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terpfan1980

Join Date 08/2004

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Women Lack'Natural Ability In Some Fields says Harvard Pres.

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Women Lack 'Natural Ability' In Some Fields,

Harvard President Says

Comments Came At Economic Conference

POSTED: 4:06 pm EST January 17, 2005
UPDATED: 4:19 pm EST January 17, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass -- The president of Harvard University prompted criticism for suggesting that innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers.
Lawrence H. Summers, speaking Friday at an economic conference, also questioned how great a role discrimination plays in keeping female scientists and engineers from advancing at elite universities.
The remarks prompted Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist Nancy Hopkins - a Harvard graduate - to walk out on Summers' talk, The Boston Globe reported.
"It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women (at Harvard) are being led by a man who views them this way," Hopkins said later.
Five other participants in the National Bureau of Economic Research conference, including Denice D. Denton, chancellor designate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, also said they were offended by the comments. Four other attendees contacted afterward by the Globe said they were not.
Summers told the Globe he was discussing hypotheses based on the scholarly work assembled for the conference, not expressing his own views. He also said more research needs to be done on the issues.
Conference organizers said Summers was asked to be provocative, and that he was invited as a top economist, not as a Harvard official.
The two-day, invitation-only conference of the Cambridge-based National Bureau of Economic Research drew about 50 economists from around the country to discuss women and minorities in science and engineering.
Summers declined to provide a tape or transcript of his remarks, but he did describe comments to the Globe similar to what participants recalled.
"It's possible I made some reference to innate differences," he said. He said people "would prefer to believe" that the differences in performance between the sexes are due to social factors, "but these are things that need to be studied."
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.

... more at linked article

Before finishing up, you might also want to scratch your head a bit and question where you might know the name Lawrence Summers from:

Bio can be found buried here: link, click me

Dr. Summers’ background and career is indeed very impressive. He was the former Secretary of Treasury under former President Bill Clinton. Prior to that post, Dr. Summers served in leadership positions at various think tanks and the World Bank. Trained as an economist, he also received the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, given to outstanding American economists under age 40. Continuing with his distinguished career, Dr. Summers was recently elected to become the President of Harvard University.

Now, pardon me if I'm mistaken, but I seem to recall that the party of Clinton is the party of the progressives. The party that wanted a cabinet that reflected America. The party that wanted to provide opportunity to women.

Ooops, that's right, that was all just lip-service to get elected. It didn't mean anything. Pay no real attention to the words, they mean nothing.

Bleh.

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Amazing how every nasty thing or dumb comment is always brought around by righties to Clinton. This is so .............................................
freakin' dumb.

Now, as for the comment from this guy, there's not much to say. I work in a planning/scientific field in which an easy 50% are women. I'm not even going to bother with the rest of this crap.

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Well.. there are obviously inate differences between men and women. Men are known to be better at maths and sciences, women and english and social studies.

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None of this actually matters. Whether this man is correct or not is of no consequence. The Irrational Left is just as disinterested in science as the Religious Right, and for pretty much the same reasons: Science often disproves their respective faiths. For the Religious Right, the earth wasn't made in 7 days; for the Irrational Left, not everybody and everything is equal ("the same"), neither social constructs nor social conditioning are necessarily the reasons for the differences, inequalities, and discrepancies.

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I don't see how you can turn that around to slam Clinton's (ahem) commitment to women. From a former Treasury secretary, yet. Maybe if he had been Clinton's Ambassador to Womanhood or somesuch you might have a point. It would still be a stretch, but maybe.

And how do you slam a party of millions of people based on the comments of one? Or of 100s even? The sample size is too small to be relevant.

If a former Disneyland employee was found to be a pedophile would you write an article slamming Disney for "all their so-called 'commitment' to children has been an obvious fraud all these years. They don't care about your kids! They just use them for money and darker purposes! Happiest place on Earth my fanny!"

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I don't see how you can turn that around to slam Clinton's (ahem) commitment to women.

How about the same way that individuals from the party of Clinton look at George W. Bush's cabinet and ignore the fact that it's more diverse than Clinton's own was?

The point is that one party touted their commitment to diversity and made a lot of noise about it, while the other party has done as much or more in the area of diversity, yet it continues to be seen as out of touch with minorities, continues to watch much of the minority voting block cast ballots like lemmings, and continues to have it's judicial nominees called bigots, racists, and worse.

How about that is how?

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How about the same way that individuals from the party of Clinton look at George W. Bush's cabinet and ignore the fact that it's more diverse than Clinton's own was?

That didn't so much answer the question as say "two wrongs make a right."

I'm sure you could find many examples to make your point. This isn't one of them. To extrapolate the actions/beliefs of one individual or one small subset of individuals into a cosmic indictment simply isn't legitimate.

One person's ill-conceived babbling about his interpretation of scientific data (or the lack thereof) is hardly a commentary on anything but his own mental abilities and prejudices. The article says event organizers asked Summers "to be provocative." It looks like he could very easily dismiss this by saying, "I was asked to play Devil's Advocate and I did."

I agree with you that the political perceptions don't necessarily match reality -- as perceptions rarely do. However, this incident will not make the case for you no matter how much you try to twist and shove it into your desired position. This example is always going to be a square peg in a round hole.

There's a lot to be said about the incident itself. The elaboration beyond it into some global commentary on American politics isn't going to work.

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while the other party has done as much or more in the area of diversity, yet it continues to be seen as out of touch with minorities, continues to watch much of the minority voting block cast ballots like lemmings, and continues to have it's judicial nominees called bigots, racists, and worse.

In case I wasn't clear enough...

I don't disagree with what you are saying, just that this one nimrod's loose-lipped dribbling of possible sexism doesn't serve as a case in point.

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One person's ill-conceived babbling about his interpretation of scientific data (or the lack thereof) is hardly a commentary on anything but his own mental abilities and prejudices.

I have to agree with Gene.

The reference to his daughter and the trucks? What did he expect? I guess that doesn't say much for him and what his poor daughter will go through (with him) since she's not a boy!

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While there are some areas in which men may be better suited than women, the article, and indeed most of the posts above ignore the possibility that there are some areas in which women may be better suited than men. That's truely where the nefariousness of the article comes from. Because people will take this guy's comment as saying "Men are equally good as women at most things, and where men aren't, it's because they're better." That may be even how he intended it, though I don't pretend to know what he was thinking, but I'd prefer to think not.

Cheers

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Daiwa

Join Date 07/2001

+351

Whatever he meant to convey, whether it makes any sense or not, it is troubling the way we continue to jump down the throats of people for politically incorrect speech. Apparently, we haven't learned a thing since Galileo's time, no matter how sophisticated we think our society has become.

Cheers,
Daiwa

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the article, and indeed most of the posts above ignore the possibility that there are some areas in which women may be better suited than men

I recently saw on a TV show that females who joined the Air Force on average have a higher tolerance for G-forces than males, which would make them better suited to be fighter pilots.

Not that I advocate sexism, but there are differences between the male and female body which makes one sex better suited to some things and the other better suited to other things. Of course, that doesn't mean that we should treat people of opposite sexes differently and put up barriers. These are simply things that it could be beneficial to investigate.

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