1069

No, that would be confident women (who may or may not be "smart"; emotional fuck-upedness/ psychological health actually have little to do with intellect; two entirely different apparatuses).
Smart people are in fact often the least stable; people of lower intelligence seldom commit suicide.

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Mistress Moon

I have to disagree.
I myself have lots of emotional issues, and often have little confidence in my abilities. I suffer from extreme social anxiety. There is a difference between "confidence" and knowing who you are and still loving yourself.

I know intellectually that what society thinks of me does not matter. What I think of myself matters. What I feel about myself can often be entirely different then that. Emotions and reason are two separate things.

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Panache

Nonsense. Smart women just seem to only care about how they see themselves because they want to present an image of casual indifference.

A woman who actually paid no attention to the image she presented to the rest of society would not be very smart by my estimation.

Certainly smart men are considerate of how they are seen by society, I don't know why smart women would be any different.

1069

Um... okay.
Let me ask you this: what is it that you think I just said?
Did you not understand some of the words I used?
I'm not trying to be rude; I can rephrase myself if need be. I'm just seriously trying to figure out what it is you think you're "disagreeing" with, or how you extracted "emotion and reason are the same thing" from what I posted, which in fact rather explicitly claimed the opposite.

Middleground

You wish. ;-)

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Panache

Well, it rather depends on your definition of "smart."

I generally equate smart with "clever" or "sharp" which implies a degree of confidence. For example a "smart dresser" is someone in a suit and tie, not a labcoat and pocket protector.

The O.P. made reference to "smart, confident women," so I rather went with that concept of "smart."

On the other hand, if we were to assume the smart meant "brainy" or "nerdy" this would actually make a lot more sense:

Brainy girls are the ones who actually don't care about how they are seen by society, just like brainy men.

Despite what you may have been told, women who don't care about how they are seen by the rest of society do not come off looking confident and professional.

They wear a Dungeons and Dragons tee shirt that they got at a Comicon convention. They are generally a bit overweight, are really good at math, and very socially awkward. Just like their male counterparts.

1069

I guess I'm not intimately familiar with this other definition of "smart".
I mean, I've heard "smart dresser" and stuff like that; it's rather archaic. It means- meant- stylish, whatever.
When I hear "smart", I assume intellectual acumen is what's being referred to.
This isn't the 1920s.
I've never heard anyone say, in real life, "What a smart cloche hat, Blanche. It goes so well with those cunning little patent alligator pumps."

Panache

Huh. That was how the word was often used when I was raised. It certainly carries a connotation of business acumen and cleverness or wittiness for me, as opposed to "intelligent" which seems more scientific and nerdy.

I've never heard anyone talk about "street intelligence" if you know what I mean.

The word "smart" just seems more akin to "cunning" and "clever" to me.

1069

I guess, to me, intelligence is wit and cleverness. Glibness.
I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that's the part that I was raised to believe was valuable and would get you what you wanted in the world.
I'm sure there are- as you say- "nerdy" scientific smart people who are completely inarticulate, but that's just another aspect or manifestation of "intelligence".
It's all just different aspects of intelligence. To me, "smart" and "intelligent" means the same thing.
There's not, like, a cool kind of intelligence and a non-cool kind.
Not to me. I think all smart people are cool; I love to hang around with them and get smarter myself.

RightinNYC

IMO, intelligence =/= wit/cleverness. It's sort of a prerequisite, but by no means guarantees it. I know way too many brilliant people who are dull as boards or painfully unfunny.

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