There are some well read and intelligent Hollywood actors, both liberal and conservative. Ben Affleck is not one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I usually love his films, and as an actor he is great. But as a philosopher, historian, or just someone who truly understands the facts of life and the world, lets just say he is not a good source in these areas.
In Ben’s great wisdom he is quoted in a USA today article stating the following:
“Boys, as we now know, are much slower than girls. Boys just take a while. We’re not as smart as women for many, many years. I don’t know if we ever catch up. We catch up in some ways but probably not in all of them,”
Are girls sometimes smarter than boys? Absolutely. I have sons and a daughter. I know first hand from helping my kids with their school work, seeing their strengths and weaknesses(as well as their report cards) and talking to their teachers that there is definitely a difference in cognitive(intellectual) ability.
Two of my sons are very intelligent when it comes to math and science, while two of my sons struggle in these categories. My daughter comes somewhere in the middle, she still struggles in math, but not as much as two of my sons do. So in my family with 5 children, my daughter’s intelligence comes right in the middle.
But my children have different strengths, one of my son’s who struggles academically is very good with his hands and very mechanically inclined. He can take about just about anything and put it back together. This is something that his “book smart” brothers would never be able to do. My daughter while she struggles in math and science, excels in writing, especially creative writing.
I say all that to say this, can I take the small case study in my home, and put that as how all people are – like Ben Affleck did? Of course not!
Mr. Affleck, let’s look at the cold hard facts.
Men are superior to women in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
“Psychological tests also reveal patterns of sex difference. On average, males finish faster and score higher than females on a test that requires the taker to visualize an object’s appearance after it is rotated in three dimensions. The same is true for map-reading tests, and for embedded-figures tests, which ask subjects to find a component shape hidden within a larger design. Males are over-represented in the top percentiles on college-level math tests and tend to score higher on mechanics tests than females do.”
“…males on average have a stronger drive to systemize, and females to empathize. Systemizing involves identifying the laws that govern how a system works…”
Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08baron-cohen.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
A man’s brain is made to systemize things, to analyze, construct and explore. When we accept that God gave men some superior abilities to women in these areas then it will come as no shock that 73% percent of Computer Scientists are men.
“20 percent of bachelor’s degrees in computer science go to women, even though female graduates hold 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees.”
Heather R. Huhman, Forbes
There are more highly intelligent men than highly intelligent women
While men and women have about the same average IQ (according to intelligence testing), men vary much more than women do. What that means is there are more men at each spectrum of intelligence than women (below average and above average). However after crossing the average intelligence threshold the amount of men who have above average IQs begins to dominate the women bringing us to the point where there are eight genius level IQ men to every one woman genius.
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/sexdifferences.aspx
Many people try and explain away the fact that men dominate the STEM fields as simply a cultural thing that can be overcome with time. We see commercials and books and articles telling us we have to encourage more young girls to get into the STEM fields. But no one even considers the fact that there simply may not be as many women who are cognitively wired for these fields.
You can’t make someone more intelligent, and you can’t turn someone into a genius, either you are, or you are not.
Girls mature faster than boys
There is a difference between maturity and intelligence. No one could argue with that fact that generally speaking, girls mature far faster than boys. Take any 15 year old girl, and compare her to a 15 year old boy, and you will see a huge difference in maturity.
But guess what? If we understand God’s design for women as presented in the Bible, it is no shock to us that girls must mature faster than boys.
Guess why? Because up until the last 100 years or so, for the all of human history women typically became mothers by the time they reached age 15 or sooner. They had to be mature faster, they were parents at a much earlier age than boys typically were.
Since God designed women to be wives and mothers first and foremost, not business leaders, politicians, engineers and scientists, they mature much faster than boys. This also explains why most women are not generally drawn to, nor do they have the natural ability, generally speaking, to go into these fields.
Different kinds of intelligence
When we say someone is “smart” or “smarter”, what do we mean? Generally speaking we are referring to how capable they are at grasping different intellectual topics. People can be “smart” in different ways. Some people are creative writing geniuses, but stink at the math and science fields. While typically the same people who excel at math and science fields are not always good in the creative and artistic fields. So yes there are definitely different kinds of intelligence.
But are there people, who possess neither creative(or artistic) intelligence, or math and science intelligence? Absolutely. In fact that would probably describe the majority of the world’s population. That is why we pay creative and intelligent people more, and why certain fields pay so much money, because there are so few people who can do certain jobs.
But the reality is, in just about every field, whether it is a creative field, business, political, or STEM, men dominate these fields, world-wide.
Conclusion
Mr. Affleck, yes your daughters might have matured faster than your son, and someday they may be even prove to be smarter than your son, but that would be the exception, not the norm. The world around you tells a very different story about whether boys are smarter than girls, and the verdict is all around you, intelligent and business savvy men are the norm, super intelligent and business savvy women are the exception.
In lieu of all the hate comments I might get here – no I do not think women are dumb. But I think it is dumb to say girls are smarter than boys, when that simply is not the case, and later in life the world shows otherwise.
Biblical Gender Roles 
Reblogged this on It's the Women, Not the Men! and commented:
Ahh! the truth. When God is removed from women’s lives, they are no longer obligated to tell the truth and this situation is just another example of the lies lesbian, radical, second-wave feminists have promulgated in their maniacal efforts to glorify women and denigrate men.
That was really good. I enjoyed reading it.
Something that’s kind of sad, rather than celebrating our differences, we’re pushing girls to be more like men, so there’s an effort to move them into the STEM fields. There are roles for women in those areas, but to imply that girls are just as interested and have just the same aptitude is kind of cruel towards girls. I keep picturing hundreds of girls waking up one day and realizing that this is not what I enjoy, this is not what I’m good at, this is not me, and I went into a career because the culture told me I should. Why would you set someone up for disappointment and failure like that? Wouldn’t it be kinder to just honor girl’s skills and talents as having a worth of their own?
LOL, as to cognitive difference, yes those are real too. There are some things that baffle me like a rubik’s cube, that take my husband two seconds to figure out.
Insanitybytes,
You are absolutely right that we should be celebrating the differences between the sexes, not trying to bury them or deny them. For the most part, men are systemizers, and women are empathizers. When we understand these facts, then it will make sense that the majority of elementary school teachers, secretaries,nurses and caregivers are women. These types of jobs require a great deal of emotional intelligence and empathy, and the ability to truly sense the needs of others, an ability which most men simply do not possess.
It also explains why the majority of mathematicians, scientists, engineers, programmers and business leaders are men, because systemizing comes much more naturally to men, then to women, and in many of these jobs too much empathy would be hindrance, rather than a help.
Again good point, and thanks for your comment.
I bet there are more Asian women in STEM fields than Hispanic males.
Interesting read. I can see both sides to the argument. We all have different strengths and weakness as men and woman and not only that each individual has their own strengths and talents. So we are all unique in our own way. Even though I agree with your post, we do not know Ben afleck, therefore maybe he was referring the wisdom, intuitive, and maturity of women over men. Sometimes its hard to know the context that was spoken before and after the statement was made to get a full understanding of what he might of been talking about. or maybe he really does think that about women on all levels! Hard to tell…