The Los Angeles Times published an essay yesterday by Deborah Blum, "
In Victorian times, scientists argued that women's brains were too small to be fully human. On the intelligence scale, researchers recommended classifying human females with gorillas.
The great 19th century neuroanatomist Paul Broca didn't see the situation as quite so dire, but he warned his colleagues that women were not capable of being as smart as men, "a difference that we should not exaggerate, but which is nonetheless real."
The president of Harvard University suggested that a lack of "innate ability" might help explain why women couldn't keep up with men in fields like math and science … oh, wait, that one happened just last month.
Hold for a minute — OK — while I dig out my corset and bustle.
If that sounds snotty, I mean it to be.
I, for one, am ready to leave the 19th century behind. Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers can apologize all he wants, but the fact is that — from a position of power — he felt comfortable speculating about women's inadequate intelligence and ignoring years worth of science that proved him wrong.
I don't find that excusable. Period.
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In fact, when allowed, women have done excellent science for decades, even since the corset-and-bustle days. The physicist Marie Curie won two Nobel prizes — in 1903 and 1911 — for her work in France with radioactive elements. As one Stanford University professor assured her audience last week, "clearly, girls are as capable" as boys.
No argument there from me except this one: Why does that have to be said at all? How well must women perform before the question of our competence gets taken off the table? How many times do we have to make the point before people actually believe it?
I wonder when it was that male academics last organized a conference to explain that their brains worked as well as those of their female colleagues. Perhaps they should have. At least, if more attention was given to the limits of male brain function, Summers might not have made quite such a fool of himself.
If that sounds like a cheap shot, I mean it to be.
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Does it strike you, as it does me, that Summers missed the important question? The one that goes like this: If men and women are basically equal in ability, why is there not a more equal balance of power?
That's complicated terrain, perhaps more than he wanted to take on. Still, I'd like to propose this simple scenario: One gender gained the power position and has been really, really reluctant to share the space.
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To return to Marie Curie, you should know that the year she won her second Nobel Prize, the French Academy of Sciences refused to admit her as a member. Why? She was a woman. Curie did finally get her recognition from France in 1995 — 61 years after her death from leukemia. They dug up her bones and reburied them with other national heroes in the Pantheon. What an honor, huh? I'll bet that meant a lot to her.
And if that sounds angry, I mean it to be.
Before we congratulate the L.A. Times, though, note that they also published an essay with a very different point of view. Alas, this essay, by , then criticizes an NSF program designed to promote gender equity in math and science, then criticizes an unnamed female professor. After a brief foray into skepticism about past discrimination, columnist Seipp continues the critical tirade, with her next targets being her mother, science teaching, and science journalism, before finishing off with another swipe at the NSF.
About the only consistent line-of-thought in this dismal piece is a negative portrayal of women who study or work in math and science, including, believe it or not, the columnist's own mother:
Even in 1950, no one stopped my mother from studying science, although (as she always said later) maybe they should have. She spent her spare time reading Milton in the library but insisted on majoring in science, to be different. A silly reason, obviously. But I'm afraid the only other she ever offered wasn't any better. The University of Manitoba science department had the best sports "yell," she said. Years later she was still able to recite it verbatim: "Hot damn, holy hell, have you heard the science yell? We want, God knows, more beer, less clothes."
Perhaps someone should have stopped Ms. Seipp from trying to publish this embarrassing article for all the world to see.
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