Women are cleverer than men...Huddersfield MP in shock claim

[TrailblazingScot]

The link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4079653.stm

Women cleverer than men, says MP
Women are brighter than men, according to the Labour chairman of the Commons education committee.

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman said there was a "danger" of being obsessed about how boys were doing at school.

His comments followed a committee discussion about whether girls or boys found it easier to learn to read.

"My own personal view is that women are brighter than men," the MP said, adding that women now earned on average more than men as middle managers.

First class?

He said: "We should celebrate this, shouldn't we? The brightest kids are coming through and they happen to be women."

In recent years girls have consistently outperformed boys at all levels of the education system.

The "gender gap" at GCSE level in England, Wales and Northern Ireland this year was 5.3 percentage points at grades A* and A and by 8.4 points at grades C and above in girls' favour.

Boys' performance had improved more than girls', however.

This was even more noticeable at A-level. Even so, 23.7% of girls' entries achieved A grades, compared to 21% of boys'.

Ninety-five per cent of boys' entries were passes, against 96.8% of girls'.

More young women than men go to university.

Schools define many more boys than girls as having special educational problems - which some researchers argue means the schools are failing to meet boys' needs.

'Wrong schooling'

In the latest major international study of the performance of 15-year-olds in maths, reading and science tests, boys out-performed girls in almost all of the 40 countries involved in maths.

In reading, girls had "significantly higher average performance" in all countries except Liechtenstein. The biggest gap was in Iceland.

Science showed the smallest average gender gap, with boys doing a little better.

American educational researchers William Draves and Julie Coates have argued that it is not boys who are the problem but schools.

While boys are developing the skills they will need in the "knowledge jobs" of the future, schools are still preparing students for a past industrial age, they have said.

I'll comment later, but just to give you hint at my opinion I'll be including the word b-o-l-l-o-c-k-s in my reply.

Opinions please boys & girls

 

[Elrohir]

"My own personal view is that women are brighter than men,"

It's a personal view, not a scientific fact....

I don't think girls are smarter than boys. I think boys spend more time playing X-Box instead of studying than girls.

 

[a space oddity]

[...]I think boys spend more time playing X-Box instead of studying than girls.

... so how is that clever?

 

[blindside]

Judging from the way things end up getting divided up in school, boys tend to be more at extremes while girls fall are more or less uniformly distributed (on an intelligence/gpa scale).

 

[Elrohir]

We use our cleverness to Outwit and destroy the Covenant, not for useless things like school or a good future. Who needs a good job when their older when you have Halo?

 

[Perfection]

1. One gender may be trivially smarter than another, but it really doesn't matter as the variations within genders is far greater then that between.
2. This presumes that grades are a sign of intelligence, which is simply false.
3. This presumes that there's a way to objectively rate intelligence, which is also false.

 

[The Person]

Yes, it's always boys who quit school. Never girls. That the impression I get from such studies. But it might be that girls take school more seriously. Feel free to argue against it, girls, since I've never been a girl, and probably will never be.

 

[a space oddity]

There are girls who take school serious, and there are those who don't. *shrug*
In my mind this is a non-issue. Individual differences are much bigger.

 

[Elrohir]

Perfection has a point, grades don't always measure intelligence. Afterall, Einstien failed math....

 

[Mise]

*shrugs*
Surely it's better if girls are smarter than boys, because most of us here are (or at least consider ourselves) clever, so there's more clever girls to go for, and less ******** ones that only go for ******** boys with short hair.

 

[Fetus4188]

Well, at least we get a better deal in the dating game. Guys get to go after beautiful young women, where as women have to choose from all of the ugly men in the world.

 

[Syterion]

Hmm, at my school and I think this is fairly normal, boys tend to be the extremely good students, and the extremely bad, while girls come up in the middle, very alike. Like what Perf said. All I know is that out of the top 25 in my class, 18 are boys. And the top 5 are all boys.

 

[Keirador]

The education system in America has favored girls for quite some time. The curriculum is designed to take a gentle stance, and lacks the excitement that keeps young boys interested. This is not just my opinion- I wrote a thesis on it, its not only a widely accepted opinion, but a stance has been taken that the education system SHOULD favor girls as a form of affirmative action. In my personal experience, which is of course in no way scientific, I have known far more boys with much greater natural abilities than girls in all fields, but girls tend to have more organization, drive, and dedication which gives them MUCH higher grades across the board. Our system prefers sedulousness over ability, and as far as I've seen girls capitalize on that.

 

[ainwood]

Ninety-five per cent of boys' entries were passes, against 96.8% of girls'.

Yes, but is this difference statistically significant?

And you must be pretty unfortunate to be in the bottom 5%...

 

[Jawz II]

i dont think its so shocking that the average woman is slightly smarter than tthe average man

usually the best students in my classes are female

also, sometimes the girls im with, month sometimes years later i realize at a certain point they were manipulating me
im not cunning at all

 

[stratego]

2. This presumes that grades are a sign of intelligence, which is simply false.

Agree. Saying that women are smarter because they get better grades is as accurate as saying men are smarter because we get paid more.

 

[Cuivienen]

I always knew it!

Actually, I think girls aren't necessarily smarter, but do apply themselves more to their studies.

 

[Azadre]

Women can be just as capable of running a company as men.

 

[Immortal]

Yes, it's always boys who quit school. Never girls. That the impression I get from such studies. But it might be that girls take school more seriously. Feel free to argue against it, girls, since I've never been a girl, and probably will never be.

No way, out of the rather large number of drop-outs in my High School, vast majority were girls. The rest were either junkies or career criminals.

When you are told that two genders learn differently, and that primarily the cirriculum is centered around female education characteristics, yes there will be disparity.

Am I happy with it? No.

Its up to the parents to make those kind of changes.

KoC: Cleverer is not a word I'll fail you!

 

[Ramius75]

boys and girls are equally intelligent, the different is how we use them. Man are program to hunt and seek for mate, hence we use our intelligent in similar matters. From reading maps, directional awareness to killing, murdering, robbing, sucuring borders, i.e Military stuffs.

while the girls are back in the cave, managing, foraging and other stuffs hence maybe they have a keener eye for detail from managment, shopping and definitely more patience.

hehehehe.