Harvard President's Comments on Women Prompt Criticism

New York Times ^ | 1-17-05 | AP

[FreeTheHostages]

''The psychological literature is clear that there are unintentional biases in judgment that lead to women's contributions being undervalued," she said. ''Unless one specifically grasps these biases and puts mechanisms in place to combat them, it's easy to find yourself in situations like this." Grosz said she signed the letter.


Oops, sorry, you should ignore the post. Prof. Grosz is a FEMALE science professor at Harvard.

[untenured]

It would be the same sensitivity to pointing out that men go to prison in higher proportion to women. This is a true statement, but it can be used inappropriately stereotype all males ... rather than to promote that each individual as unique potential.

But at the same time, if we are trying to get street crime down it will surely be useful to know that men seem to commit it much more. It will also be worthwhile to find out why, and it will be a mistake to fear exploring the possibility that "innate differences between the sexes" explain this fact.

Sensitivity should not be a bar to pursuit of the truth. For a scientist to walk out of a scientific conference because someone says something "upsetting" is disturbingly unscientific. As a member of the faculty of one of the world's best research universities Prof. Hopkins has higher responsibilities to the truth.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Maybe, just maybe, there is a relationship between testosterone levels and the ability to do math and science.

It's quite possible. It may also be possible that those same hormones make women less interested in math careers, even though they have the ability.

You would have to look at math scores of girls and boys in high school to see of there really is a difference in ability.

[cherry]

to a certain extent, but then again if someone even suggested that women are the nuturers in the family and should always get custody, imagine the uprising....

I am sure the female scienctists feel the same way....

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

but it's those statistical outliers that makes men both geniuses and dolts!

It's the way the bell curve is laid out. Women have a one hump curve, whereas men have a two hump curve. Men have more geniuses at one end, but more idiots at the other. For women the curve is more even. INteresting, nonetheless.

[cherry]

"This suggests the possibility of hormonal differences between HMHM and other women."

it does nothing of the sort.....

geesh.....

[cherry]

exactly right about the curve....women are more clustered and have fewer exceptional members at either end...IIRC, that is.....

which means only that while we may not have huge numbers in the very top of the achievement chart, we won't have as many at the very bottom either.....that suits me just fine.....

Also, haven't there been studies reguarding testosterone, basically saying that the worse criminals and the best male minds both have very high testosterone, yet one group reaches excellance and one group reaches the lowest rung of society....

so while testosterone is important, there has to be other factors that guide men to excell in a civilized society....

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

An astute and well stated post.

[Aetius]

Again, I am speaking to generalities here.

Do you really doubt that men are, on average, simply more interested in science and math and engnineering than women? It doesn't mean that an individual woman can't be as good as the men, or even the best single scientist, but it does mean that most of the scientists and engineers will be men, and since more men are interested in these fields and go into them, it goes to reason that most of the top scientists and engineers will be men. And there are no doubt fields in which the opposite is true. I'm not saying men are more intelligent; in fact I've read that in terms of IQ, overall men and women are equal, but that men tend to occupy more of the spots at both the high and low end of the spectrum.

I'm surprised that such obviouis reality would be upsetting to conservatives.

[OldFriend]

Your reality is obvious to you.......

I see a huge bias out there since I have a girl child who always was extremely gifted in math and always had to fight her way into math classes.

Her calc teacher in high school actually wrote on her report card that she exploded the myth that girls can't do math.

He didn't want her in the class in the first place and did everything to try to discourage her and another girl from taking the course. For the most part he ignored both girls.

Now that this daughter is in a field dominated by men, the prejudice continues.

[stacytec]

I tend to think that some learning impediments are more character related than gender. My wife picked up computer skills on her job and ended up getting hired as the IT admin with no professional training. But I see that in her character, she's outgoing and not afraid to pick up a manual and try things out. She's been like that since she was a little girl, so her mother tells me. Some people, male or female, have to be told what to do and can't take initiative to learn things they don't understand.I guess one could argue that socialiation plays a part but I don't discount that some people are just naturally better at some things.

[Physicist]

All I can tell you is that raising my daughters (now ages 9 and 7, with another turning 1 tomorrow) has seriously challenged my beliefs about nature vs. nurture. I used to think that nature was relatively unimportant. Now I believe that it is dominant.

Many of the things that we like to blame on "our paternalistic society" or on "society's expectations" or on "rampant sexism" are simply the result of females behaving in the way that nature tells them to behave.

