When I was getting my degree in statistics, something very interesting came up. IQ scores.

Men have a LOWER AVERAGE IQ score than women. BUT... men have a higher variability. That means that there are MORE men at the extremes (both ends) than women. So, if you are looking at the overall tippy-top, you will most likely get more men. Because they vary more.

HOWEVER, if you look at the overall bitty-bottom, you will ALSO get more men - even moreso than for the tippy-top. Why? Because the distribution for men is a bit lower than for women. And IQ is a nicely behaved (statistically normal) measure.

Based on IQ alone, you'd expect more women in positions requiring you to be "quite smart", but more men in positions that require you to be "ridiculously smart."

But wait, there's more!

There are also certain aptitudes, such as spatial, that men may be (on average) much more skilled at. I cannot, to save my life, mentally rotate objects besides a few very basic maneuvers for simple objects (I can spin a ball, flip a book, etc). I've seen boys mentally flip/rotate objects with ease - at age 6. I can't do it.

Then there's the type of physical play boys prefer. Balls, sports, cars, trucks. It uses/hones different spatial skills.

And that doesn't even get into basic life preferences like staying home with the kids, having more leisure time, etc.

http://jezebel.com/this-science-museum-has-royally-pissed-off-a-bunch-of-g-1641376664

Does anyone remember this? One huffy mom on Facebook was going on about this outrage (museum should offer chemistry and physics based programs for Girl Scouts whether or not there was demand, because yes, there was demand--these girls have just been discouraged from liking science!). She said she took pride in her own BS in biology.

But she'd been a stay-at-home for the last 12 years or something.

Why is it degrading to teach your daughter homemaking-type skills when you yourself chose motherhood over the sciences? Aren't you her #1 role model?

Unless a woman is working in STEM I don't want to hear her complaints about why more women don't work in STEM.

There is cultural variability at play, though

My husband's field is math (analysis) and he says that it varies a lot by country, with Italy producing a fair amount of decent mathematician women, and France doing fairly well also. Not sure why those countries in particular produce more women mathematicians.

In his field you basically have to be a non stop work machine to get ahead, so cultural factors such as support on the home front matter.

I have a large group of friends who are mostly engineers. I can tell you a big difference from women is that these guys are happy to talk for hours about the details of how things work, whether engines or manufacturing or banking or ancient roman plumbing or robotics. Men in general share this ability and interest (though non-engineers may want to talk about baseball scores for hours). Men have hobbies like rebuilding cars or doing their own plumbing. Women do not develop such a fascination with things, with how they work. I have known precisely 2 women, both engineers, who did enjoy talking about "stuff". This fascination with "things" is very helpful in school and even more helpful when employed. Is it "fair"? huh. It just is. Women find such conversations men have not just boring but coma-inducing. A hypothesis is that Ausbergers (sp?) syndrome is an extreme version of "thing-orientation".

Also, for how sex differences impact . . .

No no no no no. The differences do not impact anything. They affect them. You're a writer. Use the right words.

Steve, language evolves, and I often choose to use it as people use it rather than go for dictionary-perfect word use.

In fact, my fabulous copyeditor, David Yontz, just sent me this two-page list of all the made-up words I put in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck."

"Impact" is stronger than "affect," and I used it on purpose.

As Elmore Leonard said, "When proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go."

An example of this is this note I sent out with my column this week. I know what the AP style is (because Dave told me what's correct per AP), but here's what I used and why:

STYLE NOTE: The non-standard “8 and a half” is spelled out because it reads more naturally than numbers (8 1/2).

I was catching up on stuff at work today and two things seem relevant.

First, a top woman has decided to step down to a lower a position. The announcement reads quite weird like it is a promotion. Going from the head of a department with a seat on the top level management board to key employee in a different department's management team.

Second, I read an internal post/memo about how the company needs to be more diverse - especially women -- how women were just as good as men, etc. (the company does technology and engineering and manufacturing). 10 minutes later I am headed to get some caffeine and two women behind me are discussing the one's horrible date. The problem was she had paid for her own meal while he paid for his own meal & "the tickets"... and the worst part was according to her that he had gone to give her a hug at the end of the night. she said to the other woman, "I was like no pay then no play...you ain't even making it into the stadium"

And I remembered why I hate dating here...

I think the Peter Principle applies to men more than women.

Men tend to over estimate their job competency. Women tend to underestimate theirs.

There is a certain type of man, who is a go getter. He isn't the smartest guy in the department. Probably on the lower end of competency, but he is just sure that he can run things better than anyone else.

The actual engineers, mostly want to be engineers. Promotions are not to technical jobs.
Promotions are into management , and a lot of them loathe this.

Frankly if you have a Chemical engineer and you promote him into management, you have probably wasted both your money and his time. (Or you didn't actually need a chemical engineer to begin with).

My husband has regularly turned down promotions, and more money. He already spends way more time behind a desk than he would like. He wants to be an engineer. Not a manager, Leave that to the eager beavers.

Me, I just want my husband to be happy. And in his current job, he is.

The Former Banker, you should have filed a sexual harassment claim against them with HR

Shannon,

You are quite correct that males are more variable than females but are wrong about the averages. Men have a higher average IQ not a lower one as you stated. See the graph on this site.

"The clearest example concerns visual-spatial abilities such as mental rotation."

I have been told by three combat pilots that the second "killer" test, one that determines whether you get a Mach 2+ seat with missiles and cannon attached, is the spatial orientation test. (The first is eyesight.)

Apparently, the computers cannot tell you where the guy who just went by you can be in the next few seconds, nor can they tell the seat you're in which way to go next to take advantage. And that's a spherical geometry lesson while the plane is trying to break your spine.

Fascinating tales...

I've been in IT for going on 20 years. In the very beginning at my first job I stated I do not want to be management.

Principal, tech lead, all fine and good.

My current boss is in meetings all day. I would hate her job.

Even better we currently moving to new technologies. I get paid to learn!

Shannon,

While I do have higher math and science aptitude than the average woman I am sure I don't have the spacial awareness that most men do.

I'm mostly fine with 2-D, I can read maps, etc.

I used to play a lot of Tetris and I found a 3-D version of it. It was too hard to be fun.

"Frankly if you have a Chemical engineer and you promote him into management, you have probably wasted both your money and his time."

Reminds me of something my dad used to say, about a company he worked for: "They take good engineers and turn them into mediocre managers." And yes, the problem is that at most companies, if you stay in a tech profession, in terms of promotions you top out in 7 to 10 years; after a point, there just isn't any higher position to be promoted to. To go further, you have to go into management, or the finance or legal departments, none of which are very suitable in the eyes of most engineers. The result is that the companies have trouble holding on to their experienced tech staff; once they top out, they'll go to another company that offers them more compensation and/or cooler projects to work on.

The Former Banker,

All I can think is Mr. No pay to play dodged a bullet with that one.