Are men, by nature, smarter than women?

Question

hellionthesagereborn · Accepted Answer

Statistically men are smarter BUT they are also less smart. In short you have far more male genius's then female ones but you also have more male idiots then female ones. The reason is because with males evolutionary strategy is different, their are far more routes to acquiring a mate then their are for women. Women need to 1. be able to actually give birth to the offspring and survive (this is why her body and physical features matter, they are all indicators of increased survivability in child birthing (in fact the "bubble butt", is so desired because the bend in the vertabre that causes it helps distribute weight during pregnancy to act essentially as a counter balance. This means less joint stress and greater mobility during pregnancy which historically meant greater survival), and 2. Nurture the child until such a time they are ready to survive on their own. So this narrows the criteria for women to be rather basic in nature. For men however, they can be smart or strong or what have you because for men the goal is 1. Have good genes (so good looks means good genetics and thus by extension good health which will be passed onto the child), 2. Have resources (this means he has to be able to acquire food shelter etc. for the woman and the offspring so this can come in him being a hard worker or being very clever) 3. Be able to defend and protect her and the offspring. So For women the need to be intelligent is not really their as a primary driver of her genetic survival, its tertiary and it definitely doesn't hurt but its not a necessity which is why statistically women have a very narrow intelligence distribution (i. e. the overwhelming majority of women are average intelligence). For men however, he can have good genes (pretty boy), be strong and aggressive (protector), or great at resource gathering/acquisition (persistence, drive, and intelligence). So basically nature has more avenues for men to acquire a mate then it does for women hence men being both statistically more likely to be intelligent and also less intelligent then women.

englisc · Accepted Answer

No. Men and women have the same average IQ scores. However they they arrive at that average is different. For women the majority of them are around the average. With men there is actually more variance between the male scores, with more men at the top and bottom. So basically, there are more male geniuses as well as more male idiots.

You can see examples of this everywhere. Most of the things we rely on today we invented by men. There are more men at the top of society, but also more men at the bottom e. g. men make 90% of the homeless. Even on here you'll see that most of the ridiculously stupid questions are asked by men.

There are differences in the way men and women think though too. These differences are easily seen and it should be common sense, but they're also shown in personality tests such as the MTBI test. Women tend to think more based on feelings than logic, and men more on logic than feelings.

Look at the jobs men and women tend to choose. Some say that this has to do with social conditioning and gender stereotypes, but those stereotypes come from our nature anyway.

In countries like Sweden for example they heavily focus on feminism and trying to equalise men and women by pushing more women into typically male dominated careers and more men into typically female dominated careers. So men and women in these countries have more choice than in other countries. Yet in these countries with more freedom of choice, MORE women CHOOSE typically female dominated careers, and MORE men CHOOSE typically male dominated careers. Nurses still tend to be 90% female, and engineers still tend to be 90% male.

Women tend to choose careers based on caring for people, nursing, teaching, childcare, anything to do with dealing with people - which require high emotional intelligence. Men tend to choose careers more logically/practically based - engineering, mechanics, construction, business (numbers).

Men tend to be smarter than when it comes to logic, women tend to be smarter when it comes to emotion/socially.

yoshi_wanna_ask · Accepted Answer

I think guys are naturally have more mathematical, strategic and problem solving intelligence and women have a naturally higher environmental (world around them), social and perceptive (how things affect each other/cause & effect) intelligence. There's always going to be cross over with different nature/nurture and peoples developmental hormone levels but it becomes pretty clear people have different kinds of intelligences.

HiHelloHowdyHiyah · Accepted Answer

I clicked no but it all really depends because I met some not so bright females. And I had smarter male professors than females. But then again when I put a smart male against a smart female I think the males would lose because the female would be 10 steps ahead of him hahaha

The1Guy · Answer

Yes, but women are wiser.
Statistically, you can compare men and women by high academic achievments and you'll find that men are the majority. But it's not that simple, because if you look into a lower achiebment bracket, you may find women in the majority.

