First, the claim is not that men perform better than women in every cognitive domain. On the contrary, men perform better in some domains whereas wom… - Steve Stewart-Williams

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First, the claim is not that men perform better than women in every cognitive domain. On the contrary, men perform better in some domains whereas women perform better in others. The best-known examples are that men score higher than women on most tests of spatial ability, whereas women score higher than men on most tests of language ability, including verbal comprehension, reading, and writing... Second, even in areas where men do perform better, the claim is not that all men – or even most – perform better than all or most women. As with occupational preferences, members of both sexes vary enormously in every cognitive aptitude, and the distribution for men overlaps almost entirely with that for women. However, for some aptitudes, the distribution for one sex is shifted somewhat to the right of that for the other, such that the average score for the former is somewhat higher. In saying this, it’s worth stressing that the average score does not describe all members of the group, or even the typical member, but merely represents the central tendency within a broad array of scores. Most people fall above or below the average. Third, the claim is not that these cognitive sex differences are especially large. On the contrary, at the centre of the distribution, they tend to be quite small. The only reason they matter at all is that even small differences at the mean are associated with progressively larger differences the further from the mean one looks... Fourth, the claim is not that women lack the cognitive talents to make it in STEM. Most people lack the cognitive talents, and of those who do possess them, some are men and some are women.