Just to be clear though, the claim is not that men are ‘more intelligent’ than women. It is that men have greater variance. This means more geniuses and more morons. It only carries value connotations if you believe more variance is inherently ‘better’, not if you believe higher intelligence is better. If you look at the scandal over Larry Summers’ comments on this issue you will see that the vast majority of people who were offended by his comments did not understand this distinction.
The question isn’t necessarily whether men in general are better than women in general. The active question seems to be whether it’s alright for women to get high status positions.
The active question seems to be whether it’s alright for women to get high status positions.
The active question in what context? Clearly the variance issue has no bearing on this question. Whether greater variance in intelligence is a real phenomenon potentially has bearing on questions regarding whether institutional sexism in certain academic disciplines is a real issue and on the appropriateness of quota systems or ‘positive discrimination’ but I don’t see how anyone who understood the issue could claim that it was not ‘alright’ for women to hold high status positions. I’m sure some people make that unrelated claim but people believe all sorts of crazy shit.
The question isn’t necessarily whether men in general are better than women in general. The active question seems to be whether it’s alright for women to get high status positions.
The active question in what context? Clearly the variance issue has no bearing on this question. Whether greater variance in intelligence is a real phenomenon potentially has bearing on questions regarding whether institutional sexism in certain academic disciplines is a real issue and on the appropriateness of quota systems or ‘positive discrimination’ but I don’t see how anyone who understood the issue could claim that it was not ‘alright’ for women to hold high status positions. I’m sure some people make that unrelated claim but people believe all sorts of crazy shit.