Home Males
are... Our Mind Labels Music Society Interact

Content;; The Female Mind > Females : Intelligence

Intelligence in Females

The age old question is: Which sex is smarter?. As you may know, it is traditionally believed that males are smarter than their counterparts.

There are different characteristics between both the gender’s brains. They are listed below.

  • Brain Size: Men have larger brains than women by about 8-10%.
  • Corpus Callosum Size: Many researchers believe that a woman's brain has a larger corpus callosum, which is the pathway connecting the right and left cerebral hemispheres. Some researchers claim this larger size enables women to process information more quickly than men between the two sides of the brain.
  • Cortical Thickness and Density: Women’s brains possess more folding. Some researchers speculate this is why women’s brains are smaller overall. Brain tissue consists of cell bodies (the gray matter) and the webbing that extends from the cell bodies (the white matter). Each seems to contribute to different intelligences and abilities. White matter tends to contribute to verbal and literary skills while gray matter seems to contribute to mathematical abilities. White matter transfers the information from one hemisphere of the brain to the other, and gray matter processes the brain’s information. Gray matter can be nurtured and developed over time, so there is no need to worry about any biological limitations. A study conducted by the University of California at Irvine among 48 men and women of similar intelligence quotients (as measured by intelligence testing) found that women had nine times more white matter in areas of the brain associated with intelligence than men did, while men had six times more gray matter in the same areas.

    Eighty-five percent of woman’s I.Q. related brain matter was found to be in the front part of the brain while men’s intelligence-related brain matter seemed to be spread rather evenly throughout the brain. Neither gave any advantages, which proved that men’s and woman’s strengths and weaknesses balanced each other out when it came to intelligence.

    The Brain

  • The Motor Cortex: A region of the outer surface of the brain where vervous impulses controlling voluntary muscle activity are initiated.
  • The Visual Cortex:A part of the brain where sight is process and where colour and shapes are recognized, as well as movement of objects.
  • The Sensory Cortex:A part of the btain that receives messages from a sense oragan or messages of touch and temperature.
  • The Frontal Cortex:A region of the brain that generates verbs and is responsible for higher functions like emotion, judgement, problem-solving, creativity and intellect.

    Smart Girls

    Marie Curie, Condoleezza Rice, Sandra Day O'Conner, Oprah Winfrey, Jane Goodall, Sally Ride, J.K. Rowling, Susan Polgar, Rosalyn Yalow, Linda Buck, Katharine Graham, Mary Matalin, Meryl Streep, Dr. Ruth, Maya Lin, Meg Whitman, Pat Summitt, Martha Graham, Bette Davis, Antonia Novello, Allison Fisher, Annie Duke, and Annika Sorenstam.
    And the list goes on...

    Problem Solving

    It is known worldwide that men are by far the more violent sex. I know this sounds really prejudice, but the previous statement is a known fact. Statistics on aggression and anger prove when it comes to conflict, men are in a different league than women.

    Females and their issues

    Even at a very young age, males display aggression more often than females. In 1989, Professor Rita Simon from the Department of Justice, Law and Society at the American University had a stufy looking at the role of sex in violent crimes. This study looked upon homicide rates in 31 countries across a time span of 18 years and found no time of country in which female agression exceeded that of male aggression.
    In 1994, Professor Candace Kruttschnitt in the Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota analysed crime data. Kruttschinitt discovered that in the USA, en commit 85.5% of simple assaults, 87.3% of aggravated assaults, and 88.5% of homicide.

    Recently, girls are getting more violent, but where aggresssion is on an upward trend in girls, the same is true in boys. Both sexes influence each other a lot, so if a certain crime drives in one sex, most likely it is to drive in the other. That driving force is driven out even more with poverty, especially in teens, teens cannot completely deal with the burden so they take out their anger and frustration on others.

    For 30 years, psychologist Dr. Anne Campbell has been studying sex difference in aggression. In Dr. Campbell's studies, she has interviewed women inmates, hung out with girl gangs in New York City, saw some of the most troublesome pubs in inner city areas, run experiments, and measured testosterone attitudes and sex roles. In her recent book, Mind of Her Own, Dr. Campbell suggests that women have a tendency to avd aggressive or risky situations.

    In our study, we asked a group of guys and a group of girls the same problem scenerio and collected the data (coming from their sollution).
    The question is...
    Your closest friend has joined forces with a bully and started some mean and untrue rumours about you. You try to ignore the problem, it doesn't work. Then, you tell your friend and the bully to back off and leave you alone. The bully and your now former friend decide to gang up on you (with some other people) as you are walking home alone from school. What do you do next?

  • Example of female's Solution: I would lecture the bully and tell him/her what he/she did. After I would tell the group that what they are doing hurts me, but I can live. I would tell my former friend that if he/she wants to be my friend at all, then he/she wouldn't do this to me. Then I would walk through them and go home. ~ anonynomous

    A male's solution to this dilemna would be one of these two choices: fight the bullies, or ignore the problem. It depends on the person's living environments, that also influences decision-making..

    • Home Females are... Our Mind Labels Music Society Interact

    Battle of the Sexes - (c) Julia, Celine, Kamilla, Veronika