Counterpoint

[andrewducker]

I remembered that diotina sent me this link last week, about perceptions of IQ across gender. Some nice quotes:

An analysis of some 30 studies by British researcher Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London, shows that men and women are fairly equal overall in terms of IQ. But women, it seems, underestimate their own candlepower (and that of women in general), while men overestimate theirs.

Both sexes believe that their fathers are smarter than their mothers and grandfathers are more intelligent than their grandmothers.

[both] men and women think their sons are brighter than their daughters.

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Whereas I am quite the opposite. It seems obvious to me that my mother and grandmother are the cleverest people in my family, and my daughter is way more academic than my son (though I'd hesitate to say cleverer).

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

Thinking of my own experience only, my mother would wipe the floor with my father in terms of language skills. Likewise he would wipe the floor with her in mathematical / practical skills.

Listening to them talk about their childhood, my mother speaks of being encouraged towards more traditionally feminine subjects at school and about not much being expected. My father by contrast talks about being pushed towards science and technology.

Growing up, both parents encouraged me towards maths / science as for whatever reason (their own experiences as above, an attempt to avoid gender stereotypes are a couple that spring to mind) they placed more value on that type of intelligence.

As a result I placed more value on that type of intelligence and thus considered my father brighter than my mother.

It was only really when I got to my mid teens that I realised that the view I was encouraged to take was skewed and that in actual fact, my mother & father are fairly evenly matched (and furthermore, that it's okay that I don't want to be a mathematician).

As a result of being 'non-technical' and 'lacking mathematical ability' my mother won't wire a plug, perform rudimentary car maintenance or perform any technical DIY task. She says she can't and my dad does it for her.

My father doesn't seem burdened by the same self-doubt.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

*Sighs*

It's disgusting really.

In my case my mother is probably smarter, but my dad is definitely more artistically talented and I seem to have gotten most of my talents from him. Apart from my talent for attracting old men to talk to me at bars/in queues. That I got from my mum. I also got my laziness from my mother though, which is why she never amounted to anything academically despite being easily the smartest kid in the family on the basis of raw intelligence.

I doubt my grandfather is smarter than my gran. He's got more education, but given that my gran is just as good at crosswords/etc without an English degree and was using a computer a decade before he was, even back in the days of MSDOS, I'd guess she's just as bright if not more so.