Neuropsychologist explains how to recognise gifted girls and women and how to prevent them from being silenced
The high abilities of women are not recognised. In the same way as those of men. Clinical neuropsychologist Carmen Sanz Chacón, an authority on giftedness in women. And author of the book “Stand out or shut up. Girls and women with high abilities” explains how to recognise women with high abilities and how to claim them.
What happens to gifted women, and therefore to intelligent women in general? Carmen Sanz – Clinical Psychologist, expert in Human Intelligence, Giftedness and High Intellectual Abilities and Clinical Neuropsychologist. And author of the book “Destacar o callar. Niñas y mujeres con altas capacidades” (Plataforma Editorial). Explains that gifted women are at a social disadvantage when it comes to asserting themselves intellectually.
Culture tends to pigeonhole women in areas such as education. Care, health and legal fields, while keeping them away from science and technology, thus limiting their full potential. For this and other reasons, as Carmen Sanz – founder of the platform. The World of the Gifted and author of the book. “The Curse of Intelligence” – says. Women with high abilities often struggle with low self-esteem, underestimating themselves and considering themselves less intelligent than they really are. Paradoxically, in the case of men, the opposite is true.
Ultimately. What happens is that men are valued for their. Intellectual abilities, women for their effort. Gifted women have therefore had to keep quiet, hide or even lie in order to fit into the pre-established mould.
Sanz is an authority on giftedness in women. But she also draws on her own personal experience – she is gifted herself. And that of her family to understand the special problems of gifted children and adults. And to connect with them in their own language.
In the book “Destacar o callar”, a refreshing essay on the subject of high abilities in women. Through data, reports and curiosities. Carmen Sanz shows us in a solid way how women. Are at a social disadvantage when it comes to asserting themselves intellectually. The author shows us how women’s intelligence has been underestimated. And why it is necessary to give value to girls with high abilities. And to vindicate both the great women of yesterday and tomorrow and those of today: ourselves.
HIGH ABILITIES IN GIRLS AND WOMEN: INVISIBLE REALITY?
By Carmen Sanz Chacón, clinical neuropsychologist
To the extent that highly gifted and gifted girls are identified early. And can receive the educational and emotional support they need. We will have more and more female leaders in all these areas. As would be appropriate in a society that truly defends equal opportunities.
Fortunately, little by little, things are changing. There are more and more women in our universities pursuing higher education and more and more women in leadership positions in governments or in large multinational companies.
We are still surrounded by stereotypes and prejudices about women’s abilities, but women are slowly taking their rightful place in society, which will also help gifted and talented girls to visualise female role models of success with whom they can identify.
CHARACTERISTICS OF GIFTED AND HIGHLY ABLE GIRLS
Neuropsychologist explains how to recognise gifted girls and women and how to prevent them from being silenced
Gifted and highly able girls have similar characteristics to gifted and highly able boys.
This is the list of differences in the development of gifted and highly able girls compared to an average child:
They learn to speak early and use a more developed vocabulary than is usual for children of their age.
They learn to read very early and have great facility with numbers. Some arrive at nursery school, at the age of three, already knowing how to read.
They prefer to be with children older or younger than their own age, and sometimes, at recess, they choose to be in the company of their teachers.
They are very sensitive.
They reason with an unusual logic for their age, learn new concepts more quickly and are able to interrelate them more easily, as well as having an excellent memory.
They are very demanding of themselves and others. Sometimes, their level of demand is confused with perfectionism, not always present in gifted children, but the demand is a constant.
They are very critical with themselves and believe that they can do everything better, and with others, because they do not understand that they perform less well than they do or that they do not understand what they want to transmit.
They show mental hyperactivity and a great curiosity for multiple fields.
They stand out for their great capacity to learn and their restlessness for knowledge.
They soon get bored with the activities they already control due to their restlessness to learn and a constant need for new challenges. Which they will also abandon as soon as they master them or they cease to be interested in them.
They are shy, withdrawn or, on the contrary, show behavioural problems. Sometimes, both circumstances are present. They are withdrawn at school and, nevertheless. They confront authority in their family.
They show little resistance to frustration, which they manifest in behavioural problems or lack of anger control.
They tend to question rules and authority. Everything needs to be reasoned out and explained calmly until they accept it and. In many cases, they are born negotiators with arguments that can go beyond their parents or teachers.
They are imaginative and creative under the right conditions.
They ask a lot of questions from childhood, both about aspects of life and about things they do not understand in the adult world, putting parents and teachers in real compromises, and they find it difficult to accept “you are too young to understand” for an answer.
In general, they feel different and find it difficult to integrate with children of their own age, to fit in with their environment and to meet their parents’ expectations, especially if they belong to a conventional family.
WHAT SCIENTISTS SAY ABOUT WOMEN’S BRAINS
The idea that men and women have different aptitudes and attitudes because their brains are different is wrong and counterproductive; wrong, because the anatomical differences between male and female brains are minimal and, moreover, are not of category but of degree, says Mara Dierssen, a neuroscientist at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.
Science has tried to justify the different intellectual capacities of the two sexes on the basis of anatomical differences between the brains of men and women. As neuroscientist Daphna Joel suggests in her 2012 TEDx talk, Differences between the male and female brain: “In general, the scientific community is changing the way it treats sex and is coming to terms with the idea that there are no male or female brains”. “What my study shows is that each brain is a unique mosaic of characteristics.
Today, despite so much progress, there are still many issues that influence the emotional, professional and social development of the smartest women. As the British neuroscientist Gina Rippon argues, the brains of newborn boys and girls are practically identical, but they are capable of absorbing like sponges all the information they are receiving during early childhood, so the differences between the two types of brain are due more to the education received than to the genetic inheritance of each sex.
HOW TO IMPROVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN WITH HIGH ABILITIES
Neuropsychologist explains how to recognise gifted girls and women and how to prevent them from being silenced
In order for a gifted woman to overcome the barriers, it is necessary to act at family and school level, as well as to work on the dissemination of female success models that motivate gifted women to develop their professional skills.
Gifted women must have easier access to careers in science and mathematics, as it is in the field of science and technology that they will have the greatest opportunities for professional development in the future, and it is unwise to limit access to these professions to half of the population, and especially to women who have a special talent for developing them, such as gifted women.
These are some of the measures for parents and teachers. That can help in the educational and professional development of gifted women. That are proposed in Carmen Sanz’s book “Stand out or shut up”:
- Identify them as gifted at an early age.
- Treat them equally with their male siblings, without limiting their expression and activities by the usual gender stereotypes.
- To help and support them in any task they propose or want to develop.
- Develop their critical and decision-making skills.
- Help them to learn about successful female role models in the scientific and professional fields, and encourage them to develop their abilities and not to limit themselves because they are girls. “You can do it too!
To the above we would add offering her the necessary psychological support from childhood and adolescence to strengthen her self-esteem and motivation, to guide her properly in her professional interests and to offer her the necessary tools from a relational and social skills point of view so that she can achieve her goals.
Neuropsychologist explains how to recognise gifted girls and women and how to prevent them from being silenced
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