A Possible Explanation for Gendered Differences in the Black IQ

It was established in a previous post that Black females have higher average IQ’s (+2.4 points) than Black males. At the higher end, the difference is much more dramatic. There are twice as Black females as males with IQ’s over 120. There are five times as many Black females as males with IQ’s over 140. One thing I am looking at is that maybe Black females were brighter than Black males fresh off the boat. In Africa, there were gender differentials in sexual selection. Black males were selecting for high testosterone. A side effect of this was lowered intelligence. Black females were not under any particular selection pressure for intelligence at al. African males did not care if the females they mated with were intelligent or not. It didn’t matter. Hence the females’ intelligence was simply “average” for the or what would be expected for the race where there no negative pressure on the males. The differences were there from the moment they stepped off the boat, an African legacy, and are still with us. Just a hypothesis.

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0 thoughts on “A Possible Explanation for Gendered Differences in the Black IQ”

  1. I can’t help but think this is a reach. There are certainly differences between men and women in Africa though. I’m unsure of the specific background of most African Americans, but in Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ book, *The Old Way*, she recalls that her family gave the bushmen a collection of maze problems. Most men could solve them all, but, interestingly, the women couldn’t solve even the simplest one. Their [men’s and women’s] daily roles are pretty separate, but I can’t think of a reason as to why the difference in “intelligence” would be so great. They both required good land navigation…? Remember this was just the bushmen, and Africa is quite diverse.
    Maybe it is simply a cultural issue. I’d guess that among upper class African Americans, the IQ difference would disappear–is that possible?
    Regarding testosterone specifically, it would be helpful to see how extra affects other mammals. As far as I know, smaller brains are not the case, and I don’t know how it affects intelligence. I believe extra progesterone increases brain size in chickens (so does glycine), so maybe women have a head start in IQ? Changes afterward would then be from upbringing/culture, particularly experience in IQ-type problems.

  2. The Bushmen have low testosterone. The selection for high testosterone only occurred among primitive agriculturalists. The same high testosterone is found among primitive agriculturalists in New Guinea. They selected for it. Hunter gatherers tend to have lower testosterone than agriculturalists the world over.
    Why would the difference disappear among upper middle class Blacks? Keep in mind that among US Blacks, twice as many females as males have IQ’s over 120 and twice as many females as males have IQ’s over 140. Obviously many of those Black females are either from the Black upper middle classes or they are headed there after graduation.
    Women have no head start over men in IQ. For a long time now, males have had IQ’s 4 points higher than females.

    1. Hunter gatherers tend to have lower testosterone than agriculturalists the world over.
      Sounds ass-backwards to me. I’d like to see the evidence.
      Did the nomadic Mongols have lower testosterone than the Han chinese farmers? Hard to believe…

      1. I know for a fact it is true in Africa. Hunter gatherers have lower testosterone than primitive agriculturalists, I do know that. About more modern agriculturalists, I am not sure.
        In hunter gatherer societies, everyone marries at an early age, and the females are not very selective. There is little monopolization of females by chief types. This right there means there is not selection pressure for higher testosterone.
        Mongols are not hunter gatherers. They are agriculturalists (herders).

    2. Oh, do we have any info about intelligence differences between men and women in New Guinea?
      I don’t know why it would change among upper middle class blacks–just a possibility. Has that been studied in blacks in any European country?
      Here are a few results that overall make me skeptical: young boys with high and *low* IQs have low testosterone, while there is no relationship between test and IQ among young girls; salivary testosterone is positively correlated to reaction speed in young men; there is a paper that links prenatal test exposure to 130+ IQs; in men with “successful or unsuccessful educational levels,” there is a positive correlation to IQ and test in successful educational level group and a U relationship in the unsuccessful educational level group.
      Thyroid hormones might be more influential.

      1. I should mention that the above list was just some counter evidence; there is support too. In a pre-adolescent study, there was a clear inverse relationship between giftedness and testosterone, which also held for girls separately.

    3. If true, then it could explain how the Bantus(what Americans see as blacks) were able to come to dominate sub-saharan Africa & also subduing the Bushman negroids in the process, as the Bantus originated from West Africa. Another thing though. If testosterone does affect intelligence in a negative way, how can the Bushman have low testosterone, but possess even lower intelligence than the Bantu blacks that come from the north to be conquered by them, as the Ape Family as a whole tend to be aggressive kinds of animals, which homo sapiens happen to be a member of.

      1. I am not sure of the answer to your question. I believe maybe there was some selection pressure for intelligence among the modern Negroid types. Reportedly their IQ’s are quite a bit higher than those of Pygmies or Bushmen.

  3. Interesting. I also wondered if there was something in the circumstances of slavery that favoured intelligent black women, some survival strategy particular to females.

  4. Wouldn’t the black men with high t (even if that were being selected at the expense of intelligence) be passing their IQ genes onto their male AND female offspring? Wouldn’t it just lower everybody’s IQ?

      1. This is the only way it would work. Maybe the males are just inheriting the high T and then passing that on to the kid and that lowers IQ right there. Or there is a sex linked trait for both lowered IQ and high T. I do not understand genetics very well.

  5. Also, if there are so many more high IQ black females, there must be more low IQ ones too, or there would be more than a 2-3 point average difference.

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