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Harvard Pres Says Females Naturally Bad at Math
Man_Holmes writes "Harvard president says that women lack natural ability in math and science and this explains why fewer women succeed in math and science.
Lawrence H. Summers later said that he was discussing hypotheses based on scholarly work and that it did not necessarily represent his private views."
More of a "You can't say that." than "That isn't correct.
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
Now we just need them to study why they are so bad at driving too! ;)
I'd be interested to see what peer-reviewed, repeatable research there exists on actual gender differences.
I remember hearing in a developmental psych class that only 5-10% of the 'standard' gender differences have any biological basis; and the NY Times article on this topic quotes a woman who was angry because, if I remember right, the entire morning of the symposium had been spent dispelling those same myths.
The trouble with this kind of research seems to be that there's too much political intrigue - every scientist is going to be accused of (or possess) some kind of bias in American gender-polarized society, and that is difficult to filter out even if you're aware of it.
Maybe we should just move to Sweden.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
... Math is hard ;-)
If someone got up on stage and claimed that men were innately bad at having babies.
It would be an ugly, ugly scene.
economists bad at genetics.
Take your pick. I know which I think is more likely.
Phil
Simon Baron-Cohen, a psych prof. at Cambridge has a book:
:)
The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain.
From the beginning of the book: "The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems."
Has anyone read it?
P.S. This guy is a cousin of Ali G. Don't know what that ought to signify
Being an economist, he wouldn't even know what real science is. What he practices is a pseudo-science, at best.
STFU about slashdot bias.
It's because women don't stay in the technical fields due to the sexist and condecending culture found there.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
I just wanted to chime in by saying that "have less aptitude for" does not automatically mean "all suck at".
Machine9dotNet
The NYTimes has been running this story on their main page for the past day. Story is here.
Apparently, he made these remarks in an effort to provoke discussion more than to express his beliefs. Or at least that's the spin on it.
Wife: "Honey, you know women are bad at math..."
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I'm sure the female slashdot member will be upset by such a statement.
It doesn't matter if you have facts to back up an assertion like that, you're still going to pay a price in suffering that makes it far better to just shut the hell up.
So it is "Safer" and "easier" to "shut the hell up" about something that is politically incorect if the price is a large amount of suffering? I wonder what would have happened to the Civil Rights movement and Womens Sufferage (among other movements) if people thought that way in the 20's and 50's/60's.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
He just said the right thing the wrong way... he was apparently trying to "be provocative" according to the same AP article on CNN.
He also gave an example of what he intended (emphasis mine):That example says "innate difference" to me, but I'd like to see more detail.
It doesn't matter if you have facts to back up an assertion like that, you're still going to pay a price in suffering that makes it far better to just shut the hell up.
Married life teaches this very lesson.
-kgj
-kgj
Now, who's substantiating his comments and who isn't?
Her basic premise (backed up by various studies) is that pre-historically, the tasks of men and women drove the evolution of their brains and chemistry (hormones). For example, because men did the hunting, they had to understand spacial relationships better. Because a group of women in a tribe took care of the children together, women had to work better with others and multi-task.
I can't recall specifically, but I think she makes the point that the male mind is (on average, of course) better suited for engineering because of the spacial relationship thing. But, her basic premise is that the directions the world, and even corporate culture, are heading benefit women and we should expect them to lead much more in the future.
From Family Guy:
Lois: I guarantee you a man made that commercial.
Peter: Of course a man made it. It's a commercial Lois, not a delicious thanksgiving dinner.
Friend of the Wise, Brother of the Brave.
Perhaps there comes a point where a person of integrity can no longer tow the politically correct line and must call it as he sees it. Perhaps being able to retain some dignity and look oneself in the mirror as a professional academic is worth the heat he'll have to take. So I disagree entirely that it far better to just shut the hell up.
It's like... no one commentating on athletics will admit the obvious fact that black sprinters are faster than white. Because if you admit that, then you have conceded that some races may be naturally better at some things than other things, perhaps whites think better than blacks... shock, horror!
