Blood Sport At Columbia

I don't know about other science areas, but recent studies into women in the physics showed that women need to publish 3 TIMES as many papers as men to be seen as equal. In addition, those papers needed to be viewed as "significant contributions" and published in the more elite journals. Imagine having to do your job that much better than the guy next to you, just to be equal? AND...after all that...be paid less than him.

Studies also show that girls in high school take more science classes and tend to do better than the boys in them. It's in college where they tend to shy away from the area. After my recent experiences with professors, it's not hard to understand why they'd be turned off by the old white professors that still don't believe women should be in science.

Christine makes a lot of valid points. Most folks, progressive or not, seem pretty comfortable with claims that women are inately better at, for instance, communications skills than men (although I don't know to what extent those assertions are backed up by research). It seems possible, even plausible, that there could be aptitude differences in any number of areas.





BUT BUT BUT that doesn't mean that such differences are present in every field, even those about which we hear so many stories, like math and science. I'm a recently-minted math professor (and male), and I can tell you that in the classes I've taught, my star students were more often women than men (though it was close), and in grad school I had female colleagues that could kick my ass mathematically. But that's all anecdotal.





(Of course, this then begs the question: why are there more men than women in these professorships? I hang around with these professors, and I personally don't ever hear misogynistic comments, but it's possible that there is a more subtle, even unconscious bias among the old guard. I personally think it has more to do with social factors that tell kids what they are and aren't good at early on.)





Generally, I don't buy into the idea of math ability being genetic anyway. I can believe that there may be certain broad mental capabilities that are congenital, like spatial reasoning skills and such. But as opposed to skills like tool-making or speech, math is relatively "young" -- I'm guessing our brains had evolved to their present state long before anybody on earth had ever thought of adding fractions. You're not born with the ability to do math any more than you're born with the ability to tie your shoes or play the piano. They're learned skills.





But back to the original topic, yes, I think professors must be allowed to take controversial stances. For the same reason why we have the First Amendment (well, one of them) -- because it's important to allow unpopular ideas to germinate. Abolition and women's suffrage were once unpopular ideas. And history shows that we do a lousy job when we try to weed out the "good" unpopular ideas from the "bad" ones. It's best to allow them all a berth. Now, when "controversial" crosses the line to "hateful," things get dicier. I don't claim to know what to do then.

Hello All,



why what is this? The Arab Israeli custerf*ck has washed up on our shores? Great!

Off to find a rock.....

Gothamist ALWAYS had excellent discussions.

i am a 20-something female. i went to a women's college, and majored in english. i took ONLY the science courses absolutely required of me there.

currently, i work as a secretary in a physics department in NYC. having spent nearly 4 years here, it's become increasingly clear that one's aptitudes are as strongly dictated by culture as by natural inclination -- perhaps even more so by the former.

our department size approaches thirty, but the number of female scientists who are tenured faculty here approaches...that's right...zero. i see this less as an issue of biological destiny than institutionalized discrimination.

now dont get me wrong -- the guys i work with are lovely and smart and sympathetic and politically attuned, to boot. but they, understandably, are focused on their own scientific work. they themselves are marginalized in Bush Country, our land of ReadWriteAddSubtract.

What or who is to blame for the sad plight of women in the field? Issues of childcare, healthcare, teen magazines, maternity leave, lack of esteem in the minds of men, the American work ethic and macho displays of very very hardworkingness are at fault here. NOT the differently-wired brains of women (hmmm...or is it the brains of men who are wired differently?).

At the very least, if the science of chemical dissimilarity between men and women DOES hold water -- which it most likely does -- the best scientific theory would propose something different. Something more correct: that the *strengths* of women in the fields of math and science are different.

Whew...I'll get off the soapbox now! This discussion is one of the best I've seen on gothamist!

Therefore, wouldn't it be a better worl if there was a third university accepting people and staff who were anti-Semitic AND suicidal!

has anyone considered that women may not be as good in math and science because they are taught at a young age to be maternal? How many girls grow up with chemistry sets? And how many boys grow up with dolls? And once a girl gets to school, studies have shown that teachers unconciously favor boys in class than girls when it comes to discussions or answering questions. With all of that going against her, a woman out of school may feel her only career choices are teacher or secretary. If that's what she wants, that's fine, but she shouldn't have barriers put up before she even gets there.

ack ack ack. as a woman who is about to go in for a science PhD, I'd recommend that all of those folks commenting on the Harvard debacle take another look.

general concensus is that Summers addressed this concern with two possible causes: first, that women who are married with children are less likely to invest 80-hour weeks than other women and men, and second, that differences in highschool math/science test scores may suggest that men as a group may have a higher aptitude for these subjects than women as a group (the NYT article doesn't address how he linked this fact to the dismally low number of female professors).