There are a lotof factors thatplay into this. But by nature men are generally smarter and more creative than women because they tend to take more risks and play around with their chosen subjects, they are more goal oriented, if they have goals and are more willing to sacrifice themselves for their chosen goals.

But women are much more down to earth and practical. They seem to breathe life's wisdom to the point that they don't feel the need to discover it. It comes naturally to them.

Sadly this wisdom has not been valued enough or measured. If it had been, we might have lived in a very different world.

In the end, the best thing is a combination of the two. The most successful people are in fact most successful couples. It's just, that the woman by nature chooses to be behind the man, safer, but feeds him her ideas and desires, cheering him on to achieve what she wants for the both of them. And he can take even more risks, knowing, that she'll be waiting for him in an emotionally warm and stable home, created by her.

They benefit together by utilising each others strengths.

lumos · Answer

Yes and no. Intelligence in males swing in extremes. There are more highly intelligent men than there are women, but also more highly unintelligent men than women. Which means that the average woman is more likely to be intelligent than the average male. So if intelligence is described with a bell curve, with low intelligence being on one end and high intelligence being on the other, the curve for men would be broader and lower, and for women it would be narrower and higher. Like this:

At the ends you can see men scoring both worse and better than women, meaning that in extreme cases, men are both smarter and dumber than women. But as for the average, women score higher.

hahahmm · Answer

No. But in general women tend to want to nurture/cuddle & do things men don’t find “constructive”. Apparently this goes way back in time as a recent study of baby baboons in the wild showed that males preferred to play with toy cars (trying to figure out how the wheels worked) while females preferred to hug stuffed dolls.

That said it’s a spectrum. The smartest woman is as smart as the smartest guy. The dumbest guy is as dumb as the dumbest woman. Also things are skewed by the fact that a woman can get ahead with some guys by *pretending* to be dumb.

CubsterShura · Answer

I don't think so. I mean, tablecloths exist because someone invented them so that men don't get turned on by them sexy tables legs, sooooooooo

Jk that's a myth 😂 I do find it harder to think men are smarter for several reasons. Objectively, the 'average' smartness is the same for both men and women. But if you look deeper, more men tend to be on the best and worst ends whereas more women tend to be in-between. So there are definitely more men among the SMARTEST of people, no doubt in that. But overall, like I said, it's pretty much the same.

SuperManiac · Answer

From what I understand of IQ and areas like aptitude in science and math (although I think intelligence goes far beyond this), what tends to happen is that the averages between the two sexes are roughly the same, meaning your average man and woman are about equal here.

But the nature of the bell curve, and what happens on the extreme ends, is quite different, where men are grossly over-represented at both the worst (the "dumbest", i. e.) and the best (the "smartest"). On the flip side, the person with the highest recorded IQ ever in the world is a woman: Marilyn vos Savant. All I take from this is not to generalize a person based on their sex, and account for the wild differences from one individual to the next. But it might explain some of the statistical disparities in outcomes between the two sexes.

Ámayas_20 · Answer

No. We know men and women on average have the same general intelligence while there is differences in what types of intelligence, for example, women tend to have better memories and view things with more emotions causing them to see things deeper while men tend to view things more logically and precise so want to solve the individual issues and have better spacial awareness and many more differences. We do know however that if you have a genius they're more likely to be male but if you have a complete idiot they're also more likely to be male while women are more clustered around the average.

lightbulb27 · Answer

Define the word smart?

I suspect we in general have strengths in certain areas whereas women have strengths in other areas... based upon how we are madeup and what we had to learn to survive.

for example, females are more emotionally attuned than men and can in general read emotion quicker, and more sensory all around. Men can be more focused upon objects. It take some research and science to chart out and map this all out...

I have no idea... never thought about it. I do not see patterns in math and science... logic.

it could be it is just a matter of how ones mind/brain is madeup and luck of the draw genes and personality.

PositiveNote · Answer

Smarter at what? It's proven that men can handle some brain work better than women, but women have all the advantage! You can access different parts of the brain all at the same time while men are still stuck in 1st gear. If you give men longer time, they will often come up with the same answers, but women out pace a decision by a man every time if they have all the info they need to process it.