To me it is obvious that women are generally better at somethings and worse at others than men. I hope I live to see the day when we laugh at the quaint squeemishness of our age to admit what every other age and people have plainly known.
Of course, this does not mean that an individual woman may not be the best mathematician, or perhaps a white man will again win the 100 metres. (We now have a white heavy-weight boxing world champion.) Individuals are in no way subject to a statistic which generalises a population.
Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird -- Proverbs 1:17
The current doctrine that is present in most schools and society will not allow a view to exist even if it could be backed with fact.
We are too concerned with feelings compared to facts. We are willing to ingore an obvious issue simply because it might offend someone.
Fortunately this issue is relatively harmless but other issues which offend people based on the conclusions of studies are being hushed all in the name of sensitivity and political correctness.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Here's an interesting thing. I am a female physics PhD student. What I noticed in my university and from discussions with other PhD students and scientists, this is fairly common in other universities, is that the ratio of female to male students, in physics and maths at least is about 50/50 through undergraduate. And they do well in it. They get As and first-class honours. The most obvious exception to this is engineering. That's still very male dominated. But as you start going up to PhD level and then further you start losing girls. However the situation today is still much better than in the past. As you look at the older scientists in your department you will generally see that as the age goes up, the more likely that they are male.
This is Australia, so maybe things are different in the US. But what I understand talking with other scientists (including male ones) is that first of all the PhD itself is a slog. Secondly after you finish you go through a long period where you get 1-2 year postdocs here and there and you are likely to be constantly moving. It is much easier for a guy to tell his wife that they are moving and that she should quit her job and pack and for the guy to spend years working late at night and expecting his wife to hold the fort at home with the kids and housework than for a woman to do the same thing. Also then you want to have a baby and you have to take at least a year off, sometimes even more, and well you can see how things go. Oh, and also as my (male) supervisor once warned me, some of the older guys are just biased against women. They won't say it outright but it affects how they select people for jobs.
I once saw a documentary about turn of the century basketball.
Apparently, around the turn of the century, Jews dominated Basketball. Seriously. Not making this up. And in the press, and in the common opinion of the time, it was held that Jews had certain attributes, which were (not lying) quickness and sneakyness. which made them unbeatable on the court.
Today that seems totally ridiculous to us. We don't hold those stereotypes anymore.
Now we believe that black people have this huge innate physical sports advantage. It's not that they're statistically poorer than white people, and have few ways of going to college besides sports scholarships. It's not that, culturally, they see the easiest routes to success coming from entertainment and athletics.
It's just that black people tend to be athletic, funny, and rappers. It's genetic. No really. It is. Really.
Don't you see how stupid that is?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Girls are so pampered today by our public education system that most of them are terribly thin-skinned. One of the girls in my CS program used to go into a crying temper tantrum everytime someone more than very, very gently criticized something she said or did. Most of the guys I see are supportive of the girls.
Here's a novel idea though. If you want a man to respect you as a colleague, ladies, then do a man's work and do it LIKE a man. That means you meet or exceed the level of work that a man would in your position. No excuses ladies, just fucking take it like a man.
The girls that I know who make it do that. They don't make excuses, they just compete. They don't whine about sexism, in fact the most successful of them as a "bring it on, fuckers" attitude toward sexism.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
They rarely coincide.
I think it has been long established that unless other factors play into it, women are driven by different drives than men. I don't pretend to understand whether it's a cultural matter or a genetic one, but there are a variety of biological reasons for women to be less capable of maintaining abilities in math and logic (which are devoid of emotion). Women have a lot of games that their bodies, for better or worse, play on them that men do not suffer or experience.
Now I have seen other studies among toddlers showing that on the large, boys are more successful at getting around obstacles (read as stubborn if it helps you to think so) than the girls who were prone to simply giving up in frustration. The notion is that as a toddler, there is less chance of a child being tainted by learned roles and behavior although there will still be some of that.
