Of all the topics that have been controversies in the last year, the Larry Summers episode has been the most infuriating.  It is simply astonishing the number of smart people who either misunderstand or deliberately misrepresent what Summers said.  This post represents a fine example.

In no way shape or form did Summers say anything close to "biology, not bias, is the reason so few women hit the academic heights in math and science."  In fact, he went out of his way to say precisely the opposite, that bias and discrimination are real in academia.  What he said is that biological differences may be ONE factor, and not the most significant one, in explaining different levels of achievement.  Furthermore, the biological differences - if they exist - are at the GROUP level, meaning the distribution of science and math aptitude in the population of men and women may be different.  That women may show higher average aptitude but men may have higher numbers at the extremes.  And it is the number of each gender with extreme aptitude that is the relevant issue, since only people with extreme aptitude go on to achieve big things in science.  Obviously this has no relevance whatsoever at the INDIVIDUAL level.  Any person, of either gender, that does have extreme aptitude should be able to thrive without having to overcome discrimination.

How friggin' hard is this to understand?

How telling that this post by E.J. Graff, describing a blatant example of sex bias in academe, is immediately dismissed by the first two commentors as being driven by an "agenda" rather than the facts. "BradtheDad" and "Mary from RI" protest too much--in fact they are the ones rejecting the empirical evidence of the Barres case.

If one of the male writers at TPMCafe had made the very same post, I wonder if two commentors would immediately have dismissed his suggestions out of hand, ignoring the evidence linked to in the post. On second thought--I don't wonder at all. The only reason "BradtheDad" and "Mary from RI" believe they can reply so churlishly and ignorantly to E.J. is that she's a woman, much the same way that Barbra Barres' work was doubted or disparaged, whereas Ben Barres' work is not.

How sad that some people are so driven by their antifeminist agenda that they reject empiricism for magical thinking and vituperation.

You can read the entire speech
here and make up your own mind.

Summers points to three factors: (1) disinclination to work (family), (2) biology, and (3) discrimination. Oddly, he feels free to speculate that their importance declines in the order given. The unfortunate subtext is that the one thing he can do anything about, discrimination, is of little importance.

It's pretty obvious that he's a bright fellow, thoroughly social scientific in outlook, moderately conversant with the relevant literature, and clueless about his role as President of an iconic institution.

Maybe it's about not about ability, but inclination, and economics.

Take medicine as an example. From the top to the bottom of the profession, women are well represented, and no one suggests that women can't make good doctors.

The same could be said about biology and chemistry, as both undergrads and graduate students, and as professors.

Now take math, physics, and engineering. i majored in physics, and in the upper level classes 4 women in a class of 30 would be an unusually large number. Engineering classes were slightly better, but not much. Upper level math classes were worse.

Here's my theory: it's not that women, on average, are worse at science. It's that fewer women want to spend their lives doing higher level math without appropriate renumeration.

In chemistry, biology, and medicine, there are plenty of career opportunities outside the academy, and women compete just fine- add to this that in these fields, particularly medicine, salaries tend to be higher.

If you major in math or physics, you're doing it for the love of the game (few mathematicians or physicists get rich)- and your career is pretty much limited to staring at equations all day. For whatever reason, (perhaps biological or perhaps social- most likely some mix of the two) women seem less willing to do this.

On the other hand, if newly minted Math and Physics BSes were assured of a $100k starting salary upon graduation, you can bet you'd see a lot more women in those fields.

Noel

I'd read Summer's speech shortly after the contretemps erupted after his speech. Summers pointed to three factors that were cited in reports that had been submitted for discussion at the conference, they were not of his composition.

I have to take exception to your usage of the term "disinclination", yes, Summers cited a reference to family, but he didn't infer that women were more disinclined to work. He stated that some evidence shows that fewer women are likely to opt for careers that will require them to have 80 hour work weeks, because some of them do want families, children, that sort of thing. He never stated this as an absolute.. he bent over backwards to state that his comments on the subject were based on the reports/statistics presented at the conference.

Personally, I believe Summers was trying to be provocative, and to make the point that we haven't really been achieving anything substantive thus far because we are going about dealing with these problems in the wrong way.

In fact, from taking the time to peruse Summer's plans and actions during his period in the presidency there, I believe his interests were in addressing the overall state of education, equal access to quality education, better opportunities especially in areas where there is a dire inequity.

