They just don't get it
I've been following the Larry Summers brouhaha on the Web, and I've read the transcript of his remarks, and I've read numerous commentaries on his remarks, and I have to say, most of the comments by men show that they just don't get it. This isn't about asking questions and being open to lots of possible answers. This is about the president of perhaps the most prestigious university in the US, under whose watch the number of women granted tenure has dropped, suggesting that women might not have the "necessities", to borrow a phrase from Al Campanis, to be top-notch scientists and engineers.
If you were a junior professor in the sciences at Harvard, and heard the president of your university suggest that you, by virtue of your gender, might not be able to succeed, how would you feel? Keep in mind that, to even get to that point, you've already earned an undergraduate degree in a field where most of your peers were not like you, and even fewer of your professors were. You've gone to graduate school, where you were probably an even smaller minority. You've lacked for role models and mentors, people who can show you that it can be done. Most of your professors don't know how to interact with you, because they only have two roles for women, mate or daughter; colleague isn't one of them And now, as you work toward tenure, you hear your president say that. Is it any wonder that you might consider whether you wanted to keep banging your head against that wall?
I'm not saying Larry Summers is misogynist. I'm not even saying he's overtly sexist. It's not the overt sexism that's the big problem any more. It's the more subtle discouragement. It's that everything around you says, "you don't really belong here." Add in your biological clock, a desire to have a family and a life outside of work, and it's no big surprise that women say "fuck it, I'm out of here, it's not worth it."
Yes, Larry, little girls will tend to turn anything you give them into a doll. Yes, there are differences between the sexes. But to look around today and think that socialization isn't still a major factor is to bury your head in the sand. As your daughters get older, you may come to see this yourself....
If you were a junior professor in the sciences at Harvard, and heard the president of your university suggest that you, by virtue of your gender, might not be able to succeed, how would you feel? Keep in mind that, to even get to that point, you've already earned an undergraduate degree in a field where most of your peers were not like you, and even fewer of your professors were. You've gone to graduate school, where you were probably an even smaller minority. You've lacked for role models and mentors, people who can show you that it can be done. Most of your professors don't know how to interact with you, because they only have two roles for women, mate or daughter; colleague isn't one of them And now, as you work toward tenure, you hear your president say that. Is it any wonder that you might consider whether you wanted to keep banging your head against that wall?
I'm not saying Larry Summers is misogynist. I'm not even saying he's overtly sexist. It's not the overt sexism that's the big problem any more. It's the more subtle discouragement. It's that everything around you says, "you don't really belong here." Add in your biological clock, a desire to have a family and a life outside of work, and it's no big surprise that women say "fuck it, I'm out of here, it's not worth it."
Yes, Larry, little girls will tend to turn anything you give them into a doll. Yes, there are differences between the sexes. But to look around today and think that socialization isn't still a major factor is to bury your head in the sand. As your daughters get older, you may come to see this yourself....
posted by WritingMom at 4:07 PM
3 Comments:
If, as you suggest, fragile science junior faculty at Harvard are going to be driven into despondency and (God forbid!) immediate breeding by the quite-possibly-accurate ruminations of President Summers, aren't there many campuses, beset by feminist agitation, who would eagerly bid for them?
Are there hordes of female science Ph.Ds of any ability wandering around in the part-time professoriat because they can't find a tenure-track job?
Somehow I doubt it.
Are there campuses where any utterance that goes against "diversity" orthodoxy results in a Cultural-Revolution-style show trial, walkouts, expressions of "nausea," and denunciations of thought-crimes? You bet. Cornel West and Nancy Hopkins aren't rare birds.
And if you transgress in this fashion and you're not a University President, God help you.
Grumpy old man has a point that junior faculty are not going to be running away from Harvard because of some stupid things their President says.
"Quite-possibly accurate" BRILLIANT!!!
Why write a long counterpoint when the realization is that within 20 years it won't matter. Over the last 10-15 years the percentage of males attending colleges (undergradute and graduate) has decreased. In particular, the sciences has seen a sharp increase in the percentage of women Ph.D.s(not suprisingly). If the trend continues I wonder whether the argument, say in 20 years, will be that women are quite-possibly smarter than men, or is it just that men prefer sports and play-station over intellectual stimulation.
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