But frankly, I am a little annoyed when studies are criticised for reasons that have little to nothing to do with evidence to the contrary and more about a conflict of opinion or ideals. We don't want to hear that men and women are not equals -- that would mean all sorts of problems in our future because after all, look how far we've come by legislating that women are equal to men:
We have an unprecedented number of single-parent families and all of the dysfunctional children that accompany those numbers. We have an unprecedented divorce rate that never stops climbing. (Studies have shown that 80% of all marriages start where men ask the women, but it is in the 90% range where women initiate divorce.) Women in the workplace are supposed to be equal but statistically, they spend less time at work than men do for the same job.
Before women start bashing me on this because it doesn't fit "you" or some smaller group of people -- this is about the country of the U.S. at large. And if you think there aren't cases to the opposite, it would be wrong for me not to acknowledge it.... so here's your bone. I read in a black woman's magazine about some refreshing statistics that the decline of black single mothers collecting welfare is increasing at an almost unexplainable rate. They are becoming far more educated than their white counterparts, and are earning more money than their black male counterparts. I can only attribute that to cultural adjustments within those circles but it does illustrate an important point I'd like to close with.
Natural ability or talent alone do not determine potential for success or limitations. There are thousands of other factors that can come into play when determining these things which can even include the direction of the wind at the moment of determination. So then what would be the purpose of such studies?
It's about understanding ourselves; who we are -- our strengths and our weaknesses. And the sooner we embrace whatever the "facts du jour" are, the sooner we can begin from a proper perspective rather than the basis of some political agenda.
As for the Jewish issue, funniness, and ability to rap, well those obviously fit the rest of your post quite well.
Troll. But dammit, I'll bite anyway. Why is it that according to P.C. all people are equally best at everything? People are different, and if you study them and it comes out that men are better at something than women, why must it be that you are immediately misogynist?
I read a study a while back that suggested that women are better suited for field command roles because of their innate demeanor and communications skills. No one cryed "feminisim attacks!!". Why should you? Why can't you accept that different sets of people have different innate strengths?
It doesn't mean that you can't do something in math if you're a women. Far from it, and I know several brilliant women in the fields of science and math. It's just that it explains the likelyhood of a math or science major being male. It's there, why do you ignore it?
He threw in the, "it's not necessarily my personal view", because he didn't want to be labeled by people such as yourself.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
What was actually said involved a lot of disclaimers and careful language. Summerizing the remarks as "females naturally bad at math" is just plain wrong.
One of the specific things he pointed out was the way that the work of high level math and science contributors in academia is organized requires a steep committment in time and effort that many women are unwilling to spend. In the corporate world positions have been modified to allow for multiple people to hold onto an important responsibility. There are other kinds of changes that can also be made. Part of the implication here is that the flaws are not with the women who are not reaching the top in these contexts, but with the way the offices and responsibilities themselves are structured and executed.
There is a popular article in the New York Times about this with the title "Harvard Chief Defends His Talk On Women" that goes into significant detail.According to the BBC, The difference in male vs. female brain size (about 10%) in humans and higher order primates is directly attributable to in increase is the size of the areas of the brain responsible for geo-spatial mapping and visualization. Natural selection is the culprit in this instance. It seems that if you couldn't find your way home after the day's hunt, you got less of an opportunity to pass on your genes!
When you think about it, (and be honest now) in your experience, exactly what is the ratio of male to female Unix admins?
Got 'cha!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
look how far we've come by legislating that women are equal to men: We have an unprecedented number of single-parent families and all of the dysfunctional children that accompany those numbers. We have an unprecedented divorce rate that never stops climbing. (Studies have shown that 80% of all marriages start where men ask the women, but it is in the 90% range where women initiate divorce.)