He was also trying to implement changes to afford better opportunities to less affluent students, he brought about the free tuition plan for students from poor families, he was trying to get extremely tenured professors to actually do some teaching, including in undergrad courses, instead of their foisting their workload of grad courses on grad assistants.

The high mucky mucks of the Harvard FAS department seemed more interested in self-agrandizement, in their own petty ideologies. After having taken several social science courses at college over the past few years, taught by raving Marxist feminists, I can well imagine what was spinning the wheels of those who decided to take umbridge against Larry Summers.. I believe the fact that he was starting something that might actually achieve something positive and constructive, and show the lot of them up as not having a leg to stand on.

The fact is that no matter how "iconic" Harvard has been, and might continue to be.. the Harvard experience has been over the past decade been producing less iconic results. Alot of the university's students have been complaining because they weren't content with the mere symbolism of a degree from the school, they were expecting the sort of challenging classes and educational opportunities that had previously given the university said iconic status... and they weren't getting them.

Larry Summers had become much beloved by the majority of undergrads for the very real reason that he gave a damn about this and was challenging the over pampered status quo in the FAS department that resented his requests that they do more teaching, and spend less time, and department money wanking about on personal projects. In fact, the undergrads wanted him to stay on as president, many of them stood out in the rain the day he left to say goodbyes.

I consider myself a feminist, I'm also the mother of a 23 year old daughter, who I want to have all the chances and opportunities she can. I've worked hard, with my late husband to ensure she's had the best we could provide, and she will be starting grad school this September. My problems with Graff's post, and other similar postings she's made is that you'd have to be brain dead not to read the agenda she's promoting. She also is as infected with intolerance and as given to isms as any propagandist of Bush's.

We live in a world filled with problems, many are caused by cold hard ideologies that are intent on marginalizing and exploiting and imposing suffering. In order to overcome these problems, we need to unite and overcome intolerances to truly bring about positive change.. when I read Graff's rants, I don't get the impression that she's interested in anything other than fostering more divides, and creating more indifference.

The only reason "BradtheDad" and "Mary from RI" believe they can reply so churlishly and ignorantly to E.J. is that she's a woman,

Now this is hilarious.  E.J. Graff is a woman?

I am always troubled by the phrase "it's harder for women". Obviously, by the degree of verbage, this is a complex and subtle issue.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger had what I believe to be several anecdotal comments that women perceive things to be "harder". In one case, a caller called about getting her car fixed at a repair shop. After call was completed Dr. Schlessinger editorialized that this points to a fundamental difference between men and women. That women would delay action to discuss what to do while men would simply take the car to the repair shop and get it fixed.

Of course there are two ways to look at this. From the politically correct feminist viewpoint, woman are carefully analyzing the situation and networking a solution while the men are taking action without thinking things through. The other viewpoint is that women will endless talk an issue to death and not do anything while the men clearly know what the problem is and get it fixed with a minimum of hassle. I, of course, would favor the latter viewpoint.

See the Dilbert comic strip of 7/05/2006. The punch line is that a group of women are meeting on how to make their imaginary problems real.

I would like to reiterate the thoughts of noelenergy. The politically correct feminist crowd espouses that the absence of women in any activity is the result of discrimination by men. That is bunk, there are a lot of activities that women can participate in that have no cost in terms of a barrier to entry. If women are interested, then they can participate. Their lack of participation can then be assumed to result from a lack of interest. Also the existence or non-existence of many products, is a reflection of the desire of a consumer to purchase that product.

In real world terms, I belong to a ham radio club, there are very few women and other than passing an FCC exam, there is no barrier to entry. If women were interested in computers, one would expect the women's magazines to have articles on computer programming and system administration. From what I see, these magazines are devoted to articles on losing weight and looking sexy. If a sufficient number of women were interested, then you would see a free market response through the presence of computer related articles in the woman's magazines.

But then according to the "rules" its always the man's fault.

I can only speak for myself, but I did not in any way even address Barbara Barres work, please indicate any instance where I was perceived to have done so.

I took exception to Graff's posting, as I have other of her similar postings, not because she is a woman, but because she is an ideologue who seeks to be divisive, rather than benefit the cause of actually helping deal with the inequality problems women and girls face.

