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A few years ago, Harvard University president, Lawrence Summers, has been harshly criticized for suggesting that the under-representation of women in engineering and some scientific fields may be due in part to inherent differences in intellectual abilities. Moreover, if you look at the history, you may find that most of the leaders of science, technology, philosophy and politics were men! This is while it has been shown that the average IQ is the same among both genders. The main purpose of this post is to seek for the reasons of this fact.
Scientists claim that there are many differences between men’s and women’s brain. ”Among people who do the research, it’s not so controversial. There are lots and lots of studies that show that men’s and women’s brains are different,” says Richard J. Haier, a professor of psychology in the pediatrics department of the University of California, Los Angeles medical school.
In recent years, neuroscientists have found that male and female brains are wired differently because of the role of testosterone and other male hormones during gestation. Brains growing under the influence of male hormones are slightly larger and have denser concentrations of neurons in some regions. Male brains also contain a greater proportion of gray matter, the part of the brain responsible for computation, while women have relatively more white matter, which specializes in making connections between brain cells. Intelligence tests have found that men, on average, perform better on spatial tasks that require mentally manipulating objects. Men also do better on tests of mathematical reasoning. Women tend to do better on tasks requiring verbal memory and distinguishing whether objects are similar.
Nevertheless, this is not the case! We can’t judge single individuals by the statements above! Moreover, these tell us that we must see women on top of many fields, including linguistics. While we know that most of the linguists are men.
I believe that, curiosity, hard working, aspiration and being optimist are four absolutely essential things to be at the top of anything.
Undeniably, women work so hard. To my experience, they do quite well in research groups. They obtain great placements both in university entrance exams and during their studies. However I think that they are less curious and that is because they can’t risk much. They are also less optimist. This will cause a less consistency that forces them to leave the job, exactly when they are just one step to their goal! More important, generally men aim much higher than women. You rarely see a woman, deciding to solve a hard mathematical open problem! However, there are many among men. An old adage says think global, act local; I say think global, act global!
Update 15-May: Take a look at the first comment I’ve dropped for this post, (a reply to Mehrdad’s comment) to see another reason. I believe that it is the most important one!