Then, of course, a polite woman will stifle her answer until her man figures it out and tell him he is very smart. A polite man knows that she had the answer the whole time and says, "Thanks."

oddwaffle · Answer

No. Men take more risks and tend to be more decisive in making uncertain situations.

This lead to more visible and noticable successes, giving the image of the successful man. However, they also experience crippling losts and doesn't have a higher success ratio than women. People just tend to remember the successful men and ignore the men who didn't make it.

Women tend to be more conservative and rarely take on risky gambles. They have less big wins and visible successes but also a lot less failures

Blightly · Answer

Let me preface this with "no offense, facts and research can be offensive at times esp at this day and age". Also determining what is smart is much more difficult than determining what is intelligent. These are not one in the same. However, male brains are more specialized for problem solving as opposed to women's brains which have much greater connectivity between the two hemispheres.

mrArcher · Answer

Men and women have different types of intelligence. Men can disonnect thoughts from emotions and their thoughts are usually not intertwined, unlike women. When women think, they think about EVERYTHING. Everything is connected in women's brains. As a result, women are better at multitasking or tasks that require multiple perspectives, such as management, directing or nursing. Men, however can focus on something for hours, because they never worry about two things at once. As a result, men are better engineers, handcrafters, surgeons or whatever needs great focus.

We're not smarter than one another, we complement one another.

DWornock · Answer

It depends on the subject. If it is math, computers, engineering, science, or logic, it's not even close. However, women tend to be smarter at deception, language, and social skills. Girls on average, certainly have better grades in K through 12 public schools.

The fact is men and women are different and have different values. Men are far more expendable than women. Kill 95% of men and in 20 years or one generation, the population is restored. Kill 95% of the women and it will take more than 100 years, four or five generations, for the population to be restored.

Daniel3035 · Answer

It depends on the area of intelligence in terms of direction and leadership stuff like war tactics hunting all those things men are more intelligent in. If you mean stuff like collecting, cooking sort of keeping a habitat clean safe organised etc thats women. BUT because we mate and mix dna we pass on those genes to so what females have men have but not always women because men have XY women only get XX it's only when you have a boy to a girl does it pass on. So basically both genders have the potential to be smarter girls harder. On average men tend to have more intelligence it unfortunately shows on the dating front especially with reasoning but women can also be more intelligent.

Kiran_Yagami · Answer

No, men are by nature more extreme than women. Women on a statistical level cluster more around average intelligence. Men also cluster around average, but also have a high concentration on the extremes than women do. There are more male geniuses than female geniuses, but there are also more male idiots than female idiots. Men tend to favor extremes more than women do in almost all things. Competition, earnings, risk taking, IQ, and creativity. That's why there are more male CEOs than female CEOs, but also more male convicts than female convicts.

EpicDweeb · Answer

Not smarter, but more logical. Men feel emotion less powerfully thus it is less of an influence on the way we think, for better or worse. I'm of the belief that sometimes that which is logical is not that which is right and I think it's good that men and women have different ways of thinking through things. I think men and women are equally intelligent as a general rule but they work through things differently.

Ellie-V · Answer

I don’t know. I’ve met many idiots, some of them with penises and some of them with vaginas.

markscott · Answer

Men by nature are different from women, and often have different strengths in their intelligence compared to many women. But women have their own strengths in their intelligence compared to men. Both are equally intelligent, is some of the same ways, and in some different ways.

Whaler · Answer

I found very little research on this. However, on what I have found is that if we compare the IQ average of women and men, men have slightly higher IQ then a women does. However, I don’t believe this study took into consideration the race of both genders as yes, that does have a big role in the tests. All races have been found to have a much different IQ range. Furthermore, if we look into memory of both men and women, men have a shorter memory than a women does.

spacePirate · Answer

It's all relative to the person and situation that would measure the intelligence. woman are better multitaskers yes but I've met women who had thought Walt Disney was just a studio and not a real person... does this mean all woman are dumb? No. But those ones were, so again I just think went it comes to this particular matter you can't generalize an entire gender based on statistics

SirRexington · Answer

No. We evolved to have different roles and have different intrinsic skills and traits. Women see color better than men. Men are typically more agressive and have sturdier bones and muscle mass. The parts of our brains that we use are different. This is so we can focus on certain tasks that we evolved to be more inclined to do.

