In what sense are women intellectually different from men?

Question:This is noted in the history that all great philosophers, thinkers and writers have mainly been men. This therefore must have been a concerning thought in the minds of women, as it was not until around seventieth century that women like Jane Austen, George Eliot or Virginia Woolf appeared on literary scene as great poets and novelists.

In my view this is not because women are incapable of thinking in the ways the men can, or that they are intellectually differently wired. I think this is down to the basic role that men and women traditionally assumed for themselves in society for thousands of years.

I think this is due to my theory of home and displacement: Men are traditionally required to go out for battle, hunt, work or travel to encounter a wider world, to be displacement from home as a concept central to the mind. Whereas women stayed home most of the time, and found need of imagining at the same world more challengingly.

I would greatly appreciate your valuable thoughts.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: This is noted in the history that all great philosophers, thinkers and writers have mainly been men. This therefore must have been a concerning thought in the minds of women, as it was not until around seventieth century that women like Jane Austen, George Eliot or Virginia Woolf appeared on literary scene as great poets and novelists.

In my view this is not because women are incapable of thinking in the ways the men can, or that they are intellectually differently wired. I think this is down to the basic role that men and women traditionally assumed for themselves in society for thousands of years.

I think this is due to my theory of home and displacement: Men are traditionally required to go out for battle, hunt, work or travel to encounter a wider world, to be displacement from home as a concept central to the mind. Whereas women stayed home most of the time, and found need of imagining at the same world more challengingly.

I would greatly appreciate your valuable thoughts.

I agree with you that women before were just confined on homes. They all do the household chores while men do the mindworks. That's why there are only a few women who have flourished as great writers. The world before is dominated by men. However, today because of women empowerment and gender sensitivity, women are now occupying the highest seat of the land. One example is our sitting president, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Added to the list is our former president, then President Corazon Coquanco Aguino. We have Margaret Thatcher, and now running a seat for U.S. is Hillary Clinton. So, intellectually women are co-equal to men and through the times they have prove it.

Now, to answer your question as to when is women intellectually different from men is i honestly based it on the capability of rearing a child and doing the financial budget in their homes. Women are good to that being the trustee of the husbands earnings. Nowadays, this is mostly practice especially in Catholic countries were women are the one's entrusted by their husband's hard earned money. The old culture concept had still been transfered from generation to genration. This is where women have the edge intellectually. Anything that deals with homage, it is women who are intellectually capable than men. But because of the advent of Gender Sensitivity, i see that there is no reason men could the job intellectually by men.

Ergo, both are the same intellectually given the opportunity.

Thanks for asking. Have a great day!

there are an equal number of girl child prodigies. so there is something about socialization that prevents women from flowering intellectually.

I think the differences are more hard wired than you assume. We know that male and female brains are physically different on average and social conditioning is not the whole story.

It is a little difficult to philosophize and think about the meaning of life when you have kids pulling on your clothes crying, a house to keep together and meals to cook...plus add in the monthly cycle of hormones to keep the woman off balance...most great thinkers who were female were single...

Now-a-days, in my opinion, what stands in most women's way is unbalanced hormones...after menopause women mellow out and think...some of them that is...

A post menopausal woman is a good leader...

I don't think their intellect is any different, rather it's a matter of focus. Just as women are not inherently better cooks either, but they tend to do more of it than most men, just cause that's how we divide jobs in our society. I think women are generally more emotionally aware than men, which may contribute more to their focus than strict intellect, but they sure have the tool in their toolbox, same as men, in my observation. Well, jury's still out on Ladyhawk, but otherwise, I mean.

i believe women have evolved into men, or think they have,
with the new ladette culture coming soon to a daughter near you!

yes, what happened to the male being the hunter gatherer
( as stated in your question ) that provided for his family, protected them and had a duty of care as a man,

nowadays women have forgotton ( selectively ) what their roles as mothers wifes, etc and want to do everything themselves, ( research single mothers mansion ) soon to be aired in england, where is the world going??

and women think it is almost imperative to punch above their weight and mix it within the male world! and take refuge in telling people, " i am blah blah blah " MD or CEO and think they have made it,

i think it depends on what brief the individual has, what motivates them,

( not that i believe or fully support this ) i just think women have forgotton their function in life since the beginning of time

so as men do we want to re-constitute everything we are and stand for?

