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January 19, 2005
Boy, Am I Glad I Didn't Go To Harvard
The President of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, thinks that women are innately dumber than men in science and math and that genetics is the reason for less women tenured profs than men. Right.
Here's an account of the conference where he made the remarks.
Here's an update on the storm that continues in the aftermath of the leopard showing his spots.
Apparently, Summers hasn't bothered to look around much. He thinks women can't handle 80-hour work weeks, nor do we have the brains for math or science. Let's see. I was in AP Calculus AB in the 11th grade. I took AP Biology in the 10th grade and AP Chemistry in the 11th grade. Last time I checked, I'm still female.
The reality is that women are just as good at math and science as men. But we're taught to hate it. We're taught that we'll never be good at it. And teachers teach those courses towards the way boys learn rather than the way girls learn: i.e., lots of tests and very little class discussion. Don't beieve me? Ask The Boy - my male friend in Beantown who spent a year as an exchange student at Wellesley to experience how science courses are taught differently in all-female classes as opposed to at co-ed colleges. Oh yeah, and did I mention the high acceptance rates into med school from my piddly lil women's college? ARRRG.
I can't tell you how much Summers' opinion upsets me. It's not just that idiots believe this crap. It's that idiots in positions of power believe that women have some innate disadvantage to men. Give me a frickin break!!! Yes, y'all are made physically stronger than us. That has absolutely nothing to do with our respective brain power. Summers reminds me of the morons at the turn of the century who used "science" to explain ethnic and racial discrimination.
Posted by cj at January 19, 2005 4:41 PM
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Comments
Those comments were incredibly ignorant. And they ignore that girls are BETTER than boys at math and science until puberty. Gee, it must be an amazing coincidence that, as the social pressures of womanhood start affecting girls, that they get worse at math and science!
And I find it interesting that Wellesley's distribution of science majors is roughly similar to most liberal arts colleges. If women really had some sort of innate difficulty with science, this obviously wouldn't be the case. Larry Summers is a dick.
Honestly,
The Boy
Posted by: Hyoun at January 19, 2005 9:46 PM
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