Melania Trump’s IQ Vs Michelle Obama’s: Fact Checking An Online Fixation
Americans seem to be obsessed with Melania Trump’s IQ. As the new first lady, she remains an enigma shrouded in the cloak of wealth and privilege. A woman not given to frequent interviews or public appearances, Mrs. Trump’s IQ has been a source of speculation since at least last spring, when it became clear that her husband, Donald, would become the Republican nominee for president.
Viral ads on Facebook and other social media sites have lured unsuspecting folks into click bait articles that tease readers with information about Trump’s IQ, but they don’t deliver. News aggregator Reddit has a subreddit called r/SavedYouAClick, on which members post archived links of click bait titles. The archived post from smartied.com promises to show the IQs of famous people, with Melania Trump included. However, the site never gives her actual intelligence quotient, only that she’s a savvy businesswoman with a thriving jewelry line.
Last May, DuJour magazine published an in-depth interview with Mrs. Trump, during which her intelligence and quiet reserve both came up several times. When the topic of being catcalled and publicly scrutinized for her beauty came up she used it as an example of how easily people dismiss her based on her beauty.
“I’m not only a beauty, I’m smart. I have brains. I’m intelligent.”
The widespread focus on comparing Michelle Obama and Melania Trump in terms of intelligence actually harms all women by implying that beautiful women are valuable primarily for their appearance and not for their intelligence. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was caught on a hot mic commenting on Trump’s body and illustrates how even progressive pundits objectify female public figures. Equating beauty with a lower IQ is an ingrained part of our psyche as a society, and it is often surprising when we find out that a woman is not only beautiful, but intelligent.
But just how smart is Melania Trump? A previous story by Inquisitr notes that her former college professor, Blaz Matija Vogelnik, claimed that Melania’s IQ was “very high,” due to her ability to pass a stringent entry test required of all potential students. But that still doesn’t really say exactly what her IQ is, and whether it even matters. She originally studied architecture and design, but did not finish her degree due to her burgeoning modeling career.
Since we can’t really put a number on Trump’s IQ we can only go by the information that’s readily available. Expert System, a software company that provides analyses of the written word, compared Michelle Obama’s “One Nation” speech from the 2008 Democratic Convention with Melania Trump’s 2016 Republican National Convention speech. The analysis concluded that although Melania used a richer vocabulary than Obama, her sentences were shorter and easier to understand. Obama’s speech seemed aimed at an “audience with a higher level of education” with longer, more complex sentences.
Even then, the Expert Systems data does not really provide much of an answer as to Melania Trump’s IQ. Her shorter sentences, use of more adjectives, and easier overall readability could be a result of English not being her native language.
Instead, let’s look at the things we do know about Melania Trump. As previously stated, the new first lady had to pass a very difficult test just to get admitted into college in Slovenia. Her chosen subjects were architecture and design, both of which demand an aptitude for mathematics and an ability to think in the abstract. As a child, she was quite artistic, and according to her childhood friends, often created clothes for her dolls. Later, she would sketch clothing designs, which her seamstress mother would sew. According to IBTimes, Trump also speaks six languages and is fluent in French, German, and Italian.
Even then, there exist few videos, if any, of Melania Trump speaking any language other than English. A search on YouTube for “Melania Trump speaking German” comes up empty. And viewers of the YouTube video that IBTimes uses as one of its sources are challenging just how fluent Melania Trump really is in French and German. One commenter from Germany was particularly harsh.
“If she speaks German like she does English, polyglot my a**.”
Still, none of this really answers the ongoing interest in comparing Melania Trump’s IQ vs. Michelle Obama’s. Because we don’t have actual test scores, it’s really all just speculation.
[Featured Image via AP Images]