Biologically brains are a little different between male & female but about "INTELLECTUAL" matter, what was your question indeed? Did you mean females are low? Or high? (reading your narrations above, I'm afraid you meant women as of low intellectual! Or after knowing from you that women, staying at home always, started 'imagining' the outer world, so they're more imaginative. Does that indicate their more intellectuality than male?)
If I return to the first line of your question i.e. "In what sense..." then I would again mention biology. Because of that, girls are equipped with extra sensory 'something'---you may think it as INTUITION or PROPHECY or Whatever you prefer to call it.
It would take longer time for a boy to know a bad girl; whereas a girl would know (read: sense or smell) a bad boy so early-----that's why, among teens, girls are more intelligent than boys. Intelligence makes someone Intellectual. Now do the math. (by the way, I'm a male.)

I definately agree with you about the differance in roles being a main factor. Now that in most places women enjoy more liberty, they can have a stronger, more defined voice.

Seems to me that when it comes to women of power and influence who are more likely to be heard, the line distinguishing a woman from a man intellectually is starting to disappear. I dunno why this seems to be the case, but something somehow has left that impression in the back of my mind. Feel free to disagree.

I couldn't agree more.

I would just like to elaborate a bit.

Men have taken advantage of the tenderness of body and mind of the women in order to keep them tied down at home overly occupied with the needs of bearing and rearing children, leaving little headroom for intellectual pursuits or even thoughts. Whatever intellectual capabilities could at all manifest, the results could not travel outside the four walls of the home she was confined to...... and if at all they were to, the man took them to the world outside and grabbed the credit for it coolly. And this is happening even today in numerous families.

Somewhere along the line, the difference in the structure and role of the physical bodies of man and woman did have a major impact in the respective societal roles allotted to men and women. In other words, the 'nature' provided a major loophole for men to take undue advantage of.

As and when any woman has ventured out intellectually, I have no hesitation to proclaim that the outcome has invariably been of superior understanding and insight, especially in the field of literature or social sciences.

Till you have found yourself feeding the new-born while changing the 1 year old and the 3 year old is pounding on your leg to get your attention you have not tested your theory! I have been with large familys many times, and believe me when I say, "Women are special beyond measure!!! Men feel that many children around are a treasure, then they want to play pirate!"

You might want to review book dedications, well, ever hear, "Behind Every great Man there is a Woman?"

ME!

By the by, I know several Women authors who have a Male Pen Name! Post your full theory, and we'll see if we can make catfood out of your dogma for you... I have always felt that any good theory needs to be turned white hot a few times to get the proper temper to it, don't you?
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Scientific comparisons of male & female intelligence have shown that on average men & women are equally intelligent. However, these same tests showed that there are more highly-intelligent men than women - but this is balanced by there also being more extremely stupid men than women.

If you did a little digging, you might be able to find a reference verifying this. It might explain your observation.

I tend to agree that it's due to different roles as we were evolving.

There are other possible reasons:

1. Men tend to think in a more logical, spatially-oriented type of way than women do; it could be that men & women are equally intelligent, but it's just men are better in the fields more likely to get them noticed (science, engineering, philosophy)

2. Of course, you could always claim patriarchal suppression of women...

Women seem to naturally understand on a gut level most of the things that men pontificate on.

The great revelations that men often come to and seek to promote through their writings are essentially built in native common sense to many women.

This assumption comes from my dealings and conversations with women over the years. I guess that it is possible that I have only been exposed to/talked to women who were geniuses but somehow I doubt it.

Granted there are some deeply confused women out there but to me these usually seem to be the ones who think the most like men.

Love and blessings Don

Oh yes, I think we are different from men in every way. I do acknowledge a history of an intellectual gender hierarchy , however. But after saying that I admit I do believe that this hierarchy was developed through ages of role designation and limitation.
Somehow,through these generations of suppression and oppression women have managed to retain a broader interest in more subjects than men. Women are able now to develop their interests and their capacity for the traditionally male occupations and vocations.
I do not base my ideas on any studied philosophy. It has merely been my experience and observation within my own colleagues, friends and family for the past fifty years.The men I know are far narrower in their choice of reading material, their choice of entertainment and their choice of career.
Women are far more adventuress. Women read everything, do everything, watch everything. Men are not as flexible. They seem to want to stay within their confined areas of what is known as masculine. Where as women are more likely expected to expand into the traditional male arena. There are exceptions of course but not so many.
I am sure there have been studies to uphold or disqualify this belief, and these very limited observations. It would be interesting to know how wrong or right I am.

Women's place in society was strictly limited for thousands of years - when Jane Austen came onto the scene she was taking part in a literary genre (novels) which were at the time mainly a famale pursuit and therefore more accepytable for her to write in successfully.

There is no difference in male and female intellect; it is their success that is in question and that is due to social acceptance.

