2023-06-28 09:12:54
Why do the smartest girls hide their abilities during adolescence? What are the barriers that prevent women from developing their intellectual potential? The psychologist and popularizer Carmen Sanz Chacón tells us what it is like to be a woman with high capacities.
Andalusian students from Baccalaureate and Higher Vocational Training begin the Baccalaureate Assessment Test for University Access. EFE/Jose Manuel Vidal EFE/Jose Manuel Vidal
Currently many social issues influence the professional, emotional, and social development of women with high abilities.
Through data, reports and years of experience, Carmen Sanz Chacón, a clinical psychologist specializing in Giftedness and High Abilities, explains in her book “Stand out or shut up” (Current Platform) the challenges faced by women with a high intellectual potential.
Through her book and in an interview for EFEsalud, Carmen Sanz explains what it is to be a woman with high capacitiesthe barriers they face and how it should be value and enhance the high intellectual capacities of women.
High capacities: gender differences between men and women
“No scientific study has shown to date that men are more intelligent than women or that women are more intelligent than men,” says the psychologist.
Nonetheless, only three gifted girls are identified for every seven boys.
The psychologist mainly highlights Two reasons what do they do women with high abilities hide more:
First of all, for social stereotypes, which historically have made women not stand out. Second, because women suit much better to the environment and they know how to hide their high capacities more.
Figures indicate that 15% of children they hide their intellectual abilities in front of 65% of girls.
According to the psychologist, in the high capacities of women, the communication skills and personal relationships. In emotional intelligence women stand out in emotional perception and support capacity. For their part, men have more advantages in navigation, creativity, architecture and those activities with a more analytical profile.
Carmen Sanz Chacón, psychologist and author of ‘Stand out or shut up’. Image courtesy of Plataforma Actual.
Characteristics of gifted and highly capable women
“Gifted and highly capable girls have the same characteristics as gifted boys”, affirms Carmen Sanz.
learn to speak soon and use a more developed vocabulary than usual. They learn to read very soon and is easy with numbers. prefer being with older children and at recess they sometimes choose the company of their teachers. they are very sensitive.
They reason and they learn new concepts at high speed and are able to interrelate them easily. In addition, they know how to use memory perfectly. Are very demanding with themselves sometimes the level of demand is confused with perfectionism.
Mental hyperactivity and multiple curiosity for different fields. This leads to them getting bored quickly in activities that they already control They are girls shy o on the contrary they manifest behavior problems.
show little resistance to the frustration. tend to question rules and authority.
Son imaginative and creative under the right conditions.
They constantly ask about the family, its origin, the adult world… In general, they feel different and it is difficult for them to integrate with children their age, to fit in with their environment and meet expectations from their parents and teachers.
Three barriers faced by a woman with high capacities
Carmen Sanz draws attention mainlyand about the following barriers:
Lack of identification: by not feeling identified, they do not feel supported either.
Family and academic expectations: From the family and from the school, the expert affirms that unlike boys, they find great deficiencies when it comes to motivating or promoting the study of science careers in girls.
Social pressure on the idea of having a family: Many women have to decide because they do not have enough time or opportunities to develop a professional career and at the same time take care of family needs or children.
Breaking with the stereotypes of women with high capacities
“Highly capable women and girls live surrounded by stereotypes,” explains the psychologist.
Some teachers assume that high achievement for girls is product of your effort and perseverance. On the other hand, in the case of children, its good results are product of his high intellectual capacity.
Stereotypes also spread in families. As the author explains in her book, parents tend to believe more in the high abilities of sons than in those of their daughters.
This occurs especially because parents have different expectations with intellectual capacities and consider that their sons have a greater capacity for science subjects, while their daughters have only high capacities for the subjects of letters.
Because of these stereotypes, girls tend to hide more so as not to stand out, to be accepted. Thus, they hide their abilities and do not feel different.
“In addition, women tend to have lower self-esteem than men in terms of our intelligence, we tend to think that we are less intelligent than we really are when the opposite occurs in men,” explains the expert.
Book ‘Detacar o callar’ (Current Platform).
Tips to improve the opportunities and potential of gifted women
In his book, Carmen Sanz exposes that for enhance women’s capabilities gifted is necessary the confluence of different factors:
A secure emotional base. Loving and attentive parents who encourage their daughters to explore, learn and discover. Both parents and teachers should stimulate thinking and behavior independent and tolerance to change. Identification of the role model, and fostering self-acceptance and understanding early experiences of success and self confidence.
In addition, the psychologist, collects in her pages some measures so that parents and teachers can assist in educational and professional development of gifted women:
identify them as gifted in early ages will help encourage the development of their high capacities Give them a equal treatment with their male brotherswithout limiting their expression and activities by the usual gender stereotypes.
help and support them in any task that is proposed.
Develop your critical ability and decision making. help them to meet successful female role models in scientific and professional fields, encourage them to develop their abilities and motivate them so that they do not limit themselves because they are girls.
The Darwin Method for the development of people with high capacities
The Darwin Method is a own methodology from the Carmen Sanz team of professionals. It is a system designed by experts with a long history working with people with high abilities.
“The Darwin method, more than a therapy in itself, is like a course in emotional development in which we work on different aspects of the training of children with high capacities”, clarifies Carmen Sanz.
The professional explains that one of the reasons for the great success that the Darwin Method is having is the professional team they have. The psychologists who work with patients applying this methodology are also highly capable women, which greatly improves the level of dialogue between expert and patient.
The Darwin Method works best with boys and girls ages 8 and up and especially among teenagers y University Students.
However, the expert confirms that they always try to adapt the way of working to age so that adults with high capacities who need help to focus their goals also find this methodology effective.
We know that we are training leaders for the future and these boys and girls, thanks to the method, leave the center with negotiation and leadership skills… and we help them to really discover what their goals in life are, defends the psychologist.
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