Gender Equivalence

(c) 2007 Michael Reed

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; whereas, 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 going to be a bit stronger than average women. I would say that in terms of an activity such as climbing Everest, men would probably 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. Although, having said that, they are quite comparable and very 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 any attempt to determine if men and women are equal, is that we are making a logical determination about quantitative things; to say that two things are equal, we must assign a value of some sort 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 easiest to measure. I used the word easiest but there is nothing easy about the task of measuring intelligence; such an endeavour is always fraught with difficulties and any possible outcome is bound to be controversial. And rightly so. Intelligence testing falls within the scope of psychology and within psychology, there is no universally accepted intelligence measure. Before even 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 this person can score very well on an IQ test, can demonstrate 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: Let us say that we were to arrive at a divine, irrefutable definition of what intelligence is and from this information we were to develop the ultimate IQ test. Having done this, we would then be faced with another problem: what do we measure? The answers on a perfectly filled out test are not intelligence, we would hope that they are the product of an intelligent mind. Even if psychology had solved the problem of defining intelligence, there is no instrument that can take a perfect measurement of that quality.

Whatever intelligence is, it is the product of an internal process. We could only ever hope to measure the results.

What if I were to take such a test and I wanted to get a low score? It would be quite easy to effect this subterfuge by putting some wrong answers down, even in cases in which I really knew the answer. What if rushed the test? What if I were nervous? “Only the mediocre mind is constantly at its best.”, as someone once said.

In summary:

• There is no universally accepted definition of what intelligence actually is.
• Of the qualities that we tend to consider indicative of intelligence, any measurement must be an indirect one.

This raises the question, is there any hope of arriving at any type of answer to the question of whether men and women are of potentially comparable intellectual ability? I would say that the problems of reaching a qualified conclusion are not insurmountable. We can start by making an estimation of the type of activity that we think is a good indicator of intellectual ability. Is the result of such line of enquiry ever going to be perfect and indisputable? Of course not; that’s why I said that it was a qualified conclusion. It’s the best we can hope for in such a matter.

Academic achievement ought to be a good test of intellectual ability. Examining the statistics for academic achievement in the UK and we find that male and female results, at all levels, are broadly comparable. Actually, females in all age groups now average measurably 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 an overwhelming correlation between the academic achievement of a child and his or her economic background. If we were make the statement,

“Level of academic achievement is the definitive measure of a person’s intelligence.”

we 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 physical, rather than environmental difference that has caused the discrepancy between the academic attainment of kids from a poor background and those from a more privileged background. 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 making the statement 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 both what intelligence might be and what might be a good indicator of intelligence we can reach a conclusion that might be 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 circumstance and environment rather than intrinsic differences; if the differences were biologically intrinsic, why would they alter according to circumstance?

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

Emotional Ability

The problem of measuring emotional capacity is similar to, but more difficult than, the problem of measuring intelligence. In common with intelligence, emotional capacity is the product of internal processes so cannot be directly measured. More than intelligence, however, any observations made of emotional sensibilities of a person are clouded by the myths of our culture. I’m told, everyday, by TV programs and magazine articles that, for example my romantic sensibilities are less than those of a woman. Just like I’m told that my main interests in life are beer (gave up drinking when I was 20), football (don’t like sport) and sex (OK, I get pleasure from sexuality).

The last one is interesting because I do conform to the cultural stereotype that, as a man, I am interested in sex and sexual things. Actually, I have that in common with nearly every other living thing. I don’t see why there is anything crass about my level of sexual interest; there is nothing crass about a woman having sexual interest.

So, being practical, there is almost no way of ‘measuring’ emotion. All one can do is look around make estimations. 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 but that doesn’t tally with my own experiences of life. When I observe other men, they seem to, outwardly, have emotion. They seem to do things like falling in love and experience hurt feelings too. 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 often hear stories in the media about a new discovery in psychology has proven that men and women are different on some psychological 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. It’s a theory that seems to work as a fitting explanation for nearly every situation that I have ever experienced or studied. Differences in men and women that seem readily apparent always turn out to be entirely dependant on situation and circumstance.

For example, in 1985 it would have seemed manifestly apparent that men’s brains seemed more suited to technical IT work. But even in 1985, some women seemed to have an aptitude for computer programming. 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

But what is the explanation for the new discoveries - that seem to prove that men and women are neurologically different in some fundamental way - that are constantly being announced by the press? They’re entertaining nonsense.

Psychology is not an exact, definitive science like physics. Within psychology there are always 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.

I’m sure that in the 1950’s the press would often 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 and provide some entertainment for the readership. Funny how these 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.