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A: FROM STUDENT MEMBER ALEXIS K. IN GERMANY
Wow. So much to say, so little ambition. Must be because I'm a girl;
something about possessing the girl version of a brain up in my
unencumbered, little head, I should think (if only I could).
In all seriousness, for a variety of reasons I am thrilled with the debate
President Lawrence Summers provoked. This is an overdue debate and someone
needed to mix it up. Who better than the president of a respected,
collective brain-pool? I am not truly offended by his provocation and think
a lot of good will come out of this.
I did some additional reading about this and it turns out that President
Summers has a history of provoking debate. This is a fine characteristic for
a person who teaches but is dangerous if you lead teachers and I can see
from my internet research that Mr. Summers is now in dangerous territory.
Some have even asked for him to resign or be fired. Good thing he's not a
girl or he might have capitulated by now.Kidding.
It's hard not to be irritable about the explanations he proposes. It's easy
to want to take the explanations personally, but the problems he brings up
are legitimate and need to be objectively examined. His ideas beg for
alternative explanations. He makes me want to learn more.
In some ways I don't think I know enough to debate if his points are valid,
semi-valid, or invalid. I haven't studied psychology or physiology any where
near enough to say with truth if there are brain differences between boys
and girls, but I think it's possible. Let's say for argument that there
really are differences (what are they,are they all known, are they extremely
different, etc?), isn't this helpful information in helping decide how to
best work with the differences? Don't teachers work with the theory that
people learn differently (tactile, auditory, visual, combinations, etc.) and
therefore a variety of approaches to teaching must be used? If brains are
different, don't we all need to know that and then dispassionately but
respectively (is that a contradiction?) use that insight to bring out the
best in all?
I know, for example, that pharmaceutical drugs work differently depending on
age and gender at least. Why is that if there are not innate biological
differences? Recently a study showed that aspirin doesn't work the same on
women and men in helping prevent heart attacks. Why is that? I'm not
offended that aspirin works differently - I want to know why and better
still to know what has to be done with this insight so that each gender is
helped. If girl and boy brains are different, so what? Work with it. If the
differences are exploited to discriminate, then taking offense is
justifiable. But I'm not sure that is what Mr. Summers is saying. The main
theme I get from his message is that we need to examine the reasons why
there are so few women leading the highest levels of academics and address
the issue.
Do you want to know my unstudied theories about why women don't go into or
get into the highest levels? First, I am sure there is discrimination. My
parents say there is such a thing as the slow slide off due north - this is
when you are on a straight path to an objective and a tiny step to the side of the path shows as an extreme angle after many steps have been taken from
your start point. I think many little things can happen along the way to
achieving a goal and before you know it, you are so far away from your goal
that giving up seems easier than trying to find your path again. I think
that every little subtle piece of discrimination or lack of support for a
girl's goals can later add up to giving up. Though that's incredibly
difficult to prove.
Also, I think that boys are more desperate to do things in their life that
defines their value. I mean, having a career means the world. I'm not
convinced girls think like this or better yet, are taught to think like
this. I see a career as an option I can opt out of. I think this is
dangerous thinking in some ways. Thinking like this allows me to change my
mind and drop my goals for all kinds of reasons.
I also think that because boys learn, or are wired, to NEED a career, that
they are more prone to take risks. They take risks because they have to,or
at least in their mind anyway. I think there is a sense of having no choice
but to risk. If I approach things as though they are an option, I am less
inclined to take risks. I limit myself. Now who can I blame that on?
I think that when I don't take risks it's my choice and my responsibility. I
can't blame my choice on boys, but I think I can hold "the society machine"
partly responsible for not instilling a sense of desperation and a need to
define myself through what I achieve. Remember the GEM SET question from a
while ago that pointed out that women's salaries are approximately 75% of
what a male would earn? I remember learning that a girl has to do a better
job of negotiating her salary. That is taking a risk. I don't think girls
take enough risks. Ok, let me say it better, girls don't take well reasoned
risks enough. There are a lot of stupid dangerous things I see boys do and I
have no desire for that, but I do like the idea of mimicking their well
reasoned risk taking. As my mom likes to point out, why are so many females
trained in hair cutting but so few own their own business? Why are there
fewer trained men but more shop owners? Business ownership is risk taking.
Maybe girls think that owning their own shop is too risky and that it's
"just an option" but boys see it in a no-choice-but-to-go-for- it way.