It's not so much that testosterone makes men good at math. Perhaps it's a matter of estrogen making math less of a priority for women. (Yes, I know you are good at math. You therefore know all about outliers.)

It's a little early for me to judge how well my daughters will take to math, but they won't grow up in my house not learning it. It will be instructive to see how they choose to use it.

Food for thought, regarding the right hemisphere: girls spend more time drawing than boys, are more likely to study artistic subjects in college, and are more likely to choose artistic careers. So why are the "great" (read: most popular) artists, even today, overwhelmingly male? No sexism here, just observations.

[FreeTheHostages]

"Do you really doubt that men are, on average, simply more interested in science and math and engnineering than women?"

No, I don't doubt that is the present reality. But of course it is. You don't doubt, nor should you, that I was the only women in my Harvard math class.

But I think Summers is showing he's an economist, not a real scientist, in suggesting he knows that it's biological disposition. There's no evidence on that. What does his girl playing with dolls have to do with *anything,* let alone skill in math?

I do doubt (I in fact see absolutely no evidence nor have a personall experienced) that testosterone has anything to do with men liking math or being better at it.

(By the way, I also think liking math and being good at it are verrry closely related. I liked chess at an early age, etc., and then excelled at it. In order to do math, you frankly HAVE to like it.)

Could it be genetic or a biological disposition? Yes. But on the other hand it's no mistake that Sophie Germaine had to pretend to be mail to work in elliptical curves before the turn of the last century. That's a fact too.

So we have two facts. Possibly genetics (could be spacial imagery skills or any of a thousand things other than testosterone, we just donn't know). And absolute current discrimination (which I'm not obsessed about but definitely saw when I did math -- and I say that from a perspective of a winner, not a bitter loser, who was given everything I wanted in math in terms of opportunity and access, a lucky girl indeed).

I wish President Summers would spend as much time worrying about point two.

[FreeTheHostages]

I think men may LIKE math more (as a general rule) -- and we all know you have to like it to be good at it. I absolutely LOVED it from a young age, and for me it's very emotional my attachment to it.

I don't deny most little girls have different propensities when it comes to dolls and trucks -- but I'm DUMSTRUCK that President Summers thinks that translates into algebraic geometry.

Fact: at the age your girls are at, they on average test better in math than boys. (Of course, that's arithmetic, not math, and there's a world of difference.)

I don't blame our paternalistic society for God-given differences, and girls are different from boys. But blather about dolls and trucks has to go. Why feminine personality traits can't be consistent with math I'll never understand. In fact, it's fair to say that most male mathemematicians I know are more on the effete side. I just thing Summers is ignorant.

Me, I'm not bitter at all. But I worry about the little 9 and 7 year old girls out there that DO like math. I think we should clear a path for them. If they are a biological exception, I think I will ask society to be paternalist and respect their right to follow their way.

I am so profoundly grateful I got to study math -- I had a physical need to do it. And I know I'd be a most unhappy, bitter person if I hadn't had that chance.

That said, I'll tell you right now, the most sexism in math I ever saw at Harvard was by women: "Oh, you can't be well-rounded if you're a math major." Women much more likely to say that.

I'm disgusted by the defense of Michelle Maulkin and others today: the hand-wringing "oh there's nothing we can do because women aren't as smart." Where does that leave THOSE little 7 and 9 year olds? Where I would have been 50 years ago.

Oh, I want so much for conservatives to get this right. Individual liberty. Individual equality of opportunity. LESS group think. So that when I'm good in math, it's less "look, a woman who is good in math" and more "look, an individual who is good in math."

The paternalistic handwriting here is dividing this into a male/female thing -- even before we know what biological mechanism causes the difference or what percent of women might have the male biological trait. I think it's all worth worrying about, and that doesn't mean -- and of course you're not saying -- that I'm hysterical or obsessed with "rampant sexism." It means these women are worth worrying about too.

Ultimately, until we know the mechanism, I don't think it's worth dividing the world into "male" and "female" when it comes to math performance. This perspective might indeed exclude women through societal expectations.

OK, all that said, yeah, I'm with you, Physicist. It's absolutely undeniable that there's a sex-based difference. And I'd trust the likes of you -- your profession and your political persuasion -- to divine it long before a Clintonist economist would!

[CDB]

True enough. Empirical observation indicates that most women fall inside an hour-glass-shaped curve. And that's just fine by most of us.

