ARTICLE: Defining equality

Introduction

What do I mean when I say that men are women are equal? What do I mean by equal?

Sexual dimorphism

Are men and women physically equal? I would say, obviously not. The scientific term for the differences between the male and female of a species is sexual dimorphism. Although different, beyond sexual and reproductive parts, the bodies of male and female human beings are fairly comparable; the differences between the sexes in some animals is considerable. Believe me, men and women’s bodies are physically different-I’ve seen pictures in books and on the Internet.

Average man (even average geek man) is a bit stronger than average woman. In terms of an activity such as climbing Everest, men would typically perform the job a bit better. Same goes for weight lifting or boxing.

So, in purely physical terms, I would say that men and women are not equal. Having said that, they are somewhat comparable in terms of everyday tasks that fall bellow the upper limits of endurance and strength. The physical aspects of operating a computer would be an example of a practical task for which there would be almost no difference between male and female ability.

Mental ability

This begs the question, in what ways are men and women equal? If not physically, are they mentally equal?

The first difficulty facing an attempt to determine if men and women are equal is that we are making a determination about quantitative things. To determine if two things are equal, we must assign a value to them first.

Another difficulty facing any investigation into the parity of male and female mental ability is that what is being measured is not very apparent in practical terms. Physical strength is fairly easy to measure but mental ability is more elusive.

Measuring intelligence

All mental activity can be divided into two categories: intellectual and emotional. Of the two, intellectual ability is the easier to measure. I used the word easier but there is nothing easy about the task of measuring intelligence. Such a study is always fraught with difficulties and the outcome controversial. And rightly so. Intelligence testing falls within the scope of psychology and within psychology, there is no universally accepted intelligence metric.

Before attempting to estimate intelligence, one must first define what intelligence actually is.

For example, a person suffering from an extreme form of autism might find everyday tasks difficult. However, some people, with some types of autism, exhibit a savant capability when presented with specific types of task. Occasionally, a person with autism might have, for example, a greatly developed mathematically faculty. The abilities of such a person might even extend to being able to do very well at the sorts of task that make up an IQ test. So, if a person scores very well on an IQ test, demonstrates great ability on a mathematics test but can’t dress or wash themselves or understand the plot of a soap opera, are they intelligent?

There is a further difficulty in measuring intelligence: Even if psychology were to solve the problem of defining what intelligence is, there would be no instrument that can take a perfect measurement of that quality. The answers on a perfectly filled out test are not intelligence, we would hope that they are the product of an intelligent mind. Whatever intelligence is, it is the product of an internal process and we can only measure the results.

What if I took such a test and when I was tired or nervous? “Only the mediocre mind is constantly at its best”, as someone once said. What if I wanted to get a low score, for some reason?

In summary:

There is no universally accepted definition of what intelligence actually is.
Of the qualities that we tend to consider indicative of intelligence, all measurements are indirect.

This raises the question, is there any hope of arriving at an answer to the question of whether men and women are of comparable intellectual ability? I would say that the problem of reaching a qualified conclusion is not insurmountable. We can start by estimating the type of activity might be good indicator of intellectual ability. Is the result of such a line of enquiry an indisputable one? Of course not, that’s why I said that it was a qualified conclusion.

Academic achievement ought to be a good test of intellectual ability. Examining the statistics for academic achievement in the UK, we find that male and female results, at all levels, are broadly comparable. Actually, the academic results for females in all age groups now average higher than males.

Returning to the main topic of the article, this fact leads us to interesting point in itself: have we already, in one fell swoop, found the answer to the question of whether men and women have the same level of intelligence? The answer is no.

As already stated, academic achievement is not a perfect measure of intelligence, it’s just a convenient one that seems as good as any other. In the UK, there is a correlation between the academic achievement of a child and his or her economic background. If I were make the statement:

Level of academic achievement is the definitive measure of intelligence.

I would also be asserting that rich people must therefore be more intelligent than poor people. It would take a lot to convince me that there is a biological, rather than environmental difference that has caused this discrepancy. Add to this, there have been times in history in which men did far better than women, academically; if the above principle were to be accepted, we would also be implying that men used to be more intelligent but now women are more intelligent.

What if we had chosen something else as our measure of intelligence, such as the number of technological inventions per year? Using this as our measurement variable, it would seem that men are far more intelligent.