Yes, and there you haven't even touched the subject of what happens after that divorce; the woman gets away with the kids and your money. Hell, I know men where the woman, right after they decided to divorce, robbed the entire house clean of all their mutual belongings (with the help of friends), in addition to taking a way too large lump of his future income, and taking all his rights away to see his kids. Judges won't punish this sort of outright criminal behaviour and the woman's part, undoubtedly for a variety of reasons, but justice is not one of them. Feminism is, I suspect. There's a reason for the fact that organisations like Fathers for Justice exist. This happens in Europe, mind you!Feminism destroyed America, the whole western world for that matter. And still there are people (the variery that needs to sit down to pee, that is) claiming that feminism hasn't come far enough yet. Excuse me?! What do they want men to be? Men are more than a monthly income, and a means for women to be able to shit out these godawful screaming shitting smelling monsters they call babies!
On the other hand, there is a difference between what women say (or think) they want, and what they actually want; they claim that they want men and women to be equal, and that they want a man with feminine qualities. Bullshit! What they want, is a man; someone who has the traditional male qualities like confidence, and not being afraid to set limits, etc. Until women see the flaw in their own logic here, the divorce rate will not get better. On the other hand, once you understand this as a man, it's time to get a woman that doesn't think in such a feministic way. Really, they exist :)
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Nowhere did he say that men were more likely to be good at math and science. He said that perhaps innate differences (not lack of intellectual ability) may be a factor that women do not advance or succeed in certain fields. Okay. Let's see. What are some innate differences? People keep mentioning the vagina, but let's remember a couple of other things that women have that men do not: ovaries and a uterus. While a baby is in the oven, the father can continue working, a mother often cannot. While a child is small, it is more often women than men who sacrifice work time to care for them, especially if the parents decide that breastfeeding is important to them. The first is an innate difference. The second is largely cultural (how many offices want a small child in them? How many allow breastfeeding?) Mr. Summers said his remarks were misconstrued as suggesting that women lack the ability to succeed at the highest levels of math and science, and that he "did not say that, nor do I believe it" (RTFA)
As a woman who is on the cusp of receiving her PhD and looking for a teaching position, I am faced with the reality that my potential employers are very concerned about my marital status, whether I have children now, and whether I plan to have them in the next few years, or ever. (Legal or not, that's how it is; I have been at staff meetings where someone brings it up in relation to a prospective faculty member, and the department chair had to say "it is illegal for us to consider that factor." Do you think it's not on people's minds, even after that?) I am also faced with the reality of an ad I saw recently: "Egg donors needed. Waited too long for tenure." From my perspective, poignant. Will I have to choose between a family and a career? My intellectual capacity and the body of research reflected in my CV rival that of any man I will be competing with for junior faculty positions. But I know that I want to have children. I will be getting my PhD at the age of 30, and starting a career when most of my friends have small children. Should I put off kids? Should I have them and then look for a job? Should I land a job with maternity leave and hope that I still get tenure if I use maternity leave within the first few years I am working there?
"Innate differences." Are the concerns I have due to innate, physical differences? Or our society's inability to cope with a workforce that is actively involved in reproduction? A combination, perhaps, as Mr. Summers suggests: due to innate differences, women are not advancing, and he is concerned about the role discrimination plays in keeping women from advancing at elite universities. Universities which are among the most demanding of their junior faculty. Recent PhDs, who are at an age when most women in our society have children.
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I agree with you that we should be able to study innate differences between groups of people without people crying foul if they don't like the results. However, if these studies are commissioned or are used as an excuse for someone's biases, then I have a problem.
In this situation, Harvard has low female enrollment in math disciplines. Rather than investigate whether Harvard is actively or inadvertently discouraging females from enrolling, or whether there is some social root cause for females being discouraged from math disciplines, the Harvard Pres pulls some "scholarly work" out of his ass that says women are bad at math. This is what I have a problem with. Even if, on avarage, women are worse at math, I doubt that the difference in man-woman statistics is enough to account for the lack of women in Harvard's math-centric programs.
