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Sorry, Feminists, Men Are Better at Scrabble
Wall Street Journal ^ | November 16, 2018 | Heather Mac Donald

Posted on 11/17/2018 4:43:08 AM PST by reaganaut1

...

Since the World Scrabble Championship began in 1991, all winners have been male. The North American Scrabble Championship has had one female winner (in 1987) since its founding in 1978. All eight finalists in this year’s French World Scrabble Championships were men.

Competitive Scrabble constitutes a natural experiment for testing the feminist worldview. According to feminist dogma, males and females are identical in their aptitudes and interests. If men dominate certain data-based, abstract fields like engineering, physics and math, that imbalance must, by definition, be the result of sexism—whether a patriarchal culture that discourages girls from math or implicit bias in the hiring process.

But there are no cultural expectations that discourage females from memorizing dictionaries—a typical strategy of competitive Scrabble players, often in a foreign language that the player doesn’t speak. Girls are as free as boys to lap up vocabulary. Nor are there misogynist gatekeepers to keep females out of Scrabble play; the game, usually first learned at home, is open to all. According to Hasbro , 83% of recreational Scrabble players 25 to 54 are female.

Championship Scrabble, however, rewards typically male obsessions: strategy, math, a passion for competition, and a drive to memorize facts. Mr. Richards’s mother told the Guardian in 2015 that he “related everything to numbers” when he was growing up. Feminists will need to employ circular logic to conjure forth a discriminatory barrier in Scrabble: Males’ excellence at a certain activity itself keeps females out. But that leaves unanswered the question of how males came to excel at Scrabble—or any other abstract, competitive activity—in the first place.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: feminism; genderwars; heathermacdonald; scrabble; stem
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To: Chickensoup

Safer is not better. Evil Knievel almost killed himself many times on motorcycle doing very difficult stunts. I ride motorcycles and have never had an accident. So am I better motorcyclist than Evil? I think not.


21 posted on 11/17/2018 5:03:59 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: reaganaut1

Either my wife or myself is a glaring exception to this rule.


22 posted on 11/17/2018 5:06:07 AM PST by ExGeeEye (For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.)
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To: central_va

If a stunt/test pilot gets killed on his job, doing his job, he may be a skilled pilot but that doesn’t make him a better pil0t. One of the factors about being better has to be not misjudging the situation.


23 posted on 11/17/2018 5:06:18 AM PST by Chickensoup (Never count on anyone, ever.)
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To: reaganaut1

I ussually win all scrabble games with my wife while she often wins at bannagrams. Interesting differences


24 posted on 11/17/2018 5:06:42 AM PST by Raycpa
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To: central_va

He may have been more skilled than you,but you are the better cyclist.


25 posted on 11/17/2018 5:07:52 AM PST by Chickensoup (Never count on anyone, ever.)
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To: Gay State Conservative

Women drivers are scardy cats. They are afraid to assert themselves. They are afraid to take the lead even if they have the legal right to do so. Women drivers will always let other drivers assume the right of way. Women drivers are cautious and yielding. With the idea of lead, follow, or get out of the way, women drivers will follow. Women in general do not want to make a decision. With driving, women want the other cars to do the decision making.


26 posted on 11/17/2018 5:09:53 AM PST by Trumpet 1 (US Constitution is my guide.)
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To: Chickensoup

How mwny female race car drivers?


27 posted on 11/17/2018 5:11:07 AM PST by Raycpa
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To: Chickensoup; ObozoMustGo2012

Women have more accidents, men have more fatal accidents. When women have accidents they tend to be of the fender bender class. When someone plows into a toll plaza killing a family of six, it tends to be a male.

Men, especially men under 25, have much worse claims records.


28 posted on 11/17/2018 5:12:50 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Schumer delenda est.)
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To: central_va
If a very skilled stunt/test pilot kills himself pushing an aircraft to the limit do we call him a bad pilot?

Attitude is an important part of being a good,or bad,driver.I could have won the Daytona 500 for twenty years in a row but if I killed three people in an accident because I was doing 50 in a 25 that makes me a bad driver.

29 posted on 11/17/2018 5:13:41 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (I've Never Owned Slaves...You've Never Picked Cotton.End Of "Discussion".)
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To: reaganaut1

And men make better body noises...


30 posted on 11/17/2018 5:15:11 AM PST by rrrod (just an old guy with a gun in his pocket)
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To: Raycpa
How mwny female race car drivers?

I have read that race car drivers are very bad insurance risks. Race car driving is all about testosterone, safe driving is all about common sense and courtesy.

31 posted on 11/17/2018 5:15:13 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Schumer delenda est.)
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To: reaganaut1

My husband, who says he is a poor speller, wins at most game of strategy. It is disgusting.

Many games depend on the hand drawn and strategy can not pull it off, however. Then it is luck.

I am a much better driver than he is, BTW.


32 posted on 11/17/2018 5:16:38 AM PST by madison10
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To: reaganaut1

Solving cryptic crosswords is even more of a feminine activity, since you have to understand the meanings of words and have a lot of literary and historical knowledge. The best solvers? Nearly all men. Here are the results from last month’s Times championships:

https://extras.thetimes.co.uk/web/public/pdfs/195a2ae3d382f1f5d3c3d072691b2207.pdf


33 posted on 11/17/2018 5:18:58 AM PST by proxy_user
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To: Gay State Conservative

I am sure your mum was a very astute and talented person, but that only testifies to your well-placed filial loyalty and limited sample size.


34 posted on 11/17/2018 5:18:59 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Schumer delenda est.)
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To: reaganaut1
Unequal outcomes, especially at the extremes, do *not* prove the process was unfair.

So true. Permission to steal?

35 posted on 11/17/2018 5:19:14 AM PST by super7man (Madam Defarge, knitting, knitting, always knitting)
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To: Trumpet 1
Women drivers are scardy cats.

You've just described me...and I'm all man! ;-) My basic attitude toward driving has been forged by two experiences I've had.The first was while I was in high school I had a part time job working in the records warehouse of a major insurance company.One way I'd entertain myself doing that boring job (pulling claims files to be sent to local offices) I'd look inside the folders at the documents and photos.One very memorable file I pulled was from a car accident claim in Texas.Among other things that huge file contained a number of large,glossy,black & white photos...one of which showed a body in the foreground and a head some distance behind it.

My other experience is having worked in Emergency Medicine for years.

As a result I'm a proud "scardy cat".

36 posted on 11/17/2018 5:23:36 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (I've Never Owned Slaves...You've Never Picked Cotton.End Of "Discussion".)
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To: super7man

Yes.


37 posted on 11/17/2018 5:24:35 AM PST by reaganaut1
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To: central_va
"He said better, not safer."

I know one thing, women have become very aggressive on the highway..

38 posted on 11/17/2018 5:25:26 AM PST by unread (Joe McCarthy was right.......)
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To: Trumpet 1

Um... I’m sorry. I’ve been driving since I was 16 and I’m 50 now. Does not describe ME at all. You might want to ease off the generalizations, pal. Kind regards.


39 posted on 11/17/2018 5:25:35 AM PST by Mermaid Girl
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Are you badmouthin’ my Mama? ;-)


40 posted on 11/17/2018 5:25:49 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (I've Never Owned Slaves...You've Never Picked Cotton.End Of "Discussion".)
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