Science     Women Less              Paradigm-Change
Period      Smart Because           Contradiction

17th Cent.  Smaller Brain Size      Whales, Elephants?
18th Cent.  Lower Cranial Ratio     Birds, Anteaters?
19th Cent.  Frontal smaller than    Parietal Found to
            Parietal Lobe of Brain  be Key to Smarts
20th Cent.  Less Cerebral Folds     Disproved by
                                    Dissected Brains
1960s       XY Math Gene            Statistical Disproof
1970s       Brain Lateralization    Non-Conformers?
1980s       SAT Scores              Non-Conformers?
                                    & Systemic Bias
1990s       Micro neurology         Variation Among
            Is Different            Males Exceeds M/F

Source: A. Fausto-Sterling, Myths of Gender (2nd ed. 1992)

When scientific patriarchy arose, women were stereotyped as being less intellectual than men. Over the next few hundred years the stereotype of male intellectual superiority was first backed up, and then disproved, by a long string of self-serving hypotheses, including skull size, amount of cerebral folds, and, most recently, psychological test scores. For example, it was claimed that women had to be less smart than men because the ratio of women's skulls to their brains was less than that of men. This was accepted as proof positive of male intellectual superiority until someone pointed out that birds had a larger ratio of skullbone to brainmass than did men. The gender scientists then shifted to another hypothesis.

The so-called scientists were obviously on a quest to justify their sexually dimorphic stereotypes, not to find truth. When characteristics like psychological test scores overlap for different groups, statements about averages are pure stereotypes and are inevitably misleading, mischievous and malicious.