Battle of the Sexes: Are Women Smarter than Men?
Warning: Statistical analysis involved in this post. Reader be warned!
Before you blurt out an answer to this post's title, based on some predetermined bias of yours, hear me out. Actually, I'm not sure it's possible to make a blanket answer, though I'm sure some men who want to please their wife, or have had a wife, might say "women" because they know they wouldn't be able to get along without her, and feel that she's infinitely superior and all that. (That doesn't prove intelligence, merely competence!) And some smug women might also cry out "women" just because they think they are naturally superior, or maybe their husband has told them they are and they believe it, or because they've felt downtrodden by men throughout history, and are all liberated now and feel free to dismiss those of the opposite sex as intellectual inferiors. (Come on ladies, don't the majority of you secretly think that your gender in general is smarter than those men folk?) Well, I have some empirical evidence to throw into the debate. Before you simply use it to support your preconceived bias, maybe it can be used to direct you to other ideas which you might not have considered.
I taught the same subject (U.S. History) to four different sections this past school year. With such a large sample of students you can use grades by gender to test the intelligence theory with a greater degree of accuracy than some studies involving smaller pools. For those who don't understand, picture this: a classroom of six students, four of them girls.
Say 2 girls get A's, one gets a B, and one gets a C+. One guy gets a B+, the other gets an F. Can you conclude from this that girls are smarter than guys? Not really. The small sample could be an anomaly, something out of the ordinary. Maybe one guy's grandmother died the night before the final, so he didn't study for it. Maybe one girl's mother is a history teacher, and was able to better prepare her for the final by reviewing with her. These anomalies tend to get made insignificant with larger samples. They balance each other out more. Thus, you get more valuable information with larger groups of information.
Enough on that. For my sample, I used marks of 55 women and 44 men. I threw out a couple of grades from this sample due to extraneous circumstances. The first fact, that more women than men were in an upper level history class, might indicate something about intelligence, or at least academic motivation. There is a significant difference.
Out of 99 students, 14 of them earned A's for the second semester. Eleven of those A's were earned by women. Here is the entire breakdown:
A=3 men, 11 women
B+=8 men, 15 women
B=16 men, 8 women
C+=3 men, 7 women
C=8 men, 3 women
D=1 man, 4 women
F=6 men, 6 women
These figures look like women far outperform men until you take the percentage of men and women that scored in each category. In other words, it makes sense that more women earned an A if there were more of them in the first place. Looking at the percentages gives a more accurate assessment:
A=3/44 men=7%, 11/55 women=20%
B+=18% men, 27% women
B= 36% men, 15% women
C+=7% men, 13% women
C=18% men, 5% women
D=2% men, 7% women
F=14% men, 11% women
Conclusions: women outperformed men at the highest level (an A grade) by almost a 3 to 1 margin. That margin shrinks but is still significant if you include the next highest grade, at almost 2 to 1. In other words, almost twice as many women earned a B+ or higher than men, AFTER taking into account the disproportionate number of women taking the class. However, when you include a B grade, men catch up significantly. Sixty-one percent of men and 62% of women earned a B or higher. Men jump ahead only once you factor in the C's. 85 percent of men earned a C or higher, compared to about 81% of women.
Are there any explanations for this difference in performance, other than natural intelligence? Unfortunately for those of you predisposed toward the ladies camp, there are. Here are some:
1. Women may respond better to the natural wit and charm of a male teacher, which leads to better academic achievement! :-)
2. Women at high school age tend to be more mature than their male counterparts. This leads to higher motivation and better concentration in accomplishing tasks necessary to earn a higher grade (e.g., completing homework assignments, following directions, etc.) Thus, while girls go the extra mile to earn the highest level grades, guys simply put in the basic work necessary to earn a passing, and decent grade, such as a B.
3. Due to less maturity, guys may tend to seek popularity in other ways besides academic success. They don't perceive being smart as being "cool."
4. I could be biased, and tend to grade women more favorably than men.
I won't offer any definitive opinion on which gender is "smarter." I think too many factors are in play to make a decision based on this data. However, these figures tend to back up my predisposition to teaching girls who want to learn over smart aleck guys who like to make wisecracks in class and thereby supposedly prove their manliness. Only a few students act this way, though far more guys than girls. And more guys do tend to be lazy, and not follow directions or do basic homework.
Maybe I should switch to an all girls school? Nah, guys also need positive male role models. I hope I'm at least that, even if I don't get them to achieve like those girls.
