I know plenty of smart girls. Girls who can argue for existentialism, solve a complicated quadratic equation and discuss politics and religion with the best of them. I also know a lot of guys who can do the same.

However, according to a study by a British researcher at University College London, men give themselves a lot more credit for their smarts – basically, they have a much larger ego about intelligence than women do.

Although it’s true that men tend to score slightly higher on IQ tests, especially for spatial awareness skills (which is a useful skill for stuff like reading maps), women score higher in certain areas, too, such as emotional intelligence (go figure!). But when it comes down to it, the only real difference is that men tend to be more confident about their intelligence quotient. In an interview with the researcher on Newsweek.com, he states “on average, women underestimate their IQ scores by about five points while men overestimate their own.”

But the real surprise is not only that men think they’re smarter than women, but that most women also view men as the more intelligent gender! This problem doesn’t just show up in the United States or the United Kingdom, either – the study showed that this idea permeated all the countries studied, from Zimbabwe to Japan.

Honestly, this really irks me. What is it that causes women to think they’re less intelligent than men? What can we do to change our views of intelligence?