Freshman Ana Aldridge reflects on her personal experience with gender roles in the classroom and questions the pressure which causes girls to act less intelligent for attention. Cartoon by Ashley Lawrence.
By ANA ALDRIDGE – Staff Writer
Freshman Ana Aldridge looks into the roles that gender and intelligence play in teen girls’ lives.
In elementary school it seemed that all my peers were proud of their intelligence. They would loudly announce they got a 100 on a test, or boldly raise their hands in class without worrying about getting the answer wrong.
However, it seemed that once we started to grow up and mature, my peers began to act more modest. And it stood out to me that it was the girls in my grade who changed the most.
I now watched as my female friends acted dumb, playing with their hair as they talked to boys. Instead of asking questions in class, they dumbed themselves down for attention.
I noticed that the girls in my grade who talked in higher voices and just didn’t “get” math were suddenly looked up to by boys, and constantly receiving attention.
I didn’t understand this at all. But being the tween that I was, I was easily influenced by peer pressures, and found myself falling into the same behaviors as my friends.
After a short time, I’d had enough.
I distanced myself from a few of my friends, and found that I liked myself a lot more when I was focused on the things that mattered to me instead of what mattered to my friends.
But I was left with questions.
Why was it that the girls I once knew to be so confident and intelligent were now ashamed of themselves? Is it really attractive to not know how many days there are in a year? And why was it that this lack of confidence was more prevalent in girls than boys?
Maybe this behavior stemmed from the fact that men, statistically, prefer less intelligent women.
A recent British study found that while smarter men have a higher chance of getting married- for every 16-point raise in IQ for men, their chances increase by 35 percent- the statistics aren’t in the smart woman’s favor. For each 16-point increase in a woman’s IQ, their chances of marrying actually decrease by 40 percent.
This is simply unacceptable.
Intelligence should be viewed as a positive trait regardless of gender. Women should embrace their strength and intelligence. In fact, everyone should.