I certainly agree that Summers made a crappy choice of points - on the first point, he neglects the fact that married men with children spend more time with their families now than than they once did. on top of that, the women-will-choose-children-over-career argument has probably had much more impact in preventing appointments than in justifying retirements or impeding careers.

on the second point, the only reasonable relationship between test scores and faculty appointments is in brute statistics; it may suggest that girls matriculate and graduate at a lower rate in these subjects because of lower test scores, and then that they are appointed at a lower rate either because they aren't as accomplished as their male collegues or because there simply are fewer of them.

however, if you really think about it, highschool test scores don't really say much. everyone takes highschool science tests, but very few people go on to college. past that, very VERY few people go on to get advanced degrees and teach as professors.

if boys on the whole have any kind of biological advantage in understanding math and science (which, I hate to tell you, is not out of the question, even including "recent studies"), it is rendered entirely moot by the fact that only the brightest and most determined students who become professors in the end anyways! if there is a dearth of female professors in math and science that *does not correspond* to the proportional numbers of women and men who graduate with math/science degrees, then it is probably due to institutional bias. if a man who is less qualified and a woman who is more qualified apply for a job and the man gets it, it's obviously not because of his supposed advantage in aptitude.

for that reason, Summers' point isn't very germane. but why attack his arguments over a legitimate (if weak) argument? instead, we could take it as an invitation to explore wider, more important issues (are we scaring girls away from math/science at a young age?).

I'm also concerned that people's reactions are so profoundly negative. would there be similar outrage if Summers had suggested that women's superior performance in languages might be linked to biology? or that we currently think that spatial logic is strongly biological (i.e. that good mechanics and dancers are superior to the rest of the population in that respect)? biological differences between human groups, even differences in aptitude, do not EVER constitute a heirarchy in and of themselves.

The CNN article on Summers' comment also said that the number of senior positions at Harvard offered to women has declined in each of the 3 years of his presidency.

it's not just sports. there are emotional and hormonal differences which could effect the way men and women approach various problems.

As long as you are interested in the subject and put hard work into learning it, it doesn't matter what or who you are, you should be able to succeed. Only in sports, do I think that abilities of the men and women differ.

yes, men and women are clearly different, but this guy has no basis in claiming that men are genetically or biologically more competant in science or math. perhaps it's because women have deliberately been marginalized in these subjects for generations. he has a theory and it could be correct, but shouldn't a president of harvard be able to see the lack of wisdom in making a claim, with no scientific proof, that will only insult and enrage half the people around him. that's very similar to our president's style of diplomacy.

Well, IMO, The problem with Controversial Profesor is they let their Ego Rule often at the cost of their Students.

For example, At CCNY in 1992, Prof. Leonard Jeffries was head of the black studies department when he got into trouble for spewing venomous conspiracy theories. He asserted that Jews financed the slave trade and conspired with the Mafia to demean blacks in the movies. You should have seen him rip into white or asian students who dared to signed up for his class. It was NOT a pretty sight. Oddly enough,

While that made for great press for the people baiting him (Right or Wrong), it got him in trouble. Rather than back down or at least stay quiet, for the good of the students and the School, he dragged it out and nearly got the department Funding cut. (BTW He's still listed there as part of the Political Science dept.)

You might remember that the issue dragged out, protests interfered with Student life and the Gov't threatened to pull funding. While Columbia is not a Public University, I bet the administration there will react to popular preasure in the same fashion.

What are women better at? Humanities subjects? Cooking? (Sorry, that last one's just being provocative, but here it seems well-placed). As a student at a women's college, I see a great percentage of the students here excelling in the sciences, math, and economics (all traditionally male-dominated fields). But, that might not speak to your argument, which was that most (but not all) men are better at these subjects. And what I've just written about is quantitative. Hasn't it been shown that any difference between male and female capabilities in the sciences would be the result of environment, and not predetermined biological capability? Your statement seems anachronistic.

New York magazine also has a feature about Columbia's Middle Eastern Studies Dept.

But that belief, stated or not, has led people to ignore the many many women who excell in math and science, whether they're exceptions or the norm (data is still way, way out on that). My mother, a math major, had great difficulty getting a job as anything but a secretary in the 1970s because she was a woman, and she's furious at Summer's comment b/c she sees it as a return to those days.

Cant we all be honest and realize that men and woman ARE different. Men are better at some things and women are better in others. This is not to day ta all men are better at math and science but generally it is pretty true. although the professor should not have stated this belief lets stop kidding ourselves and be honest for a change.