I also know that being encouraged can make all the difference and I'm not
sure that girls receive the same kind of encouragement or the same amount as
boys get when it comes to science, technology, engineering and math learning
and skills building.
Take math for example; this year I learned for the first time that I LOVE
math. Before this year math was something I had to learn, had to take at
school, had to do well at. Now I WANT to learn it. It's still hard work but
exciting. I love the challenge of solving a seemingly impossible problem. I
don't know what happened but I like the process. Before I got here, I would
have happily given up on math - it's hard work and I could have easily fall
off due north and given up. It was having a teacher that believed in me and encouraged me that has made the difference. I didn't always know that I have
a math mind (I learned this a few years ago) and I didn't know I had a
passion for math (I do now because of my teacher, who by the way, is a
girl). But to be fair, I also have a male chemistry teacher who encourages
me and his encouragement has made all the difference is staying on top of the
demands of my AP chemistry class. I think encouragement is essential for
"risk taking" in things that are demanding.
Enough hypothesizing about why girls and boys end up in different places as
they get older. None of what I "think" really matters without scientific
research to back it. So my vote is that our society has to decide to make it
a very important mission to learn if boy and girl thinking is different and
what environmental factors impact on similarities and differences. Only then
can we work toward finding and implementing solutions. President Summers'
provocative ideas have opened a dialogue that can't afford to be shut down
again. As for how he said it, well, maybe he should have asked a girl to
read his speech before he gave it. She would have probably suggested he take
less risk in how he phrased things.
P.S. President Summers, if you're reading this, I'm just the sensible
risk-taking, science and math minded, debate appreciating female who Harvard
University needs in the admission class of 2006. Admit me! :D
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A: FROM MENTOR BRENDA WOLFE IN CO
I do not agree with President Summers that the shortage of women in high-tech arenas is due to the fact that women do not WANT to pursue high-powered intense work. The shortage occurs because women are not supported like the men. Behind all those men doing high-powered intense work are the women in their lives - handling the family-social issues so they can work long hours, and handling the cleric office work. Men also receive a higher proportion of grant and research money.
When women are supported at the same level as men, both financially and socially, then women will pursue the intense regime of high powered work. However, my question to President Summers, is why do women have to conform to men's perception of how high-powered work is carried out? Women will do high-powered work - but under a different regiment. The ability to be able to set their own regiment is what holds women back.
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A: FROM STUDENT MEMBER CONNIE P. IN NY
I agree with Mr. Summers about the lack of women role models in relation to the number of male scientists and engineers (role models). This may want women to keep from doing this intensive work but I also think that it has to do with the view society has of men and women. Sure, women and men are pronounced equals but even today, many place men above their wives, and fellow women. There are many women capable of doing "high-powered intense work", yet some people can't accept that. Women had been inferior to men for so long that the idea still stays with us today. Even if women want to do engineering, society's view of them has influenced their dreams to become smaller and smaller. I believe that if society starts to truly view women and men as equals, women will be able to be highly respected and represented in scientific professions.
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A: FROM STUDENT MEMBER CORINNE C. IN CA
Upon reading this hypothesis by the president of
Harvard, I found myself shaking my head vigorously. I
do not think that women are less likely than men to
want to do these high powered intense work! Women from
birth are socialized and placed into a position and
discouraged from going into science! Society has
placed these supposed expectations of what a real
woman should be! That is completely unfair and denying
women the right to chose what they wish to do with
their lives! It is not the fault of women at all! I'm
sure there are plenty of women that would love to get
these jobs in the field of science but are
intimidated! And they're intimidated by men like you!
Men who automatically put themselves in a position
higher than that of women! Men who believe that they
are better and they are the ones that can do all of
those hard jobs! Well, just for the record, WOMEN are
the ones that give birth! WOMEN are the ones that have
to work their butts off to take care of the kids! And
you don't call that intense?!
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A: FROM MENTOR ELEANORA ROBBINS IN CA
I was one of those high-powered women scientists. I have lots of publications, an international reputation, got grants, had students, and retired after 36 years. I was a successful “guy.” Guess what? I am so glad to be out of there. In fact, I began to think of retiring when I started thinking about this very subject. I was getting soooooo tired of the aggressive male scientists’ behavior. I think they are raised very poorly, and that’s why we have so many problems and forsee so few future solutions.
