in the truth that men and women are good in different aspects of 'intelligence'. As it were, the average intelligence (also called general intelligence factor (g)) which is meant to be measured by IQ tests is a function of many other factors, which can be seen as aspects of intelligence or actually as 'intelligences' in their own right.
Some of these include memory, spatial 'intelligence', numerical 'intelligence', social (inter-personal) 'intelligence', intra-personal 'intelligence', linguistic 'intelligence' - among others. Now it further turns out that men are, on average, better in some of these intelligences (for example spatial intelligence), while women are better are better in other 'intelligences' (for instance the 'linguistic' intelligence). And it thus follows that if a given IQ test has more items testing spatial intelligence than linguistic intelligence, such a test will obviously favor a higher male score, while if a given tests has more items testing linguistic intelligence than spatial intelligence, such a test will favor women with other scores.
Proponents of 'male superiority' have however not taken this defence of 'multiple intelligences' as it is called lying down. They have taken further steps to prove their point that the masculine mind is superior to the feminine mind - and this have included taking physical brain measurements where on average, the male brain was seen to be bigger and heavier than the female brain, by as much as a couple of hundred grams - though, of course - the average male is physically bigger than the average female. Ultimately, the results of physical brain measurement have been,on the whole, worse than the results from IQ tests, since have a bigger brain doesn't always translate to being more intelligent, while having a smaller (physical) brain doesn't always translate to being less intelligent. It turns out that, as it were, intelligence is more of a brain 'software' issue than a brain 'hardware' issue.
Ultimately, the best 'win-win' explanation to the difference between men and women in terms of IQ test scores may be to accept the mid-point position that men and women have equal intelligence, only that they excel in different areas. This way, everyone (read every gender) will be ever after happy with their IQ test score.
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