Neither is smarter than the other, of course there are individuals smarter than other individuals regardless of gender.

AlexanderBrunnrgaard · Answer

There are studies done on this so it's just to check them out. As I recall it depends on what area we're talking about. Men are on the general more logical and capable of seeing the big picture, on the other hand it is known that women mature emotionally faster than men.

Bananaman177 · Answer

I think women can be as stupid or as intelligent as they want and still succeed in society either way.

Men can be smart or stupid, but stupid men don't get to succeed.

So more men choose to put in more effort, and more women choose not to put in any effort.

That's all I think it is.

ClearCyan · Answer

It's a yes and no statistically. Men have more highly intelligent individuals but also more mentally impaired individuals than women on a bell curve Where women more strongly fall in the middle with intelligence.

Ydurxifxkgc · Answer

Sexism at it's finest. Of course not, people of all genders can be equally smart. I am a woman in science and these sort of stereotypes really hurt me. I have a bachelor's in mathematics and a masters in data and web science. I was always good in math and science and I graduated all of my classes with honors. These opinions are just plain offensive...

HumansExist · Answer

Uh... I mean, there's different types of intelligence, but apparently it's dependant on the person.
Women have a IQ that similar to one another, while men can vary drastically -some being more stupid than women in the eyes of an IQ test and some being smarter than women on an IQ test... so, it varies between person to person.
Though, this information I read back a couple of years ago, and I'm not entirely sure if it is or even was accurate, but yeah.

incelposting · Answer

Females are far more impulsive, childish, selfish, emotional, sadistic, sociopathic with no ability to be introspective. Their achievements are limited to birthing great men, and anything they have achieved otherwise pales in comparison to what men have.

Gavyn · Answer

In a way, yes. Generally, women's IQ averages around the middle, whereas men's IQ generally averages oo either the low-end of the spectrum or the high-end of the spectrum. This means that men are more likely to either fail or outdo most women, rather than the common belief of vice-versa.

simplyaramdomgirl · Answer

Male and female brains are wired differently. We have different types of smarts and abilities. While women may be smarter at compartmentalizing and multi-tasking, men are by nature better navigators. It all depends on what you're considering.

ThisAndThat · Answer

No men are not. Some men will be smarted than some women and some women will be smarter than some men. More often men are more inventive because men are more hands on and active in physical things like exploration and sciences while women are more active in things like social activities etc.

VikingWarLord · Answer

Depends on the age. Seems women mature faster, but then as men age, they blow past women.
I have gone on a ton of dates with chics over the years and usually they have nothing to say of any substance and when you start a convo of something intellectual, they have the attention span of a gnat or flea.

Warmapplecrumble · Answer

The answer is neither.

Men think differently in different situations. Women think differently in different situations. They both are smart at different things.

Also smart could mean many things, it depends on what you define as smart.

Amanda269 · Answer

Men are generally better in a lot of ways. One of them is logical thinking and building deep non-bullshit friendship. Women is better at emotional management and community building.

Syrian_survivor · Answer

No, men have less brainpower in my opinion.

BUT men know how to handle it more, how to organize it, how to excute it properly, how to see things more logically than emotionally and make the right, safe, steady decisions, they don't waste it on useless things like most women do.

So in terms of intelligence, women are more intelligent, but in terms of putting that intelligence into good use, men definitely make more out of what they have, and more than most women ever do.

bamesjond0069 · Answer

Yes and no. The average is about the same but the range for men is far greater. So that means most women are average intelligence while about half of men are very high level smart and half are dumb as a box of rocks. So that means the typical smart man is smarter than the typical smart woman. But the average overall is the same. So sometimes in practice on a single one on one level it can seem like men are smarter and in a way of looking at it they are.

ironicrisis · Answer

I've met super intelligent women and idiotic males and vice versa. Rockey technology, radioactive materials and modern day computing technology have had contributions by men and women. Neither is better than the other and neither can survive without the other regardless of how self righteous we as a species can be.