My dad the physicist taught that for a system to function, there has to be competition and cooperation. In our society, scientists are carefully taught the competition aspect, but not the cooperation aspect. Usually, women in the group or team supply the cooperation, and so work actually gets done. One of my old bosses said: if you want to get something done, hire women, because they don’t waste your time with dominance, aggression, and infighting before the job even gets started.
I love men, don’t get me wrong, I’m happily married. I know a lot of highly successful male scientists who choose the more gentle approach to life and research. But those dominating, aggressive fighters take over, take the fun away, and make you want to run the other way (which means they are successful competitors). I think there is a male way and a female way to doing high-powered science. The men win, and force the women to act like them. Brilliant women figure it out, suck it in, and fight back. But the brilliant ideas, research, and execution do not require you to be a male. The Homo sapiens' brain is well honed after 195,000 years of cooperation and competition. Things move forward, however one defines forward (better medicine, destroyed environment). If the “cooperation team” were to take over, things might move forward in a different direction (happy humans, safe water, soil, air, plants, and animals).
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A: FROM STUDENT MEMBER FRANCISCA L. IN CA
I think that the reason women are not in the "high end scientific professions" not because they don't want the intense work but because they are not given the opportunity to do so. Its also because maybe they are not yet prepared or feel comfortable working with men who may intimidate them. When a women feels like she doesn't belong or she is not smart enough to work in these professions it arises from society and how they were brought up. Mr Summers hypothesis is incorrect, the assumption that women don't want the jobs is just an excuse I think men make to justify the fact that there are not many women in high end professions. Because they just don't want to is not a good answer. Maybe they should think about why they don't want to, what is the reason behind that answer.
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A: FROM MENTOR HEATHER GARLAND IN VA
I believe that women are underrepresented in science and technology
fields aren't because they don't want high powered intense work. It is
because they are not given a chance to experience science and technology
at a young age. Therefore when girls go up into adults there are not a
lot of women out there to begin with. I truly believe we could get
women involved as adults if they were shown opportunities as young kids.
The American society is great at advertising not to do drugs or smoke or
drink. But we never advertise that women can do what ever job they
want. It is going to take more than the academic culture to change
before we see more women choose SEIT jobs. More scholarships should be
provided. Parents need to educate their daughters on all the careers
available to them. I know many young girls who are engineers,
scientists, fighter pilots and others that are high intensity.
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A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
I hadn't read President Summers' actual remarks in full until I read them posted here, and I must admit that they are far less arrogant than I'd inferred from excerpts. I agree with him that it's important to consider the difference between the entry into science - the interest that GEM-SET girls are showing, the numbers of science majors in college and numbers of female graduate students - and the dearth of women at the very high end, the full professors at the top ten or 25 research universities. But one thing we learn from the changes over the past 40-50 years, and from the high proportion of women among foreign-born science graduate students in the US, is that changes in socialization have made a very, very big difference. Even with women underrepresented among science professors, it is no longer considered an anomaly, and men are perfectly willing to work for and with them. That's not a biological change, its a social one. And it's just as good to extrapolate from that evidence to the conclusion that society matters as it is to extrapolate from evidence that genetics matters in the identical twin studies.
When it comes to the top rung of the ladder, the 80 hr/week positions in the top universities, the assumption that women are less likely to want them is bound to have a chilling effect on hiring. It's difficult to perceive an applicant's potential if one's subconscious is saying "but she'll quit to have a family." And women do have that option - it's much more acceptable for a woman to stay home with the children than for a man to do that while his wife works. Knowing society's reaction is bound to affect men's vision of what women are likely to do - and affect women's vision of their own futures.
If women, smart, ambitious, high-powered women, were as willing to look for men who'd be happy to be house-husbands as the equivalently smart, ambitious, high-powered men are willing to marry women far less smart and ambitious than themselves, women they expect will be glad to stay home with the kids, then we'd see more 80-hr/week women. Even if they had played with dolls or treated toy trucks like dolls, when they're grown up and educated they may want to use their skills in one of those high-powered jobs. Isn't full-time motherhood at least an 80-hour job? No one can say women are unable to work hard.