As a woman, one who grew up in economically disadvantaged areas, and struggled to educate myself despite less opportunity, who has also been a wife of a husband who grew up in an economically disadvantaged area, who struggled to get a college education, but couldn't afford to finish getting his degree, the mother of a daughter who grew up in an economically disadvantaged area, but who because her father and I both fought and worked hard to provide better opportunities, supplement the weak reading requirements provided in her schools, has graduated college and will be attending a university this September to start work on getting a masters degree, I have my opinion, and as I believe we are still a free country, have a right to that opinion, that Graff isn't addressing the problems that not only affect us, our daughters and our sons. We cannot bring about positive change, especially for girls and women until we address all these problems. If you are interested in positive change beyond what benefits a status quo, the discussion Graff is promoting achieves nothing but more stasis. If you're truly interested in learning more about the problems of women, what can be done to encourage more girls into the sciences, I'd recomend a book by Dr. Diann Jordan, Sisters in Science: Conversations with Black Women Scientists on Race, Gender and Their Passion for Science. It has healthier, saner discussion of the subject than anything you'd get from E. J. Graff.

Children, including girls, require inspiration and motivation to achieve. Our schools are under attack, in poor areas the funding levels are inadequate to the job and getting worse all the time. I will add that even in slightly more affluent areas, over the past few decades, fewer students, male or female are considering college. From what I hear/read, they're receiving less inspiration and motivation as well.

The discussion of nuture over nature is important, but what I perceive is that at the present time there is less nurture going on, for all children, most especially for poorer children. There is more of a need for both parents to work, and in the case of single parents, it's even worse. I am a feminist, but I also believe that if one decides to have children, it demands one be responsible to the child's needs, that includes providing the nurture a child needs, that includes a commitment to a quantity of time. I was fortunate that my husband had a relatively good union job when my daughter was growing up that afforded me the opportunity to stay home for a time. But from watching what's happened with the friends my daughter grow up with, and from what we all see in our communities and around the country, I believe we're seeing a generation that's grown up with far too little nurture.

Add to that the all too real lacking of a good public education, schools with far too few teachers, including in math and the sciences who actually specialized in those subjects, the problems adding to it by No Child Left Behind, emphasis on too much time preparing for the testing it requires at the expense of actual teaching important subjects. No arts and music taught even at the elementary school levels, plus much more.. how can we even expect to advance opportunities for girls and women?

I know that there are sexists out there, who hasn't run across a man who espouses sexist attitudes, and also has hd some power to exploit.. my problem with Graff is that she is a sexist as well, and I don't think her type of sexism is any better than a mans. As an older student in college, I've watched and heard about female academics who are sexist towards male and female students.. it's no more acceptable for a female academic to discriminate against a female student, a grad assistant was one example, because she had a child, than it is for a male academic. There exists prejudice against female students by female academics who, for merely wanting to make a free choice regarding their own lives.. deviating from the narrow point of view that said academic holds and espouses.

Well; I guess that settles that.

Well, if you disagree or have had a different experience, feel free to elaborate.

Perhaps what I should have said was, In my experience, male physicists and mathematicians get along with women just as well as men and women in any other profession.

Noel

The situation with Watson, Crick, and Franklin is complex. Unfortunately, she died most prematurely, and the Nobel Prize does not allow posthumous awards. Had she lived, or if the Prize rules were different, I can't think of a molecular biologist I know that doesn't believe three tickets to Stockholm would have been needed.

The two laboratories racing to be first to characterize DNA were both filled with intense competitors, and that competion carried inside. For whatever reason, she was less effective in lab politics than others.

Serious textbooks in the field do tend to give her joint credit. The world lost much with her death.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Yet Summers was popular among the majority of under grads at Harvard.. do you assume that most of them were C students looking for an easy ride when the majority of them were primarily concerned about the lack of challenging classes taught by the big name professors?

Seems to me that last barb was purely a cheap shot because you have little to hang your hat on.

Regarding the funds manager, from what I read earlier this year, there was alot more involved in any exodus of fund managers... something about Summers wanting to expand the campus into a less affluent area, and of course his free tuition program, as well as the green campus initiative, which was going to make a big dent in said funds. Also, from what I'm hearing of late, donations to the school have been on the decline since Summers leaving the presidency.

And it's precisely in the fields where entry competition is the toughest where you find parity between men and women.

Well; I guess that explains why there isn't gender parity in the fields of mathematics and physics. There's so little entry competition.

I'm working on my on-line application, right now.

Well; I guess that explains why there isn't gender parity in the fields of mathematics and physics. There's so little entry competition.

Sneer all you want, but there's nothing stopping any college student, male or female, from majoring in math or physics. Getting into graduate school (with funding) in those fields is orders of magnitude easier than getting into a professional school, or for that matter, graduate school in the humanities.