It's just that it explains the likelyhood of a math or science major being male.
And it can also be used to explain to young women entering high school why they shouldn't be taking advanced math courses.
He threw in the, "it's not necessarily my personal view", because he didn't want to be labeled by people such as yourself.
And what sort of people are they? The kind that label middle-aged men that say "Women lack natural ability in math" as potentially having a bias against women? Sounds like common sense to me.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
My life is a good example of how things can end up not working the way I wanted them to but worked out pretty well.
Rewind eight years ago -> married a "career gal" wanted to be a DINKs as both careers were going well. Ended up having a kid, she decides she wants to be a homemaker. I was really unhappy about it and the loss of income. But I figured I was not going to force her to so something she didn't want to.
Today-> well knowing that I had to support a family I have been forced to make smarter career moves, twice being stuck in well-paying jobs I didn't like at all. However, our kids (five and three) are well adjusted, healthy, home is calm, my wife is very happy doing what she does and spending some of my money. But in return she keeps me happy. Realises that I do bust my ass to support them and doesn't hassle me when I want to spend a bit on myself or go out with the guys.
I think I ended up with it pretty good. Will have to see what the future holds.
Interesting this is I have a friend still in college who says these two things have happened/do happen to women teachers in Rhode Island.
First, If a woman is seen on a date by one of her students, she is fired. Also, that this happened to one of his teachers.
Second, if a woman teacher becomes pregnant she is sent on a "leave of absence" for the duration of the time that her pregnancy shows. Basically, once she starts to show, she has to leave until she has the kid. Contrast this with teachers in VA where they don't leave until sometime in the third trimester.
Don't speak against the south until you've heard some of the crazy shit the New Englanders do.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Exactly. When I saw this thread, I was expecting a lot of "listen to the reasoning, don't just react" statements. What I wasn't expecting was a lot of people not only agreeing with the claim, but even going so far as to say "women should know their place" and things like that.
e t_ Journal/vol25/25GSJ04b.html
... Different gender ratios never resulted in changes in male test performance; men consistently registered about 67 percent accuracy on math exams."
/ le wis/
Before a continue, a disclaimer: My partner is both female and a math major, and several of my friends in college were female math majors (or math/cs), so I may be a bit biased on this one.
I don't find this notion to be true at all. I went to a school that was 70-80% male, and yet the math department had an even mix of male and female. If there was any bias, it was on the side of pure science vs. applied science (the women tended to migrate more toward the "pure science" - chemistry as opposed to chemical engineering, things like that). Other schools have found similar things - for example, http://www.math.earlham.edu/WomensBrains.html
Anyways, enough with the anecdotal evidence. Lets get to studies:
http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Stre
"n a recent Brown study, women performed as much as 12 percent better on math problems when tested in a setting without men.
Women tested in single-sex groups scored a 70-percent accuracy rate on math exams, while women tested in groups in which they were outnumbered by men achieved only a 58-percent accuracy rate, said Michael Inzlicht, graduate student of psychology, who led the research.
http://www.awm-math.org/articles/notices/199107
(An interesting article about women in mathematics - several interesting tidbits, such as while only 25% of math PhDs are female, only 30% of all PhDs period are female)
http://www.gendercenter.org/education.htm
(This tidbit: "In 1992, women received 52 percent of biological science bachelor's and master's degrees, 67 percent of law bachelor's degrees, 47 percent of business bachelor's degrees, 47 percent of mathematics bachelor's degrees, and 33 percent of physical science bachelor's degrees. (6)" - references "Where Women Stand: An International Report on the Status of Women in 140 Countries 1997-1998" by Naomi Neft and Ann D. Levine.)
In summary: it looks like there are ample women in mathematics at the graduate level; however, at the postgrad level, the numbers drop significantly. However, women don't seek postgraduate degrees nearly as often as men anyways; the ratio of male to female postgraduate degrees in mathematics is only 5% different from the overall average. Such a small difference can easily be attributed to the environment - an environment which Harvard's president made abundantly clear.