Women think more emotionally than men do. This can be a good thing or a bad one. What I observe often is that many women don't know how to channel their emotions into something productive. They let the emotions take control. Sometimes that's necessary, I think, to get a point across. I think you're right, most great people in history in general have been men because women were always seen as having their role in the home and not much more. Hence the upheaval in the 60's when lots of women realized they wanted more and started going to college after having been housewives for years. Women and men both have great capacity for intellect, they just have different ways of thinking. Lots of women just don't know how to keep their emotions in check...

There is reasonable evidence to suggest that the brains function differently, in that women's brains make more left/right brain connections. Most differences are culturally determined, for example the idea that women are more emotional than men. When I see news footage of men rioting, beating their breasts, screaming for vengeance or shouting at each other, am I seeing evidence to suggest that men are not emotional? Women use language more flexibly and fluently, it is men who allow their emotions to rule them.

There exists differences indeed but not in that of intelligence or intellectual potential and capacity: in that regard proper, they are surely equivalent.

And, what are the thresholds to be brought to bear? We must know this...

Intelligence is potential untapped, is all, malleable and elastic, just as are genes. Like that of mercury in a thermometer, it may rise and fall, yet with some measure of a level of default, but in any case is intellect subject to both engrams and environ, and these influences should not be thought strange as much as different expressive takes activating around the same seed or core, all of which expressions are stationed at varying levels and depths, which are pre-set but not irreversibly fixed; some are more steady-state or, say, entrenched, yes, to fulfill of certain purposes. Man and woman express these states and levels, which are what we come to know as either Man or woman. That's all.

There are as many influences that distinguish women from men as there are men from women; only these are more noticeable in the one from the other and more precise and would 'appear' more irrevocable, for which no excuses or rationlizations are warranted. For none is needed. But that is not the case in terms of intelligence proper; that is -- this not the case regarding intelligence in itself. It is what it is no matter be it woman or man. Intent comes differently in women and men, which is well askew of intellect or intelligence proper.

How intelligence in the two expresses does differ markedly, yes, but this is still ado with mitigating factors, not with any lacking or bounty of innate acuity. There are considerable innate mechanical factors that bear upon intelligence, which distinguish women from men, and scarcely is this a matter and measure on superiority or inferiority, for such difference does not exist save for the wefting and warping brought by surges of all manner. Intelligence and intellect are tied to live accords and forces, attached to sentient beings.

That of intelligence -- as purported to be endowed in one more than in the other -- would be so much jelly where one would put this forward. There exists more to what goes on in the brain of woman or man than mere intelligence alone -- vastly greater things in fact.

One's brain acuity is like that of a core around which all manner of mitigators and conditions -- within and without --are brought to bear and which shape and form expressions. It is likened to a peach where in the center is the pit and seed, and on the outer periphery is the meat of the fruit -- or call it expression. However, in the human being there is still a distinction in this analogy here: the woman or man share the same seed core, with all but identical mental acuity but whose outer expressions differ as markedly as does an apple from a peach.

And in fact even this is a poor metaphor, so distinctive is man from woman -- but again, not in terms of administering intellectual or intelligible feats. The deepmost design is considerably a determinant. There is just that something in the two genders that no matter what, there will manifest mark differences. 'Has nothing to do with that raw form that is intelligence proper, which has more ado with the rate of frequency a brain or mind carries on a specific focal point or a general rest point and steady-state as determined by certain considerably deep factors: these are of a raw energy -- and such essence is indeed equivalent in women and men.

Queen of Wands gets it.

Women are usually so busy making sure the next generation exists, that they don't typically have time to write their thoughts on the meaning of existence.

The Darwinian reasons for gender traits remains intact. The aggressive logic of masculinity remains suited for resource acquisition be it on the battlefield or in the boardroom. The compassionate nurturing of femininity remains suited to the all important task of turning children into adults.

The feminizing of our sons, & masculinizing or our daughters, by Feminists & Liberals in search of an EQUAL society, has been a great disservice to our Darwinian ability to compete.

Single motherhood remains incredibly hard. Trading the role of Soccer mom for Corporate CEO just means women smart enough to be CEOs will have few if any children. The result is simply fewer intelligent children.

I am glad that societal affluence gives women more time to write & share their philosophic views. But I am saddened that childless lunatics like Virginia Woolf are so often portrayed as role models, and that the Darwinistic sanity of gender cooperation is so often displaced by the Feminist paranoia of sweeping male conspiracies.

The previous posters have done a wonderful job of answering your question, I'd only like to point out that we are now in the Age of Aquarius, what ever that means...