JP_Man · Answer

It's not how any of this works! Men and women have, by nature gender related types of things they enjoy, appreciate and tend to be more performing in different things. Being smart is not related to gender or "race" it also strongly depends on interests of people. Also, lots of people mix being intelligent with having a good memory witch is not the same.

Dargil · Answer

No and I am by no means a Feminist. Women are wired and gifted differently from men. Sure, there's overlap but the stereotypes about men with spatial and math ability and women with attention to fine detail and the ability to multitask are true.

Grobmate · Answer

From everything I've read there is absolutely no difference in intelligence between the two. Men tend to be more logically driven and industrious minded and women tend to be more emotionally and organizationally minded.

KTsnugglez · Answer

Well neither configuration of gears, even if properly toothed and meshed together, could even spin. So whoever drew that art male or female wasn't all that bright

Plumizz · Answer

By nature, men and physically stronger than women but I don't know about being smarter, where are the stats. I know women end up going to college more often but dont know any stats that would prove this theory or be against it for that matter.

SkipStop · Answer

No. We are equally smart but in different areas. It's similar to gender roles. Men are built to be leaders and fighters while women are made to nurture and assist.

BadApple1 · Answer

Absolutely not! In fact women are better at multi-tasking then men. I am a electrical engineer and I consider myself pretty smart! But my wife is a scientist! And can kick my ass in math and science.

FakeName123 · Answer

Men have more brain-mass and a higher variety - meaning men are more likely to be located in either extreme side of the spectrum (more male retards, more male geniuses). Additionally men have a higher partical intelligence.

So kinda is a yes.

lucasnabizada · Answer

I reckon studies have indicated no difference in mental capacities on a general scale.
Just that women are a bit more orderly and men a bit more industrious. That's what I read, but nothing differing them in cognitive abilities

nerms123 · Answer

Yeah way smarter because they have two heads instead of one 😂

Allebana · Answer

I don't think one gender is smarter than the other because I'm not sure how to make a fair comparison and each individual is unique 🤷

EriFrancis1994 · Answer

I don't think so. I think that historically, men were given more of an opportunity to display their intelligence

TomBham · Answer

Good question.

I think, main problem is that we think and look at thinks differently.

'if you will rate everyone by ability to climb the tree, fish will feel very stupid' ( or something similar, main point is there) I think it is Einsteins quote.

IreallyhateGAG · Answer

Not necessarily I think more conservative women are as smart as men the women who are not as smart are the ones who tend to be far left liberals who think with their heart strings and not with their brains

NineBreaker · Answer

I am a proponent of different types of intelligence. Certain types are more prevalent in one gender more than the other.

DanishSaint · Answer

Nope. Not by a long shot... I don´t think either women or men are smarter by nature, but if I HAD to pick either. I would say women are smarter than men!!

Curmudgeon · Answer

I have seen studies that indicate that this is true, but it comes at the price of autism, which is much more common in males than females.

Passinggas · Answer

I see it irl including professionally. The smartest women that I know have their fortes and those differ from the men’s. There truly is complementary intelligence between men and women.

girlfriend45 · Answer

it just depends on something some things yes other things no

ImagineSketchy · Answer

No. We are however more inquisitive and willing to explore the unknown. The experience we accumulate can make us more wise by comparison.

mariaboulos · Answer

I don't think so, women use 11% more neurons than men (source) And have can multi-task easily while men struggle to do more than two things at a time

ariadneR · Answer

50/50. I believe that each sex is smarter in different areas.

YHL6965 · Answer

I don't think so. Besides, the question is far too complex to answer. Intelligence encompasses a lot of factors and skills that would be way too complicated to measure and compare in a scientific manner.

jjsyke · Answer

Men on average have larger brains but women use them more effectively

Adam1978 · Answer

But our intelligence is different mostly because of cultural training.

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