Summers suggestion that the long-range outcomes of hiring decisions ought to be examined is a good one, but it should be phrased to include as values more than the output of research papers. We all know brilliant scientists who make very little contribution to undergraduate teaching or other duties that make a department function well and make a university good for students. And what if such a study shows that women do desert the rat race more than men do, or don't as often devote 100% effort only to the things that are counted in this contest? Do we just accept a return to the day when women were underrepresented at all educational levels and career levels in science? It's not their biology that can change on a time scale of decades.
And it is a little strange that Summers can discount the effect of society without thinking quantitatively about it. There is research that shows how much expectations can affect performance - tell someone "your type tends to do poorly at this task" and he will fulfill your low expectations. Tell a man that doing well at this task means he's unmanly and he will certainly fail. Find a woman who can beat him at his "man's job" and he's likely to quit entirely. So let's assume that girls and women encounter attitudes that convey to them that science is inappropriate for a woman, or will make her unattractive to men, that success in science means she will never have a family. The fewer women there are high in the profession, the more those attitudes will persist. Let's assume that enough discouragement is encountered from time to time to reduce by 1% the likelihood that a girl will go into science. It takes about 69 such encounters to reduce by 50% the chance that she will actually choose to go into science. If the 1% discouragement factor happens once a week (not unreasonable for a weekly dating/non-dating situation), every 1.3 years the probability is halved - more than enough of an effect to account for low numbers of women getting advanced degrees in science. Add in the option of choosing family over fighting against hostile attitudes at work, and there will continue to be a dearth of women at the top.
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A: FROM STUDENT MEMBER KUNJAL P. IN NY
I believe that women want to (and can) do high-powered intense work, but they are not given the opportunity. If Dr. Summers is referring to "high-powered intense work" in a physical aspect, then I believe that he may be correct in saying that women are less likely to want to do it. By this I mean, why would any woman, unless they passionately want to, choose to work physically when they can make better uses of their brains. Even though I'm only in highschool, I have observed my classmates both male and female and have come to the conclusion that girls take their time and think things through. If Dr. Summers meant mentally high-powered intense work, then he is very wrong. Take my school for example, it is an all girls school, who has a brother school across the street, and in highschool we are given the opportunity to take classes at either school. Previously before highschool I had attended public school, so yes I have seen both sides. I feel that the girls in my class are intelligent, thorough, careful, confident, and interested in what they do. The boys on the other hand seem less thorough and careful, and more careless and uninterested in what they do. For example, my sophomore year, a friend and I happened to be the only two females in our honors chemistry class. Throughout the year, we diligently took notes, organized our work, carefully and thoroughly preformed labs, the boys we noticed seemed to never open their note books, they always shoved their papers into their black hole backpacks and they always fooled around in the labs. I understand that not all boys are like this, some may be even more organized and thorough than many girls, but I feel that girls actually want to do high-powered intense work, but they are just not given the opportunity. In that class, my friend and I tried to speak up and take they best out of that class, but we were marginalized and even the teacher (who was female) did not give us the opportunity to shine and work to our full potential. This year, my honors physics class, which consists of all female, has shown me how girls and boys work differently. My class loves the material we learn, everyday we come in eager to discover the laws of thermodynamics and the application of math and physics in the real world. My teacher also believes that if girls are given the opportunity and support, they can learn and discover more than if they are not given the support and opportunity. This is why she helps us think differently and use our organization, and other anal skills that we posses to our advantage. I can see the difference in my learning and my eagerness to do high-powered intense work has sprung from merely getting the chance to expand my knowledge in an environment where people support girls and their abilities. I believe that if Dr.Summers could see my physics class he would realize that it is only when girls are marginalized and not given support that they are turned away from doing this so called "high-powered intense work", but when they are in an environment where they are supported and they are encouraged to expand their horizons, then there is not doubt that girls WANT to engage in "high-powered intense work".
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A: FROM STUDENT MEMBER SYLVIA P. IN CA
I agree with Harvard University's president Lawrence
Summers' hypothesis that women are underrepresented in
"high-end scientific professions" because they are
less likely than men to "want to do high-powered
intense work."
As he had discovered, I believe that the main reason
for American women to avoid “high-powered intense
work” is because of the societal responsibilities. In
this society, women are the ones who have to take care
of the family. Therefore, handling housework as well
as an intense work would be nearly impossible. On the
other hand, typically, men do not have the
responsibility of taking care of the housework and
they are viewed to be much more dominant. Therefore,
it seems logical that it would be the men of society
who attempt to pursue a high-powered intense
profession.
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