I haven't been able to shake the feeling I got when my daughter said "I think men are smarter than
women." To be honest it floored me. I thought I had set a good example etc.... It literally knocked me over, now I'm in a hurried search for biographies on bright and powerful women and books on the topic of female strengths and intelligence. I know that the current system of profit, money and power is not the best for women to operate in in order to show their best sides as capitalism only sees men and women as commodities and men win there because they make less risky employees (for many profit at any cost reasons).
DUers please send me your most pertinent information so I can help my daughter see how women are very intelligent and wise. She sees so many girls doing dumb girl stuff and I'm not sure what men she sees but obviously not as dumb as the girls.
Do girls try too hard? What's with the ridiculous shoes? Do women really like them or do they feel the need to be stylish according to the dictates of industry? Nail polish and toes done, push up bras and face paint. Does this all add up to females trying to please in a consumer world that takes away from the natural beauty and strengths of both men and women?
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I think to a degree that is still true.
I know when I grew up (I'm a boomer), young women expected to marry up. We got the unspoken message that we were to find some rich, professional man. (By the way, never happened for me, nor for many others. 
)
IMO and IME, the more educated a woman is, the less likely she is to get married.
I know there are exceptions, but on average, it's been largely true most of my lifetime.
Never heard the term "hypergamy"; glad you mentioned it.
Social Security for all of our retirement funds.
I'd say someone has an agenda this morning.
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her boyfriend at the time is now doing research at UVA and she still thinks he's the smartest man in the world
men are just a little stronger than women and women are just a little smarter than men
when you are still young and haven't yet figured out that they are just as shallow, petty, and dumb as the members of your own gender. 
asked here where she got that idea..
she replies-
Boys are just yucky 
...The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. I have two main reasons for suggesting this book in this case, even though it is written by a man ( 
):
1 - it discusses the history of the IQ test, which was originally meant to assess those who need more help learning, rather than as a test of one's raw mental capabilities. It also discusses the fact that women actually did better on the early IQ tests. The solution they came up with was to change the tests.
2 - it discusses the concept of "reification", that is, our tendency to accept something as real merely because it has been measured. One might, for example, measure the correlation between the length of the index finger and intelligence. Now there is no reason to believe there is a causal relationship there; however, merely making the measurement and presenting it with charts and words, tends to plant it in people's minds as something "real".
In general Gould has many great discussions of these topics, so if she is inclined to delve into logical exploration of this sort it would be time well spent.
A quick Google search for "female polymaths" and "female geniuses" came up with many, many results, some of which are:
Great smart women in history: Ada Lovelace, after whom the programming language Ada was named, has been called the first programmer. Marie Curie, who discovered radium, and who won two Nobel Prizes. Dr. Grace Murry Hopper, credited with inventing the compiler (a program that translates high-level code into machine language); she also coined the term "bug" for a computer defect after discovering a moth had caused a vacuum tube to stop working in an early computer. Emmy Noether, a mathematician who discovered Noether's Theorem in physics: every symmetry gives rise to a conservation law. Hedy Lamarr, most famous as a beautiful actress, collaborated with another person to create a "Secret Communications System" expressly constructed to assist in the defeat of Hitler; they received a patent for this in 1942 and gave it to the U.S. Government.
Women who were considered to be polymaths include: Hypatia, who lived in Alexandria in the 4th century, is known as the first notable female mathematician, and also taught astronomy and philosophy; Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine abbess who lived in the 12th century; Maria Gaetana Agnesi, an Italian professor in the 18th century was known as a linguist, geometer, theology, logician, algebraist, mathematician and philosopher.
Joan of Arc, a great military strategist and leader, led the French army to victory at Orleans in nine days after she was sent there by King Charles VII. She is the only one in history, male or female, to command the entire army of a nation when she was only 17.
And if we must go back to IQ as a measurement then let us not forget that Marilyn vos Savant; she had the highest recorded IQ of anybody, male or female, for 40 years (measured at 228).
