What Is an Intelligent Woman?

Deborah L. Ruf, Ph.D.

What is an intelligent woman? The answer depends on whom you ask and at what time in her life. I had many assumptions about my future when I was a student at Ohio Wesleyan: I’d become an elementary school teacher, marry, have children, and be a school principal while raising my family.

My plans started well, but unexpected circumstances made my path less direct. Life is a journey and sometimes you change your mind about what you really want to do as you experience more of your life. For intelligent women, as for anyone really, life is more satisfying when we get to follow our passions and use our abilities to their best. Whatever our intellectual profile, we are at our smartest when we do what we were designed to do.

I ended up doing what I love — what I seemed to be made for — but it hasn’t always been clear and I must admit that I stumbled into this. I did indeed teach elementary school, raise a family, and train to be a school administrator.

But when my own three sons, all clearly very bright, experienced difficulties in school, I went back to graduate school and I started to learn everything I could about intelligence: what is it, where does it come from, can you measure it, and how malleable is it (e.g., can parental behavior change a child’s intelligence significantly)? After all, if they…