Jobs once out of grad school are a different matter, but then those are hardly entry-level positions.

Noel

Both genders are sexist. The statement "By now you've already rolled your eyes back into your head and moved on to ESPN.com." is a sexist statement. I have NO NO NO NO interest in sports. To assume, simply because I am male, that I would have an interest in sports is thoughtless.

The statement "Ham radio. Ick." displays a lack of historical perspective and empathy. First, the internet is a relatively recent technological advance, before the internet many of our technological advances in telecommunications came from engineers who were also ham radio people, some of these advances contributed to making the internet of today possible. Many of the ham radio operators today are WWII and Korean War veterans, who were the communication specialists helping the troops fight. These veterans have much oral history to pass on to the younger generation.

You might also want to consider that ham radio provides communication capabilities during periods of natural disaster, such as hurricane Katrina. The internet and cell phone, I guarantee, won't be working in the disaster areas.

I will end with this thought. Orson Scott Card wrote a Science Fiction series called the "Ships of Earth". The basic theme of this series is that "Civilization exists for the benefit of women." It's an interesting concept.

Just had to comment on your Orson Scott Card reference... Card also believes in Intelligent Design, which is also a concept, that doesn't make it a valid one.

I will add though, that sci-fi/fantasy author, Sherri S. Tepper, who wrote The Gate to Women's Country has had this to say on the subject,

"I'm not sure a world run by women would be any better. They're human beings! Women ought to have numerical parity in the political process(Though I'm not sure they'd make any better sense than men do.)."

I googled on the subject to refresh my memory, and found that I had confused the issues with something else, I did find that Summers had nothing to do with Meyers, the fund manager leaving. In fact the problems that arose were due to alumni from the class of '69 being upset about the huge salary Mr. Meyer gave not only himself, but to others who worked with him on the fund. This occured long before the speech, and actually was happening during the time Summers had taken over as president of the university.

Again, regarding the grades issue, et al, Summers was interested in trying new things.. using the bully pulpit as one older alumni mentioned in an article, taking on the academic star system that has been extremely unpopular and considered problematic by even other academics at the school. He was using activism to shake things up.. even teaching classes himself. I'm sure the stars of the FAS department felt their ivory towers assailed when Summers asked them to descend their perches and to teach lowly undergrads, he was doing so in a worthy cause.. one has to wonder why it was so shocking to a group of academics who make quite a pretense of claiming to care about social justice?? Here's a bit out of an article from back in late '05/early '06 dealing with what was going on.

High Marks From Students

On campus, Summers gets mostly high marks from students such as senior Peter Brown, who praises the economist for reaching out to the poor. Brown went with a group of students to Summers's office last year to discuss ways to help low-income students.

Brown, one of seven children of a single mother in Moore, Oklahoma, told Summers that his mother couldn't afford the annual $3,000 parental contribution. Summers later decided to waive all payments from parents who, like Brown's mother, earn less than $40,000 annually.

Summers told 2,000 educators at a College Board conference in Chicago in November that the economics of family income and higher education are hurting the U.S. ``Median family incomes have risen by 18 percent since 1979 while the income of the top 1 percent of families has risen by 200 percent,'' Summers said.

``The least-bright rich kids are as likely to go to college and more likely to go to a good college than the brightest poor kids,'' he said.

`Tremendous Vision'

He's also seeking private support for a stem-cell research center Harvard is developing with nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Rapier says. There's no way to know yet whether his recent controversial remarks will affect fund raising, she says.

``Larry is very good at this and has a tremendous vision for the university,'' she says. ``People are very interested in meeting him and hearing his thoughts.''

Last year, 87,000 alumni were among those who gave Harvard $540 million in gifts. In 2003, the last year for which data is available, Harvard led all U.S. colleges in alumni giving, says Ann Kaplan, research director for the Council for Aid to Education, in New York.

Harvard alumni have donated $3 billion in the past 35 years. 

Questions about Summers's management style and remarks he wishes he'd never made shouldn't taint his efforts to bring a more diverse student body to Harvard, says Gene Sperling, 46, a senior fellow for economic policy at the Council on Foreign Relations who also contributes to Bloomberg News.

``This is one of the most progressive, far-reaching things anyone at Harvard has ever done, and it will be emblematic of his legacy,'' says Sperling, who met Summers when they worked together on former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis's losing presidential bid in 1988.

