Sometimes I run up against the claim that men are naturally more suited to applying logic, exercising the intellect, and pursuing philosophical matters than women. Since such a claim does not align with reason, I want to expose its inadequacies. I have demonstrated before [1] that no verifiable differences exist between men and women beyond physical and anatomical characteristics (example: saying men have penises by nature and women don't is objectively true, but saying men are inherently visual and women aren't is erroneous).
Since many occupations, including those pertaining to college education and philosophy, were once held almost exclusively by men, women were, until fairly recently in history, commonly not in positions of academic authority and thus the construction of fallacious stereotypes began to occur in public thought, until women became expected to not be as intellectual as men. And when people act in accordance with stereotypes due to social pressures, however false the stereotypes may be, belief in the stereotypes becomes a damaging self-fulfilling prophecy that people may bring to fruition because they simply accept behaviors that they are conditioned to display. But stereotypes are not true simply because people may tend to act in accordance with them.
It may be true that some men are more intelligent than some women, but the inverse is also true, and generalizing from individual examples of men having higher intelligence than women only serves to place the fallacy of composition directly in the foundation of one's argument. I have elsewhere explained why the very belief that men and women have innate internal differences is utter nonsense to begin with, so readers can see my other statements which demonstrate why it is erroneous to promote the idea that, beyond physical anatomy and certain biological features (i.e. women having kids), no verifiable differences between the two genders exist.
My best friend Gabi, whom I have mentioned multiple times on my blog, is a very intelligent woman, and I have shared too many deep conversations with her about philosophy, science, Christianity, and logic to remember the quantity! I often seek to update her about my recent thoughts and hear about her own as well. I have also met numerous other young women over the past few years who possess competent intellects. I have discussed and debated everything from epistemology to Christian theology with them without ever seeing any evidence that they were less capable of intelligence than I am.
No rational person can deny that it is at least logically possible that women have intellectual natures equal to those of men and that any argument for an objective difference in the intellectual ability of each gender can only rest on fallacies. And I know from experience that women I know do indeed have vast intelligence. Thus, I know that the claim that women do not or cannot exercise rationality or intelligence to the same extent as men is objectively false.
Summary of observations:
1. Social expectations for women to not be as intelligent as men can influence women to choose to not develop their intelligence to the same extent as men around them.
2. Just because some men are more intelligent than some women does not mean that the state of those individuals has anything to do with whether they are male or female; it has to do with their individual personalities and willingness to explore and utilize their intellects.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/on-alleged-differences-between-men-and.html
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