There is the hypothesis that highly-functional autism, i.e. Asperger’s, is nothing more than a manifestation of an “extreme male brain”. People with this condition do not care much about social validation or conforming to mainstream opinion. These men pursue various interests, normally a small number of them or perhaps just one, and dedicate themselves to it at an extent normies find alienating. In the right setting, these men are able to advance their field. Obvious examples are scientists of yore, in contrast to today’s SCIENCE! fascists, gentleman scholars, some writers and poets, martial artist, etc. No matter what field you look at, there sits a man at the very top.

Of course, not every man with an extreme male brain will become the number one authority in his field. However, with this level of dedication men normally achieve a level of mastery that makes them stand out. Looking at women, though, I do not think I have ever come across just a single one in a professional context who was more than moderately competent. I had an excellent female Latin teacher but here the problem is that I have no basis for comparison. Still, I know of some male high school teachers who managed to publish serious papers in academic journals, and they did that in their spare time.

I do not think it is much of a stretch to say that women lack the focus and determination some men are able to muster. Plenty of men also lack that, but this is not the point. I have met plenty of men who seemed to not take anything they did particularly seriously either, albeit I should add that these were often diversity hires from different cultures. Presumably, it is racist to double-check your work to ensure that it meets specifications, so let us not read too much into that.

On a more general note, it is remarkable how few people seem to be unable to properly learn anything on their own. Some seem completely resistant to any kind of learning. A pattern I have witnessed a lot with women in the workplace, for instance, consist of them submitting substandard work, getting feedback, and then making changes accordingly. Sometimes, they go through multiple iterations of that. Amazingly, the next time nothing really changes, and sometimes even make identical or very similar mistakes. I had a female peer who once told me, seemingly with a sense of pride, that she likes to muddle her way through and finds any kind of planning restraining. If a man had such an attitude, he would not be able to advance meaningfully in his career.

Before you can make a decent contribution in any field, not necessarily a novel one, you need a solid foundation. You cannot expect to be spoon-fed, albeit this is unfortunately the model our school system follows. Instead, you have to be able to identify your knowledge gaps and work on closing them. I am not even sure that private tutoring will work that well. Anyway, arguably the most important subject I studied in school was Latin as this was the only subject where I needed to sit down to memorize conjugation and declension tables, study grammar and vocabulary, and, generally, work pretty hard. I was the top student in my cohort but unlike in every other subject at school, I was not able to coast. For instance, I am not a native speaker of English, but I never had to formally study it. Also, a lot of students struggle with mathematics, but for me this was always quite easy, even though we had a fairly high standard, covering topics that in many countries, including various Western ones, are only taught at university.

The experience of having to sit down, every day, and making sure that you have a solid grasp on Latin grammar and vocabulary was formative. No, this does not mean that you can get by just by rote learning, but you simply cannot skip this step. Plenty of people in my cohort tried to wing it, and the consequence was that only about a handful managed to make it. All the hard work paid off in the end. We also had an optional external exam in Latin, which led to a particular certificate, the so-called Latinum. The main part consisted of an unseen translation of an original piece of text and an oral exam. I really enjoyed the experience and I considered this the culmination of my efforts of learning Latin. The bar was also pretty high. I was, again, the top performing student of my school, and the gap between me and the rest was enormous. In Germany, grades go from “1” to “6”, a “1” is very good, a “4” is the last passing grade, and, perhaps interestingly, there are two failing grades, “5” and “6”. With a “5” you may get a chance to improve your grade but a “6” is considered a performance so bad that it cannot be redeemed. Well, I walked out with a “2”, the second-best student got a “4”, and so did some others, and I think that some even failed. I was more proud of my “2” than of my A+ performances in English and Mathematics.

Really making an effort, struggling, and persevering is an experience people supposedly no longer have to have. If men go through it, they actively need to seek out those opportunities. Women, on the other hand, normally do not have any such inclinations. They just enjoy all the instant gratification they get everywhere they look. You need to challenge yourself, though. After all, there is coddling in school and university. Everybody gets golden stars or A’s for attendance, no submitted piece of work is ever bad. Yet, this leads to people being woefully unprepared for real life. There are of course environments where standards are low if not non-existent. Certainly, that is how I imagine work at NGOs to be. As long as you are able to identify sexism, misogyny or racism anywhere, you are fine. Adherence to logic is completely optional if not actively discouraged. However, in any field in which you an assess the quality of the end result, you need to be able to think for yourself. Bridges and buildings collapse if the work is crappy, for instance. Airplanes fall out of the sky, astronauts end up stuck in space, and people needlessly die in hospitals if our experts just wing it. Society is doing itself a disservice by looking the other way whenever there is substandard work. There is a competency crisis in Western society. Arguably, women are the vanguard of it.