I'm Angela Seiney and this is smart women male genius on the BBC World Service.

So when you think about who is brilliant, the images are often of a male white scientist in a lab coat doing really complicated things.

If women are denied the label of genius

as often as men are, it's not because the world is easier for us.

It's because the world is harder for us. How are we going to listen and pay attention to women genius

if we just disparaged them?

It's been hallmarked and benchmarked by male features and it's toxic.

I remember being the only girl who turned up to my local chess club growing up so I loved the Queen's

gambit a Netflix series about chess prodigy Beth Harmon a fictional character

the show like Beth was an international sensation in 2020 and a top 10 hit in 92 countries.

High proficiency in chess is often associated with

extraordinary intellectual or creative abilities, but even today only 37 of

over 1700 grandmasters are women and it's not the only activity where having a rare

talent or exceptional intelligence is more associated with a particular gender but

there are plenty of women today and throughout history who do merit the mantle of genius.

And yet, for some reason, society doesn't see them that way.

I want to understand why. Maybe this is where it all began.

Fingers on buzzers please for your first question.

In 1575 Spanish Psychologist Juan War I for your

Spanish psychologist Juan Warte

said that genius was stored in a particular part of the human body.

Which part?

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