By making some estimations about what intelligence is and what might be a good indicator of intelligence we can reach a conclusion that might serve as a rough, qualified answer: it would seem that male and female human beings are probably fairly comparable in terms of how intelligent they are. Women sometimes seem to be ahead, and on other occasions, men seem to be ahead of women. What differences there are seem to be dependant on social factors and environment rather than intrinsic differences; if the differences were biologically intrinsic, why would they alter according to social and environmental factors?

In conclusion: whatever differences there are, they must be small.

Emotional ability

Measuring emotional capacity is even more difficult than measuring intelligence. In common with intelligence, emotional capacity is the product of internal processes so cannot be directly measured. Any observations made of emotional sensibilities are clouded by social and cultural factors. Each day I am told, by TV programs and magazine articles that my romantic sensibilities are curtailed compared to those of a woman. Just like I’m told that my only interests in life are beer, football and sex.

Being practical, there is almost no way of measuring emotion. I am assured by most mainstream, feminist-aligned media that I am, as a man, the lesser of a woman in terms of my emotional capacity. That doesn’t tally with my own experiences of life. When I observe other men, they seem to have emotion. They seem to do things like falling in love and experiencing emotional pain. So the only two reliable guides that I have, my observations of other men and my personal experiences of life, seem to confirm that men are not emotionally unsophisticated. Indiana Jones and James Bond are, but they aren’t real.

Psychology

Hang on though, isn’t it a fact that we are always hearing stories in the media about a new discovery in psychology that proves that men and women are different on some neurological level?

The idea that there is an intrinsic difference between men and women that determines their behaviour is called biological essentialism. This is where I employ a rather non-scientific faculty: that of faith. I’m sure that men and women are equals in all mental things. Whenever there is a stark difference between male and female capabilities there is always a fitting social, rather than biological, explanation that perfectly fits the facts.

If someone tells me that women can’t be as good at computer programming as men, or that crime is the product of male biology, I need only find an example of a single good computer programmer or criminal who is a woman to disprove the assertion.

For example, in 1985 it would have seemed manifestly apparent that men’s brains seemed more suited to technical IT work. In 2007, a greater number of women do good work as computer programmers. So, if the condition of women not being very good at computer programming is brought about by some biological determiner, did the biology of women change over the course of 22 years?

Psychology, neurology and the media

The media often tells us about new discoveries, ones that prove that men and women are significantly neurologically different. On the whole, they are entertaining nonsense.

Psychology is not an exact, definitive science like physics. Within psychology there are many competing schools. Each year, thousands of papers are written by researchers. There is a saying that “even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day”, and this can be readily applied to the relationship between sociological and psychological researchers and the press.

The strange affair of the Corpus callosum

A good example of a fad discovery can be found by looking up something called the Corpus callosum. Basically, in 1982, a set of researchers discovered that an area of the brain, called the Corpus callosum, was larger in women. This piece of neurological material joins together the left and right hemisphere of the brain.

The media leapt on this discovery and began to conjecture on it’s meaning. The prevailing view was that this difference might give women an advantage in what is sometimes termed, multi-tasking, the ability to concentrate on more than one task at once. This supported the notion that men might be better at pursuing a singular task and that a woman’s strength might be in the pursuit of a more eclectic agenda. Much was made of the concept of left-right brain lateralisation. Logically, it was reasoned, the larger Corpus callosum must give a woman a greater balance between emotional and logical sides of her brain.

This folk explanation, that has never been ratified by scientific proof, is still prevalent within the minds of much of the general public. It’s even made it through to some text books.

In the mid 90s, another set of researchers began to re-examine the issue of the Corpus callosum. They discovered that-wait for it-the Corpus callosum is larger in men than in women. The bulk of all current scientific opinion supports the view that the Corpus callosum is (absolutely or relatively) larger in men().typeset@protect @@footnote SF@gobble@opt It’s also worth noting that early discoveries about brain lateralisation have been challenged by recent findings. Certainly, the popular conception of a completely polarised division between left and right brain functions has been depreciated by modern research.() Perhaps this difference endows men with extra ability in certain tasks? Of course not, that would be sexist.

I’m sure that in the 1950s the press would announce that a new finding had been made that proved that women’s brains were more suited to domestic work and family life. Basically, the press pick and choose reports that back up the status quo while providing some entertainment for their readership. Notice that differences that they report never have a conclusion that would show that women would be less suited for any kind of activity or occupational role.