Richard Lynn and colleagues have done a series of studies (6) in multiple countries looking to see if there are sex differences in knowledge. The thesis is that more intelligent people seek out and absorb more knowledge of all types.
The researchers focused on a wide variety of topics. Here are the sex differences in Cohen's d effect size statistics: over, say, 0.8 would be considered large. The black/white IQ gap is around 1.0, for example. A positive effect size indicates a male advantage; a negative Cohen's d means female advantage:
Sex difference--Cohen's d
General knowledge .53
Games .51
Jazz and blues .46
Sports .39
Finance .35
Exploration .33
General science .32
Politics .28
Geography .27
History .26
Medicine -.24
Cookery -.22
Classical music -.19
Biology -.11
Film -.11
Art -.08
Popular music -.07
Fashion -.05
Literature .01
Men know more in 10 categories, while women take the lead in 8 areas. The female advantages tend to be small. When it is all summed up, men score one-half a deviation more than women. The samples are teenagers and young adults. The male advantage would probably be bigger if the sample was older--knowledge accumulates with time.
The sex differences make sense. Men tend to know more about the more impersonal subjects: finance and science. Women tend to know a little more in softer "home topics" like medicine and cooking.
The results are consistent with the view that mean male intelligence is a few points higher than the female mean.
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