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February 10, 2012
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Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
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Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
March 21, 2005
/ 10 Adar II, 5765
How would a smart man analyze performance gap?
By
Leonard Pitts, Jr.
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
So, what might a smarter man have said?
Put aside for a moment the fact that a smarter man would have backed away from the subject as though from a live grenade. If forced at gunpoint to respond, how would a smart man have analyzed the performance gap between male and female science students?
Lawrence Summers, it must be said, was not a smart man. The president of Harvard University, speaking at an academic conference in January, suggested that women lag behind because of intrinsic differences between the sexes. He has been in trouble — protests, hostile commentaries and demands for his head — ever since. He has also been apologizing ever since, though his contrition has done little to moderate the furor. Just last week, a faculty group voted no confidence in his leadership.
All of which reminds me of an argument I once had with my oldest daughter about the possibility of a woman playing center in the NBA. If you're not a basketball fan, just know that Ben Wallace plays center for the Detroit Pistons and at 6-foot-9, 240 pounds, he is considered small. Yet my daughter would absolutely not concede the absurdity of believing women might someday play center for men's pro teams. In the years I've been telling that story, other women have had similar responses.
It took me years to understand why. Namely that gender differences, like racial ones, can never be discussed in a vacuum, never be treated as matters of abstract curiosity. There is too much history of those differences being used to justify women's segregation and subjugation.
So feminist women and men are understandably leery when talk turns to inborn disparities, especially when couched in terms of things women do less well. Their reflexive fear is that conceding we are not the same means conceding we are not equal.
The problem with that hard line resistance is that it requires defenders of women's rights to ignore self-evident truths, to pretend women and men are interchangeable, save for a stray body part here or chromosome there.
The absurdity of that thinking can be imputed from the tragedy of a man named Bruce Reimer. In 1966, after a botched circumcision essentially amputated his penis, his parents were convinced by a doctor to raise their 8-month-old boy as a girl.
But, as detailed in John Colapinto's book, "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl," neither surgery nor socialization ever managed to convince Reimer he was a girl — or even to urinate sitting down. Reimer, who learned the truth when he was a teenager, grew up a stranger in his own body. He killed himself last year.
The story stands as a caution to those who would have us believe there are no differences between women and men.
Deborah Tannen, a linguist who often writes about those differences, suggests in a recent piece in the L.A. Times that we are all missing the point. She says arguments over why women don't perform as well as men in certain disciplines proceed from the assumption that the way men do a thing is the only way it can be done, the standard against which women should be measured.
Men, she wrote, tend to flourish in competitive, combative environments many women find threatening. "It's not that they're not fascinated by the science, don't have the talent to come up with new ideas or are not willing to put long hours into the lab, but that they're put off by the competitive, cutthroat culture of science."
So maybe the key to helping girls flourish is to find ways of playing to their strengths: cooperation, conciliation, bridge-building. Point being, there is more than one way to do science, more than one way to do most things, and certainly, more than one way to be equal. If Lawrence Summers had understood that, he wouldn't be in trouble now.
I will pass without comment the fact that it takes a woman to tell us what a smart man would have said.
Comment on JWR contributor Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s column by clicking here.
Leonard Pitts, Jr. Archives
© 2005, The Miami Herald Distributed by TMS
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