Snow and Sky

I would look to cultural and sociological explanations before going down this road. As someone who attended a heavily male-dominated college and works in a male-dominated field, I can tell you sexism and male chauvinism and gender-stereotyping are alive and well. It begins the day a girl is wrapped in a pink baby blanket. Many, many studies have documented the ways in which acculturation at home and in the classroom and society at large shapes girls' development and influences the choices they make and their aspirations for the future.

Mr. Saletan offers no concrete evidence whatsoever that biology accounts for this phenomenon. Meanwhile, there are abundant examples of women achieving in math and science that would appear to refute his thesis. We should be asking why it's acceptable for women to enter fields like medicine or economics and the other social sciences, but not the hard sciences. Or why it's more acceptable for them to pursue science in Europe and Eastern Europe but not in the U.S.

When women were denied the right to vote, it wasn't a matter of their brains being incapable of judging between candidates, it was because society was holding them back.

It's dangerous to stereotype an entire group of people without a solid basis for doing so, and condescending to pay lip service to their virtues while enforcing the stereotype. This is the essence of prejudice and discrimination. It's harmful not only to the woman but to all of us, for we are all diminished when anyone is denied the opportunity to realize his or her potential.

Sorry to go off like this but as you can see I get exercised about this topic! I'm glad to see you are wrestling with it though and I can see your heart and head are in the right place.

The danger of continuing to focus on cultural and sociological explanations while neglecting other important factors such as biology is just as I have described above. Again, Mr. Saletan's cogent point has been missed -- maybe, just maybe, the distribution of "innate ability" could be different from men to women.

Note the important distinction here. The distribution is not the same as the mean, nor is it the same as the exceptional. There will always be exceptional cases. As I alluded to earlier, I am stronger than my sister -- but there are definitely women out there who I would never arm wrestle ;) Just because my perception states that women tend to be less strong physically as men, doesn't diminish the respect I have for the women who happen, by innate ability, to be stronger than me. The same applies for the sciences. I don't have a class list in front of me, but it wouldn't surprise me to see 50% or more of my class female. Note that this is in a top-tier program in world-leading science. This neither supports nor refutes Mr. Saletan's thesis, however. In order to provide evidence towards the hypothesis that such a difference in distribution exists, more studies which include this hypothesis as a possibility must be done.

Unfortunately, the theses Mr. Saletan puts forward are unpopular, to be kind. Why are they unpopular? Maybe it's because women are tired of being put into the "different" box, and want desperately to achieve "equal" status. Maybe it's because the feminist movement has focused so much on achieving the goal of sociological and cultural equality that it cannot afford to be distracted by such useless factors as biology. Maybe it's merely because they were put forth from the lips of the hated oppressive man. Who knows.

I know that I have seen women - close friends of mine - turn away from the societal pressure to "make something of yourself" and start a career. I have seen them reject the pressure of their feminist neighbors and accept the inclination of their own biology: to find a husband, settle down and start a family. To them I afford the highest respect. Just as I afford high honors to those women who I see excelling in science and math.

Karl - I don't deny that men and women are biologically different and that these differences might affect how they think and behave. In fact the male aggression you point to and studies of some other traits suggest just that, while possible genetic links between things like left-handedness and allergies and math prowess are also being explored.

I'm just puzzled that one would accept the "innate ability" argument so readily in the absence of any evidence to support its validity, while dismissing other explanations that have been demonstrated to have a huge influence.

Studies have shown that cultural factors play a significant role, and that when removed girls/women perform equally with boys/men. You might be interested in the links below to some abstracts, including one study showing that the same phenomenon applied to white men when they held the stereotypical view that Asian men were superior to them in math.

Mr. Summers' assertion wasn't rejected because feminists hate men, but because there's nothing to back it up. (Not to mention that it was a highly indelicate thing to say to a roomful of scholarly women.) If women can't do math because their brains are different, fine, but be prepared to explain how you arrived at that conclusion.

Karl, I don't know what has shaped your attitudes about feminists, but they don't hate men. In fact, many feminists I know are men themselves! They do hate oppression and injustice, which in the case of sexism is generally expressed by men toward women. But they don't hate men.

I can't imagine what feminist would "pressure" your friend not to have a family if that's her goal, as it's a goal shared by most women. Feminists simply want to expand opportunities for women so they aren't held back from achieving their full (in my opinion God-given) potential.

We have feminists to thank for Anna being at Cornell and Becca being able to do whatever she wants (or not!) with her indisputable math acumen and your mom being able to launch a successful business. There was a time not too long ago when these opportunities weren't available to women, and they weren't happily handed to us, we had to fight for them. Unfortunately, in your chosen field and elsewhere, there's more to do.

Maybe you can help!! Judging from your words of support above, you're more of a feminist than the opposite. ;) I hope you'll come to see it's not a dirty word.

Love, Beth

Article links:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4467/is_1_55/ai_69414463

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-AE-MsSAYWW-UUA-AAUEAWWWAU-AAUZDUBUAU-YDBBAUDYE-AE-U&_rdoc=10&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6X01-46R0VD8-1&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F1995&_cdi=7201&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=488f0acb2a55843cb1e0192f365cc828

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-AE-MsSAYWW-UUA-AAUEAWWWAU-AAUZDUBUAU-YDBBAUDYE-AE-U&_rdoc=9&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WY2-46P4JGJ-3H&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F1997&_cdi=7174&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=4fc330b3295f657eede2dcc37d004c48

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-AE-MsSAYWA-UUA-AAUEAAWEEB-AAUZZEBDEB-YDBACBZCY-AE-U&_rdoc=6&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WJB-45K10P5-D&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F1999&_cdi=6874&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e756a5badc114ce8e8fbbb700afaaac1

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-AE-MsSAYWW-UUA-AAUEAWWWAU-AAUZDUBUAU-YDBBAUDYE-AE-U&_rdoc=6&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WJB-45K10P5-D&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F1999&_cdi=6874&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f3e9814cc3be7b399e1444b772d7a2fa

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/js/2002/00000038/00000002/art01500

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=B-WA-A-W-AE-MsSAYWA-UUA-AAUEAAWEEB-AAUZZEBDEB-YDBACBZCY-AE-U&_rdoc=7&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6WJB-45K10P5-F&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F1999&_cdi=6874&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9fb7dfeaca9cb4b9c376d4a4415c4eee

http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=136394&PDF=1

http://projectimplicit.net/nosek//papers/nosek.math.JPSP.2002.pdf