Women historically have been barred from a full education; they had to deal with childbirth and child rearing and being treated as inferior and said to be of inferior intelligence.
Okay enough of the historical stuff. If she doesn't see men acting as stupid as women, get her to watch some of the current so-called comedies over the last 10 years or so. I am floored that she thinks women act more stupid than men do. No one has a corner on that market.
one more...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin
Franklin is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA which led to the discovery of DNA double helix. Her data, according to Francis Crick, were "the data we actually used"[3] to formulate Crick and Watson's 1953 hypothesis regarding the structure of DNA.[4] Franklin's images of X-ray diffraction confirming the helical structure of DNA were shown to Watson without her approval or knowledge. Though this image and her accurate interpretation of the data provided valuable insight into the DNA structure, Franklin's scientific contributions to the discovery of the double helix are often overlooked[citation needed]. Unpublished drafts of her papers (written just as she was arranging to leave King's College London) show that she had independently determined the overall B-form of the DNA helix and the location of the phosphate groups on the outside of the structure. Moreover, Franklin personally told Crick and Watson that the backbones had to be on the outside, which was crucial since before this both they and Linus Pauling had independently generated non-illuminating models with the chains inside and the bases pointing outwards.[5] However, her work was published third, in the series of three DNA Nature articles, led by the paper of Watson and Crick which only hinted at her contribution to their hypothesis.
...and just to say - it sounds like she's bored by quite a few people she knows. A lot of people are happy to skip along the surface of life - and we can each decide how much time and energy we want to put into that sort of thing.
tell her others think she must have something going on to be concerned about the general dumbing down of too much of life... so she would do others a great favor to find something that's interesting to her and get involved in that subject, whatever it is.
she'll meet people who are more interesting to her, do something that challenges her, and not have to look to any one other person to provide her with the intellectual stimulation she needs.
...and congrats on raising a daughter who has a mind of her own!
What happened for her to feel that she's not as bright as men? I was raised by a fierce mother who would have told your daughter that the contrary is true. LOL!!!
I don't think that intelligence is gender based. There are very smart and very dumb people of both genders.
There are so many bright women in history and currently. There's a trove of biographies to choose from.
When I saw "The Help" I memorized Abilene's words to every child she cared for: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” What a great lesson to impart to every child, they are important, they have value, they are smart.
I work in a small lab with another woman who is a chemist and my boss who is a woman and a trained chemist too. I sarcastically remind them that chemistry is man's work. To emphasize that point, I ask them to name all of the famous chemist they could think of. The only one any of us can come up with off the top of our heads is Marie Curie. So that kind of squashes my point. All of the other names of famous scientist people can come up with are usually physicists or biologists. After my "chemistry is man work" comment I usually end up cleaning glassware in the back
Anyways, Marie Curie not only was the first woman to receive a Nobel prize in science, but she was the first person to receive two Nobel prizes in different fields. She is most famous for her work on discovering radiation and was undoubtedly brilliant.
As was mentioned in a post above mine, I believe the only way to squash your daughter's sentiment that men are smarter than women is to challenge her. I don't know how old she is, but with a little bit of encouragement and direction you could turn this into a feminist spark for her. The only reason that men dominate so many fields is because society and culture both consciously and unconsciously perpetuates that. Illustrate that point to her and maybe explore some feminist theory with her and maybe she'll see things differently.
It is a struggle for women and it isn't fair that girls and women should regret not being born with a penis. I have two daughters myself and I'd hate for them to think that they could never be as smart or as good at anything as a man can be. I truly understand how you feel after hearing a comment like that from your daughter.
There are a multitude of brilliant women at UVA and other universities (there, of course are brilliant men there, as well ... but she already acknowledges this), the larger question might be : why has this young woman not included them in her circle of friends and acquaintances?
My daughter is finishing her second year at university ... her female friends are chemistry, physics and engineering students. These are incredibly bright and determined women ... every bit as bright as their male counter parts.
I guess I can't understand aligning one's self with those that are less than bright and then moaning about it ... 
