To hate it when sister claims lack of intelligence holds her back

[Moonbeamsandsunshine]

My Dsis is lovely - sweet and caring and funny, and very, very clever. She has a 2:1 from a RG university, brilliant A levels - she's talented at dancing, brilliant artist, yet has it in her head, and therefore other people's, that she is not very intelligent at all!

As such, anything she could do but doesn't want to do - like changing tyres, checking fuses and so on - is blamed on not being bright enough.

Most frustratingly, men fall for it every time!

Does she genuinely doubt her own intelligence, or is she just "playing dumb" to get people to do things for her?

I'm definitely guilty of a certain amount of learned helplessness myself, anything practical (fixing things, building furniture etc) I assume I won't be able to do, so I get DH to do it, which means I never end up doing anything practical, which further entrenches my idea that I can't do anything practical.....I have to kick myself up the ass every so often and force myself to try and usually succeed.

MiL was always very pretty and a massive flirt she always had a stream of men willing to fix anything for her, do her taxes etc. Now while she still looks pretty amazing at pushing 60 she's finding the source of white knights beginning to dry up and she gets SUPER frustrated having to do things fior herself.

Yeah, what TwoOddSocks said - does she say such things around women who don't find it cute and rush to do things for her/stroke her ego with assurances that she is very smart? Or just around men?

Maybe it is a genuine lack of common sense or there are certain things she finds tricky? EG my mother is extremely intelligent but can't read a map to save her life and has reached the ripe age of 55 without learning how to change a lightbulb!

Why do you care if men fall for it? Do they encourage her to be a ditz?

I dunno, most of us are turnip brains sometimes. Only some are brave enough to admit it.

Your last line is very telling

Your sister sounds like me

Academically, I've never struggled.

But I really struggle with practical things. Anything that involves co-ordination, or just not being clumsy or having to use precision I find really difficult.

I'm not great at cooking, learning to drive was a real challenge. I'm very clumsy to the point I've wondered whether I'm dyspraxic.

I don't consider myself to lack intelligence, though. I'm just not very good at practical tasks :)

Is this less about "academic intelligence" and more about lack of common sense and practical skills?

We are all good at different things and have different skills - I'm reasonably bright but I have forgotten how to wire plugs, change a tyre etc. and to. E honest I wouldn't do either of those things very capably even if I did know how to do them...IYSWIM?

1. all through school I thought I wasn't very intelligent, this stuck with me for years. It turns out I'm above average and I just generally appear to like being friends with unbelievably academically gifted people

2. I'm an engineer, "playing dumb" in a male dominated environment is sometimes an effective strategy to get things done, which I don't want to do.