A neuropsychologist explains how to recognize gifted girls and women and prevent them from being silenced

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 “Stand out or shut up: Girls and women with high capacities” (Editorial Platform) 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 areas, while alienating them 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 also author of the book “The Curse of Intelligence”– women with high abilities often they struggle with low self-esteem, underestimating themselves and considering themselves less intelligent than they really are. Paradoxically, in the case of men, the opposite occurs.

In short, what happens is that men are valued for their intellectual abilities, women for their effort. For this reason, gifted women have had to keep quiet, hide or even lie to fit into the pre-established mold.

Sanz is an authority on giftedness in women, but she also relies on her own personal experience -she is gifted-, and that of her family to understand the special problems that gifted children and adults have, and to connect with them in their own language.

In the book “Stand out or shut up”, a refreshing essay on the subject of high abilities in women, through data, reports and curiosities, Carmen Sanz exposes us in a solid way how women are at a social disadvantage when it comes to asserting themselves intellectually. The author shows us how the intelligence of women has been underestimated and why it is necessary to value the high capacities of girls and vindicate both the great women of yesterday and tomorrow as well as those of today: ourselves.

High capacities in girls and women: invisible reality?

By Carmen Sanz Chacón, clinical neuropsychologist

To the extent that 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 correspond to a society that really defends equal opportunities.

Fortunately, little by little, things are changing. There are an increasing number of women in our universities pursuing higher education and more women occupying leadership positions in governments or in large multinational companies.

We are still surrounded by stereotypes and prejudices regarding female capabilitiesBut slowly, women are taking their rightful place in society, which will also help gifted and gifted girls to visualize female role models to identify with.

Characteristics of gifted and highly capable girls

Gifted and highly capable girls have characteristics similar to gifted and highly capable boys.

This is the list of differences in the development of gifted girls and of high capacities with respect to an average child:

They learn to speak soon and they use a more developed vocabulary than usual in children of their age. They learn to read very quickly and they have great ease 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, and, sometimes, at recess they choose the company of their teachers. They are very sensitive. They reason with unusual logic for their age, they learn new concepts faster and are able to interrelate them more easily, in addition to having an excellent memory. They are very demanding with themselves and with others. Sometimes, his level of demand is confused with perfectionism, not always present among the gifted, but the demand is a constant. They are very critical of themselves.sy They think they can do everything better, and with others, because they do not understand that they perform less than them or that they do not understand what they want to convey. They present mental hyperactivity and a great curiosity for multiple fields. They stand out for the great capacity to learn and the concern to know.They quickly get bored with the activities they already control due to a desire to learn and a constant need for new challenges, which they will also abandon as soon as they master them or cease to interest them. Are shy, withdrawn girls or, on the contrary, show behavior problems. Sometimes, both circumstances occur, they are withdrawn at school and, nevertheless, they face authority in their family. show little resistance to frustration, that manifest with behavioral problems or lack of anger control. They tend to question rules and authority. Everything needs to be calmly reasoned and explained until they accept it and, in many cases, they are born negotiators with arguments that can surpass their parents or teachers. They are imaginative and creative under the right conditions. They ask a lot since their childhood, Both about aspects of life and about things they don’t understand about the adult world, putting parents and teachers in real commitments, they find it hard to accept “you’re too young to understand” for an answer. In general, they feel different, and it is difficult for them to integrate with children their age, fit into their environment and meet the expectations of their parents, 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, furthermore, they 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 both sexes based on 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 he treats sex and you are accepting the idea that there are no male or female brains.” “What my study shows is that each brain is a unique mosaic of features.”

At present, and despite so many advances, There are still many issues that influence the emotional, professional and social development of the most intelligent women. As the British neuroscientist Gina Rippon argues, the brains of newborn boys and girls are virtually identical, but they are capable of absorbing all the information they are receiving during early childhood like sponges, 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 the opportunities of women with high abilities

In order for a gifted woman to overcome barriers, it is necessary to act in the family environment and in the school environment, as well as work on the dissemination of successful female models that motivate gifted women to develop their professional capacities.

Gifted women have to have easier access to science careers and mathematics, because in the field of science and technology is where they go to have the greatest opportunities for professional development in the futureand it is not smart to limit access to these professions to half the population, and especially to women who have a special talent for developing them, such as gifted women.

These are some 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 “Highlight or silence”:

identify them as gifted at an early age. give them fair treatment with their male brothers, without limiting their expression and activities by the usual gender stereotypes. help and support them in any task that they propose or that they want to develop. Develop your critical ability and decision making. Help them meet successful female role models in scientific and professional fields, and encourage them to develop their abilities and not limit themselves by being girls. “You also can!”.

To the above we would add offer psychological support necessary from childhood and adolescence to strengthen their self-esteem and motivation, adequately guide them in their professional interests and offer them the necessary tools from the relational point of view and social skills so that they can achieve their goals.