Yessiree!

[k2blader]

innate differences between the sexes could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers

What is wrong with this statement???

[FreeTheHostages]

"Now that this daughter is in a field dominated by men, the prejudice continues."

See, that's my point. EVEN IF there is a biological mechanism that makes MOST MEN better than MOST WOMEN, it's just WRONG to engage in group-think and perpetuate a division based on sex that will make things hard for the other little girls.

I think some paternalism is in order here. I do think that's what I argue for: care for our children.

I graduated Phi Beta Kappa in mathematics from Harvard (where, by the way, when Summers was a prof he just hung around with guys and couldn't find any bright women at all to exchange ideas with, curiously). When I won a statewide math contest my freshmen year in high school, I wasn't even signed up for it the next year: I was invisible. Even at Harvard, my math performances were largely invisible. Still, it was enough for me. I loved math. I drank deeply. I would have been so profoundly unhappy if I had not majored in math and did so. I'm so glad for the pats on the back that encouraged me to do so -- including two (male) college friends (now physicists). They said "look, this is silly, why are you even hestitating to major in this, you're better than us." When my good grades and fanatical love for math said one thing and the discouraging but clearly well-meaning comments ("perhaps this just isn't right for you") said another, they cleared the air and made it all make sense for me. God bless them.

I'm not bitter at all that I experienced sexism now. I'm proud and strong to triumph over it. We women can do it all ourselves, if you give us a chance -- those of us that can and want to and are able to. It's about giving people a chance without regard to sex and skin color. And then it's up to us to take it, if we can and if we will. Everyone will benefit from the best and the brightest working in scientific fields: our country needs that.

If it's only 10 percent women that can cut it, so be it: but it's scarey, some of the comments on this thread, that suggest that even those 10 percent may just be paternalistic or socialist "plants" and "fakes" who can't cut it. Those people are really good conservatives, because they don't really believe in individualism and meritocracy.

Happy, on the other hand, to read your post.

[Aetius]

Summer's point about dolls may have been out of place, but I think the point he was making is about how some people have gone so far as to claim that all non-physical differences between men and women are due to environmental forces, or nurture over nature, and that to prove it they provide their children with 'gender-neutral' toys -- only to find that, still, most girls like dolls and most boys don't.

I'm sorry that you have apparently experienced bias against you or your daughter as the case may be, but I never saw such things while in school. And by the way, the best math student all throughout my K-12 was a girl, and all I ever saw her get was encouragement from the mostly-male teachers.

I think people are fooling yourselves if they think that if all alleged gender bias were removed from society, then all fields would be a perfect proportional representation of society at large.

[FreeTheHostages]

"obvious reality"

Term still sticks in my mind.

Would you agree that it's an obvious reality that women who ARE good in math are discriminated against?

Look, it's like this: more men are gay than women. What if, for the rest of your life, you were dogged and followed around with and questioned about your sexuality, based upon this GROUP STATISTIC.

Surely, as a conservative, you wouldn't use GROUP STATISTICS to predict or characterize individual performance.

And yet read this thread -- there are many posts that gleefully leap to generalities such as women are worse in math than men. "Men are gayer?" You'd laugh at the idea and question why such a loose, statistical division. You'd question my motive for raising the issue.

And so it is with math skill. With so many little girls being discouraged from doing math, even today, I think that would be a better first topic for discussion. Because I think conservatives are better "feminists" -- by which I mean treating men and women individually and equally.

So I'm an individual. I'm female. And I'm very good in math. If some of the Freepers on this thread were even inclined to join a post on how to make sure little 9-year old girls who deserve to major in math at Harvard get to, and worrying about *them* as much as ranting Democratic feminists (who want MORE than their fair share), and I'll more likely trust that they're not just having a knee-jerk reaction based on being male, and more of a conservative-based reaction based on meritocracy.

As things stand, sizing up some of these posts . . . . Well, they're not how I define people who are good individualists.

[cherry]

I am unequivocally in agreement that men and women are absolutely different creatures not only physically but emotionally, mentally, socially, even spiritually....

equal in value but we are different...

ah, but some folks like to pick and choose when it comes to this view...

some would bemoan having women as cops since women aren't as strong or as aggressive or as intuitive in bad situations, but at the same time deny that women are perhaps stronger in other areas, with more patience, and gentlness and motherly intuition, for such pursuits as raising young children...

I would like some consistency....