``Larry's strength as a leader and a manager far outweigh any mistakes he's made,'' Sperling says.

Princeton, Yale

Leaders of other colleges, including Princeton, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are also easing costs for low-income students.

Yale President Richard Levin announced in February that the university would make grants to undergraduates who are on financial aid to study abroad.

Amherst College President Anthony Marx says he wishes Summers's efforts could be adopted by colleges everywhere. ``What keeps me up at night is the kids that aren't applying who are just as smart but don't feel like schools like Amherst and Harvard are for them,'' says Marx, 45, whose college in Massachusetts is about 90 miles west of Boston.

Early results of Summers's plan are encouraging, says Fitzsimmons, Harvard's admissions dean, who graduated from the school in 1967.

Applications for the class of 2009 are up 15 percent from last year, with a record 22,717 students vying for about 1,650 spots. The increase is a direct result of Harvard's recruiting efforts, Fitzsimmons says.

No Quotas

Financial aid applications from families are up 16.7 percent, an indication that more low-income students are applying, Fitzsimmons says.

Harvard also reports a 45 percent increase in students requesting their application fee be waived, another sign that the university's push is working, he says.

Summers says Harvard has committed $2 million a year for the new financial aid initiative, and he says he has no target figure in mind for the class that was due to be chosen by March 31. ``We don't like to use quotas,'' he says.

About 1,000 undergraduates already qualify, or about 250 in each class, Fitzsimmons says. Seventeen student recruiters have called, written or spoken with almost 12,000 high school students from all 50 states.

Harvard's endowment should enable the college to do even more for low-income students, says Jeffrey Alexander, chairman of the sociology department at Yale and a 1969 Harvard graduate.

Breaking Stereotypes

Summers says he's doing plenty. ``I don't think this will be small in the lives of 1,000 students,'' he says.

Alexander says Summers's economic diversity program may have been prompted by alumni concerns about rising tuition and student debt. ``I'm sure we contributed to this, and we are really happy if we did,'' says Alexander, 57.

Regardless of the dollar amount, students and admissions officers are finding it difficult to break down stereotypes of Harvard.

In the basement of a redbrick, neo-Georgian building in Harvard Square on a January morning, admissions officers Sarah Beasley and Melanie Mueller are asking student recruiters to describe obstacles they've faced.

``When you think of Harvard, what comes to mind?'' Beasley, 26, asks the recruiters, seeking examples from more than six months of visits, calls and college fairs.

`Overwhelmingly Snobbish'

``Overwhelmingly snobbish,'' Sheria Smith, a 21-year-old senior, says. ``You have to be really rich to go there.''

``Cutthroat and competitive,'' Edna Choy, a 19-year-old sophomore, says. ``Nerds. Wealthy students''

Student recruiters make lists of the schools they plan to visit and describe obstacles they've run into in their efforts to promote a more egalitarian Harvard. ``One student I called, his brother said, `We just can't afford it,' and hung up on me, so I just kept calling back,'' says Emily Haigh, a 22-year-old senior.

Rachel Culley, a 19-year-old sophomore, says many girls were pregnant when she visited a rural high school in her home state of Maine. Most told her they planned to go into the military or work at local companies rather than attend college.

``The students I've been speaking with don't think they can go to a school like Harvard,'' says Culley, who was raised in a home without indoor plumbing or running water. Culley's first culture shock after arriving at Harvard -- on a full scholarship with two part-time jobs -- came when her roommate, who spent about $2,000 a month on designer clothing, wanted to hire a maid.

`The Great Equalizer'

``I have had to learn how to interact with high-income people, and they need to know how to interact with me,'' Culley says.

Summers agrees with Culley. At the College Board conference, Summers said he'd been listening to high school students. He said expensive tuition was slamming the doors of higher education, which educator Horace Mann dubbed ``the great equalizer of all men'' 150 years ago.

Europe has surpassed the U.S. in the number of doctorates that students earn in science, and basic science research in the U.S. has been declining for a decade, Summers said. ``If the United States is to be a major player in the new global world, we must give our students -- all of them -- the best education,'' he said.

I have also witnessed the popularity of courses taught by faculty members who make their course less demanding (easy homework, open-book exams, exemption from the final exam) compared to another section of the same course taught by another faculty member.

The best and toughest teacher I had in the last year of post-baccalaureate work gave open book, open note exams.

In quite a few fields, that would be a teaching improvement. Memorization is useful but overrated.