Men outnumber women by a significant margin in a number of areas.
One claim has been attributed to biology. The idea that there's some kind of'superdiversity' among male brains has been cited in the scientific literature many times in recent decades, but according to a new meta-analysis, this is not true.
Lauren Harrison from the Australian National University says that if we assume that humans are like other animals, there is equal chance of having a similar number of high-achieving women as there are high-achieving men in this world.
There is a chance that there will be a similar number of men and women that are low achievers.
The majority of research on diversity focuses on differences between the sexes. It's not hard to find examples of dimorphism, even within our own species, because of the sex differences in chromosomes.
The idea that larger male brains equal greater potential for cognitive prowess has been used to explain why men don't serve in positions of influence and command.
It has been said that statistical differences across the sex divide do not translate into anything significant, but few studies have looked into whether the differences in sex make a difference in behavior.
The team looked at whether the equivalents of our own personality traits differed to any great extent within either of the sexes.
The team couldn't find any compelling evidence that there was greater richness of variability within the personality traits of males or females of any of the species included.
There were differences across species. Some characteristics, such as immunity, were found to be different within genders.
We can only conclude the rich landscape of female brains provides just as much opportunity for genius as the male's if we use nature as a proxy.
"If males are more variable than females, it would mean there are more men than women with very low or very high IQs," says one of the authors, evolutionary biologist Michael Jennions from ANU.
The research shows that male and female behavior is very similar. There is no reason for this argument to be used to explain why more men than women are winners of the Nobel Prize.
The shatter-proof glass ceiling is not ruled out by a lack of evidence in favor of behavioral variation among men.
It limits arguments for that ceiling being a result of our biological wiring, and thus being something that we can't do anything about.
The social structures that are responsible for gender biases might be broken down if the notions of male merit were removed.
Harrison says that instead of using biology to explain why there are more male CEOs or professors, we have to ask what role culture and upbringing play in pushing men and women down different pathways.
The research was published in a journal.
