Gongol.com Archives: February 2025
February 23, 2025
Half our brains tied behind our backs
Researchers have spent plenty of time and effort looking for differences, but there is no scientific evidence for a meaningful difference in general intelligence between males and females. To any clear-headed individual, there's nothing controversial in that factual statement. ■ But it's worth observing that the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, was only ratified in 1920. The judgment of women wasn't just excluded from the highest offices until just a century ago, it was mostly absent even from the voting booth. ■ Any society, institution, or culture that excludes half its people from the decision-making process on account of sex is making a colossal and stupid mistake. It's literally the surrender of half of the available intelligence. ■ And yet it still happens, either systematically or through the brute force of chauvinism. It is a matter of strategic stupidity that there are no women among the 24 members of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party: Rival powers like the United States benefit from that decision to self-handicap. It is statistically quite nearly impossible for the 24th most talented man in the country to have better judgment than the most talented woman. ■ In any contest of judgment, the team most open to the contributions of all of its available talent stands the best chance of arriving at the best answers. Who gets excluded from the room when decision-making is taking place reveals quite a lot about whether the people doing the excluding care more about themselves or about the people they're ostensibly there to serve.