Before you blurt out an answer to this post's title, based on some predetermined bias of yours, hear me out. Actually, I'm not sure it's possible to make a blanket answer, though I'm sure some men who want to please their wife, or have had a wife, might say "women" because they know they wouldn't be able to get along without her, and feel that she's infinitely superior and all that. (That doesn't prove intelligence, merely competence!) And some smug women might also cry out "women" just because they think they are naturally superior, or maybe their husband has told them they are and they believe it, or because they've felt downtrodden by men throughout history, and are all liberated now and feel free to dismiss those of the opposite sex as intellectual inferiors. (Come on ladies, don't the majority of you secretly think that your gender in general is smarter than those men folk?) Well, I have some empirical evidence to throw into the debate. Before you simply use it to support your preconceived bias, maybe it can be used to direct you to other ideas which you might not have considered.
I taught the same subject (U.S. History) to four different sections this past school year. With such a large sample of students you can use grades by gender to test the intelligence theory with a greater degree of accuracy than some studies involving smaller pools. For those who don't understand, picture this: a classroom of six students, four of them girls.
Say 2 girls get A's, one gets a B, and one gets a C+. One guy gets a B+, the other gets an F. Can you conclude from this that girls are smarter than guys? Not really. The small sample could be an anomaly, something out of the ordinary. Maybe one guy's grandmother died the night before the final, so he didn't study for it. Maybe one girl's mother is a history teacher, and was able to better prepare her for the final by reviewing with her. These anomalies tend to get made insignificant with larger samples. They balance each other out more. Thus, you get more valuable information with larger groups of information.
Enough on that. For my sample, I used marks of 55 women and 44 men. I threw out a couple of grades from this sample due to extraneous circumstances. The first fact, that more women than men were in an upper level history class, might indicate something about intelligence, or at least academic motivation. There is a significant difference.
Out of 99 students, 14 of them earned A's for the second semester. Eleven of those A's were earned by women. Here is the entire breakdown:
A=3 men, 11 women
B+=8 men, 15 women
B=16 men, 8 women
C+=3 men, 7 women
C=8 men, 3 women
D=1 man, 4 women
F=6 men, 6 women
These figures look like women far outperform men until you take the percentage of men and women that scored in each category. In other words, it makes sense that more women earned an A if there were more of them in the first place. Looking at the percentages gives a more accurate assessment:
A=3/44 men=7%, 11/55 women=20%
B+=18% men, 27% women
B= 36% men, 15% women
C+=7% men, 13% women
C=18% men, 5% women
D=2% men, 7% women
F=14% men, 11% women
Conclusions: women outperformed men at the highest level (an A grade) by almost a 3 to 1 margin. That margin shrinks but is still significant if you include the next highest grade, at almost 2 to 1. In other words, almost twice as many women earned a B+ or higher than men, AFTER taking into account the disproportionate number of women taking the class. However, when you include a B grade, men catch up significantly. Sixty-one percent of men and 62% of women earned a B or higher. Men jump ahead only once you factor in the C's. 85 percent of men earned a C or higher, compared to about 81% of women.
Are there any explanations for this difference in performance, other than natural intelligence? Unfortunately for those of you predisposed toward the ladies camp, there are. Here are some:
1. Women may respond better to the natural wit and charm of a male teacher, which leads to better academic achievement! :-)
2. Women at high school age tend to be more mature than their male counterparts. This leads to higher motivation and better concentration in accomplishing tasks necessary to earn a higher grade (e.g., completing homework assignments, following directions, etc.) Thus, while girls go the extra mile to earn the highest level grades, guys simply put in the basic work necessary to earn a passing, and decent grade, such as a B.
3. Due to less maturity, guys may tend to seek popularity in other ways besides academic success. They don't perceive being smart as being "cool."
4. I could be biased, and tend to grade women more favorably than men.
I won't offer any definitive opinion on which gender is "smarter." I think too many factors are in play to make a decision based on this data. However, these figures tend to back up my predisposition to teaching girls who want to learn over smart aleck guys who like to make wisecracks in class and thereby supposedly prove their manliness. Only a few students act this way, though far more guys than girls. And more guys do tend to be lazy, and not follow directions or do basic homework.
Maybe I should switch to an all girls school? Nah, guys also need positive male role models. I hope I'm at least that, even if I don't get them to achieve like those girls.
posted by redsoxwinthisyear at 9:24 PM
9 Comments:
Hmm...interesting findings. Maybe women have more to prove in a male-dominated world and thus work a little harder? Maybe guys don't see the relevance of the subject and therefore have nothing to gain by their superior knowledge of history. Maybe the guys are too busy thinking about girls and cars. ;-)
I don't think one sex is smarter than the other, but they differ in motivation and temperaments.
