January 17, 2005

Harvard's President, Lawrence H. Summers, is in trouble. In a talk last week Summers suggested that "innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers."

Michelle Malkin notes that:

According to the Boston Globe, the first point Summers touched on was the reluctance or inability of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks. The second point was that fewer girls than boys have top scores on science and math tests in late high school years. Summers' third point addressed discrimination. Summers noted that if discrimination was the main factor limiting the advancement of women in science and engineering, then a school that does not discriminate would gain an advantage by hiring away the top women who were discriminated against elsewhere.

This actually makes sense to me. Although, an 80-hour work for anyone is crazy, but especially for women with children, and even more especially if this statistic I found is true. It states that "only 7% of mothers aged 25-49 with children under the age of 18 work more than 49 hours per week outside of the home."

The Harvard Crimson Online (which has by far the best coverage of this controversry, by the way), says:

Summers referred repeatedly to the work of University of Michigan sociologist Yu Xie and his University of California-Davis colleague Kimberlee A. Shauman, who have found that women make up 35 percent of faculty at universities across the country, but only 20 percent of professors in science and engineering.

Their analysis of achievement test results shows a higher degree of variance in scores among men than among women. According to Ascherman Professor of Economics Richard Freeman, an organizer of the conference, the research found that “there are more men who are at the top and more men who are utter failures.”

Predictably, some people overreacted to this speech. Nancy Hopkins, a professor at MIT walked out of the speech when Summers offered up this personal example:

He also cited as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral upbringing. Yet he said she named them "daddy truck" and "baby truck," as if they were dolls.

Now, Hopkins is entitled to her hissy fit, but I suspect that she was motivated by more than pure intellectual distress. The Harvard Crimson reports:

Hopkins said she mentioned the Summers speech in an e-mail exchange relating to another matter with Boston Globe reporter Marcella Bombardieri in an e-mail message Friday—but that she did not intend for her sentiments to spark the media circus that is already underway. Following a Globe article this morning, the story has appeared across the national media, and Hopkins said she has already received a request to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” as well as several other television shows.

Yes, I think that the absolute best way to avoid sparking a media circus is to speak to the media, don't you?

What actually bothers me from Summer's speech is this comment:

after Summers’ mentioned the “innate differences” hypothesis, he explicitly told the audience: “I’d like to be proven wrong on this one.”

Why? Why would it be so horrible if men are, on average, better than women at math & sciences? Why would it be so horrible if women are, on average, better than men at communication and nurturing a family? Wouldn't that be a better explanation than deciding that parents and educators from nursery school on up are in a conspiracy to prevent girls from learning math and science - all part of some sinister plot to keep women down? Do we all have to be the same?

To my mind, equality doesn't mean that, for example, science professors should be:

• 51% female
• 49% male
• 75% white
• 12% black
• 3.6% Asian
• And so on

Equality means that a talented individual, regardless of their race or gender, has the opportunity to rise to the top.

Women are gaining in fields that were traditionally dominated by men. Half or even more of law and medical students are women now. However, I expect that women will never fill half of the top spots in these fields. One of the wonderful things about being a woman today is that you can choose the kind of life you want. You can have a high powered career. You can be a full-time mom. You can even do a little of one and a little of the other. One of the worst things about being a woman today is the lie that we "can have it all". You can't. Like most things in life, a choice also includes a sacrifice.

And finally, Llet me say this: men and women are different. I've been around enough toddlers to know that there's a point in their lives when little boys like nothing more than "big trucks" (that's a shout out to my nephew Jordan ;-) while little girls the same age are obsessed with Mommies and babies. And we don't grow out of all of that. I don't know a single man who wasn't strangely fascinated by the Little Giant Ladder or a woman who was interested in it. Similarly, I know that no man will understand why I have 5 pairs of pink shoes, but I think I could justify it to another woman. Men and women are different, and viva la difference!

Posted by kris at January 17, 2005 10:35 PM

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