Jesus: "Son of a
Every single week. Its usually because their children are sick or they can't find a baby sitter, or day care isn't open, or whatever.
Sounds like more of a "dad" problem than a "mom" problem.
Re-read your post and imagine that there were fathers who could step up and do *their* jobs.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
A few years ago I had occasion to be talking with the leaders of some of the US Electronics Assembly industry locally. I began to ask about the differentials in employment for women in that industry as they totally dominate the assembly lines. The response I got was one which I have looked into in depth since that time and found that these men were correct.
They reported to me substantial differentials in women and men regards work situations. They included that only about 10% of men had the color discrimination capacity of women. Women on average could descriminate well over 10 times the number of colors that men could and this was not related to color blindness. Women had on average 10 times the discrimination for fine detail and these two factors were the reason men were discriminated agianst in electronics assembly. This was also the dominant reason for export of the processes to China etc because it was illegal in the USA to discriminate so.
I am a Registered Nurse. I have learned professionally that a great deal of very concrete scientific data exists on differences between men and women. These include sensory and environmental and developmental differences. The data supporting the math claims is quite beyond any question. Women have as a average a mathematical capacity differential that is in the order of 10:1 on performance testing different. This is biological and has long been known to be so. Tell the MODS I am talking science and not policy and am not being troll this is just facts.
Being aware of Adm. Grace Hopper USN and Ada and other exceptional females (including a daughter of mine) I could hardly apply an average to anyone. But being ignorant of what is going on or politically correct in this matter is just stupid. We have allowed our political motives to get out of line with our science here.
Hillary Clinton (Ex Prez Wife and US Senator) was willing to accept and actually testified and got policy changed in medical research over this very issue. Prior to her efforts medicines as a whole were never tested on women to determine if they had differential effects to men. They are now and the results are most intersting. I am no supporter ot many of the Clinton policies but this was a very correct action. In medicine it is saving lives.
In our world many problems develop because we are politically motivated and not science moderated. How on earth can it be that we can see that women and men have differences in strength, temperment and even have as a whole different ratios of muscle to fat in their bodies and cannot see that they behave differently? How can we be so arrogant as to breed animals for temper and abilities and be unwilling to see that various humans have differences? This accusing those who discuss overwhelming scientific evidence as if they were bigots has got to stop.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
> It's just that when a man chooses to not have kids, society doesn't label him as selfish
It does you just don't see that side.
What about a husband who wants to stay at home, and take care of the kids. Society labels him as a deadbeat. It works both ways. Society labels negatively anyone that steps out of what their percieved role should be.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
I heard about this happening at my alma mater, but didnt actually witness it so take it with a grain of salt
A male professor once exclaimed in class, after a female student answered a question incorrectly due to a math error that "Thats ok- women are naturally worse at math than men."
After an audible sucking of wind from the class (my school was about 70-30 female-male at the time), he followed with "Its ok, its not your fault. Know why?" A pause...and then he held his thumb and forefinger about an inch and a half apart. "Because all your lives men have been lying to you and telling you that this is 8 inches."
Not only that, but women endurance in general is far superior. Look at adventure racers. Women kick ass in most teams - though they are harder to find as it is not popular. But they usually can not navigate. :)
But it is all beside the point. The point is that significant differences exist, and it is absolutely normal to acknoledge that. And like many people pointed out - this is just the third, worst type of lying - statistics. Use it appropriately.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Still, it isn't normal (or rather, shouldn't be) to use those differences as justification for discriminatory policies.
/. thread: "Women suck because they don't do math/science."
Which, sadly, it is. Just look at this whole
Gee, I wonder why not? Thanks for the encouragement, guys.
Just because some shmucks are using weak techniques to try to "improve self-esteem" - which probably don't involve changing the school environment at all, doesn't mean that it's impossible to improve educational performance by encouraging students.
Female Prison Rape in NY