Thursday, April 7, 2011
Lawrence Summers
I have been reading many resources for a paper that I am writing on women in math. For those of you who don't know who Lawrence Summers is, he was the President of Harvard University and he had stated that women are biologically not created to be as strong as men in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). He wasn't saying that all men were better than all women although many do believe he did, he was saying that if you compare the top men and the top women in STEM fields, then the men are naturally better by creation. There are a couple of things that really upset me both in class with our speaker and in the resources. First of all, the fact that someone who is in an extremely powerful position to help and solve this problem is saying that it is a problem that is mainly out of his control. He didn't want to say anything that would put his college in a bad situation, so in this moment he was playing the politician for the school, but not for women and his students. Another thing that bothered me is how even if there is some evidence to prove that in some ways this might be true, why would he feel that he was in the right to say it to the public with such little evidence. I also truly believe that because he was a president at one of the most prestigious college, the blow to women was even worse. Someone who deals with the most capable and intelligent young adults in the country believes that even though both women and men got into his college, they are simply not on the same level there. Anyone else enraged by this?? Because I would love to hear what you guys think!
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That is absolutely outrageous! These kinds of arguments that assume a "natural" difference in men and women often ignore bigger issues---would girls be more adept in math and science if they were encouraged to be? What if education were more widely available and comprehensive to everyone? What makes someone "naturally" good at math and science when there are significant differences among all men? Does the encouragement of boys to be confident and smart and have access to resources perhaps influence their mathematical capabilities?
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, these kinds of results never question how these so-called studies are conducted in the first place... If you are looking at how men and women do differently in math, then you are assuming they will be different in the first place just because they are men and women.
Also, studies have proven that women often do better on math and science tests when they aren't told that it is looking for gender differences....
Whenever I think about this I get incredibly angry. I was just thinking...how would you feel as a female student currently at Harvard? You've gotten into this extremely famous, prestigious, expensive, difficult school and the PRESIDENT of the school is basically telling people you're stupid because you don't have a penis.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine how upset I would be to continue my study there. He should have been fired.
This is just ridiculous because the case study that he presented may not even be true. When looking at the idea that the top men are more advanced than the top women, we have to consider all of the privileges and opportunities that the men had over the women along the way. The top women in the STEM fields most likely had to deal with more obstacles than the men; thus some of their strengths may have been limited or repressed. The men for example probably didn't have to be the only one of their sex in a 30 person class (taking the example from the speaker we had). For the women, being the only female with 29 other male peers would have added pressure psychologically, physically, and emotionally; and even if she passed the subject with flying colors, who knows what she could have accomplished had she had more support from her classmates or professor. Just because what we see in society suggests that the top men are stronger and smarter than the top women, thus "men are biologically superior," does not make it true. But until we get rid of this idea and allow/ encourage an equal playing field, we may never know what the female sex can actually accomplish.
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