Teaching at an all-girl school wouldn't be so bad. Think of all the attention you, as a self-professed charming male teacher, would get!
Women only have more to prove if you accept the suspect premise--albeit a popular one--that it is a male-dominated world.
Any particular reason why women would see the relevance more than men, or why guys are more easily distracted?
And the "charm" wasn't enough to keep half a dozen girls from failing, so maybe I'd better stick with it where I am!
Yes, interesting indeed...Of course my first reaction is GIRL POWER and all that but now that I have sons of my own I just have to wonder a little more....
Maybe a little bit can be blamed on the overall school environment (not your classrooom specifically)--the framework in which learning takes place which isn't necessarily conducive to the way young boys develop and learn (all that sitting still and being quiet etc...)?
Maybe the premise that one sex is smarter than the other is a false one? Perhaps, as ljmax suggests, it's a question of different motivations and strength. Also, your class is specifically a high school history class in your specific location. It would be interesting to compare the score breakdown with breakdowns in other areas of the country or in other topics. What would the score breakdowns look like like in a math class, or in a college class, or in Japan, or with adults, or with a correspondence course....so many variables.
Good points and questions, ljmax and brilynne. The premise that one sex is smarter than the other is certainly controversial, and quite possibly false. That's why I didn't assert it is true. But from my experiences--albeit anecdotal evidence--girls seem to be at least more motivated, and are probably consistently outperforming boys in history at various levels, from high school to grad school. The answer to why that is is likely much more complex than simply "girls are smarter."
For examples, there were more girls than boys in my upper level classes. There were far more girls in the AP sections of U.S. History at my school this last year. (One of the sections was comprised entirely of girls!) Girls have annually outnumbered guys by about 2 to 1 at the summer history program I've worked for three summers now. And girls outnumber guys in the history graduate program of my alma mater. Are there any good explanations for the higher motivation and achievement?
No great words of wisdom from this quarter, but since women tend to be relational (ie people pleasers), might that explain part of it? Not to mention the earlier maturation, of course. Perhaps John Eldridge's Wild at Heart might explain another bit of the puzzle.
Also it seems to me that, despite our society's perception, there are many different "intelligences." Imagine an astrophysics professor in a garage or a senator in the outback, and you'll see what I mean.
If you can figure out a way to motivate boys academically, let me know! I've done battle with one brother in the math department enough to be thoroughly stumped (though we did call a very amicable truce when it came to English).
Interesting..
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Good points, lis, about girls as people pleasers and multiple intelligences . In fact, a popular educational theorist by the name of Howard Gardner has suggested the same thing, that there are many different types of intelligences, and there's a need to teach in a way that caters to each one (at least at one time or another). Gardner is the rage among many educators these days. However, I think Gardner suggests these intelligences transcend gender, so it's still a bit of a puzzle to me as to why guys in general seem to do more poorly. Though maybe guys tend to be strong in a kind of intelligence which is not catered to in history...
Wow! Very thought-provoking post! And interesting to hear about your discoveries. My first reaction partway through the post was the fact that women develop more quickly than men, as you pointed out later on, so basing a conclusion on high-schoolers doesn't help men's case at all. I think it's pretty clear that high school women are smarter than men, but that doesn't prove anything about either sex in general.
My experience in music school was that nearly all my smartest classmates were men, without question. However, all my dumbest classmates were also men. The women held all the middle ground (there were some extremely smart ones, too) and therefore averaged higher grades than the men (I would hazard to guess, not having seen any of their grades).
Also, I agree completely with the different types of intelligence. Who's to say being good at academic, paper-writing, test-taking classes determines how smart you are? Consider what the grade comparison is in Shop class, or anything mechanically oriented at high school age. Guys (excluding myself!) have this amazingly smart ability to figure out how things work and fix them...an area which makes most smart girls go cross-eyed!
The field definitley makes a big difference! For example, composition is generally acknowledged to be a smart, academic branch of music, and it is hands-down dominated by men. Of the 35 or so comp. majors at my school, about four or five of them were women. Similar ratios are not unusual in music schools around the country. Two of the three girls who started their freshman year with me dropped out after one semester. So that's one field where the men have a corner on the smarts, which is a balance to History and some of the other fields where women hold the upper hand.
In conclusion, I think the sexes are different and any true determination of intelligence can't be made while comparing apples to oranges.
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