If women, on average, are as intelligent or perhaps more so than men (which they are), why did women most often obtain the right to vote decades after men? The only country that had granted women the right to vote before 1900 was New Zealand. The U.S. granted the right in 1920, the United Kingdom in 1928, France in 1944 and Saudi Arabia in 2015. Most countries only granted the right in the 1940s, ’50s or ’60s.
Why is it that most of the most highly recognized philosophers, mathematicians, musicians, scientists, etc., in history have been men rather than women? The answer, in part, is that men’s IQ range tends to be greater than that of women, meaning women’s IQs tend to be more closely clustered about the mean. This explains why most of the truly exceptional minds are men, and most of the real dolts are also men.
Women tend to have stronger emotional intelligence than men, while men tend to be better at spatial intelligence.
It should be no shock that higher education became softer and more “woke” as women became the majority of students. A few years ago, when “woke” was first emerging, I engaged in a series of discussions with a smart young friend who had graduated from one of the best-known and most prestigious women’s schools. I am an old-school man who was completely baffled by such concerns as “microaggressions,” etc. She did her best to explain why this should be of great concern to me.
I am a member of a small luncheon group of like-minded men. We endlessly put one another down, and almost nothing is off-limits. No one ever gets insulted, and this ritual of male bonding tends to make us even closer friends. Those of you who are men and have been a member of a military group, sports team, or even college fraternity will probably be able to identify. Mature women consider such behavior juvenile and embarrassing.
Women often accuse men of being insensitive. (Like many stereotypes, there is much truth in this, which has provided late-night comedians with much fodder over the years.) That many of us lack the emotional intelligence of women leaves many men in the uncomfortable position of walking on eggshells, particularly in situations where women are in the majority and in control — which partially explains why increasing numbers of males decide not to go to college or to drop out.
Women are now also a majority in many of the professional schools, such as medicine and law. Decades ago, most physicians were men, and many of them married nurses. The doctor typically made much more than his wife, so if she stopped working to have and raise their children, it was not a great financial sacrifice.
Now all of that has been reversed. If the woman is the primary breadwinner, the cost to the family of her pausing her career to have children can be very large. One of the consequences is the decline in marriage and birth rates. The author and futurist George Gilder predicted all of this in his book “Sexual Suicide,” published back in 1973.
Mr. Gilder argued that women were the civilizing force in society, and the most destructive elements were young men (e.g., almost all major crimes are committed by males from 16 to 30 who are not under the control of a wife, mother or girlfriend). As women increasingly competed with men on what had been largely men-only turf, they also increasingly lost the control that they had over young men.
Some feminists now argue that men are no longer needed because women have proved that they can do whatever men can do in the modern world, and only a few selected men are needed as sperm donors. When most jobs involved physical labor, where strength was an advantage, men excelled. But in a world where robots increasingly can do nearly any physical task, men selling strength are useless.
All of this has not worked out to women’s advantage. They have increased economic power but also taken more responsibility, which does not seem to be leading to more happiness — in fact, just the opposite, as evidenced by studies showing that many more young women are considering suicide.
Politically, more women are moving to the left, while men are becoming more conservative. This is not a surprise since women value security more than men. If they cannot obtain security through marriage and the family, they turn to the government for financial and other protection. Men being, for the most part, greater risk-takers (just watch how boys play versus girls and who volunteer for war) and now, coupled with having fewer responsibilities for a woman and children, do feel less need for government.
Those who argue there are no inherent differences between men and women are in denial of an obvious but politically inconvenient reality. Forced equality of the sexes in every aspect of life is not working out the way we were told, and the situation will only get worse. Falling populations with increasingly unhappy and unfulfilled women and growing numbers of men with too much unproductive time on their hands are not a formula for a successful society.
• Richard W. Rahn is chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth and MCon LLC.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/5/those-who-argue-there-are-no-inherent-differences-/
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