Blog 10
I find it very easy to see why Mr. Summers would want to find a reason why there are very few women in science. It's a very natural thing to do for humans, and he was really just stating the plain hard facts. I do believe however that he could have gone about doing this in a different way. He could have, for instance, looked further into the so called 'definite' evidence that he thinks is proving why there are fewer women in science-based careers. The whole 'men and women's brains work differently' deal can't be proven for instance, no matter how you look at it, so it would have been nice if before he used any evidence to support a statement like his if he had examined all the evidence thoroughly, made sure it was provable, and then made sure that that evidence related directly to the topic at hand. Fausto-Sterling mentioned about the same thing, saying that summers can't rely on the tests that he was looking at, because there is a lot of subjectivity in those kinds of tests. Furthermore, he should have made sure to look at all aspects of the situation instead of blocking some details out, something he seemed to tend to do. For instance, Bublick mentioned how women have been very influential in science, a fact that summers seemed to ignore. There is not a single fact or statistic that can prove that women are worse at science or solving difficult and complex problems then men. The only real thing that is holding women back is oppression against them and the fact that it is kind of ingrained into our brains that women do no hold science-based jobs. Women are not in engineering, that is a mans job, and so women don't go for being in that kind of job. Therefore, the only way to remedy the situation is to make it okay for women to be in science, and then start possibly looking at why there may or may not be fewer women in science then men, because right now there is absolutely nothing that can prove that women are worse at thinking then men and that, other than a lack of women applying to be in a science-based career, there isn't anything that can specifically say why there are more men than women in scientific careers.