Blog 10
Dear President Lawrence Summers,
I wanted to take a few moments to express my concern with the talk you gave a few years back on the lack of women in professional science and engineering positions. First, I wanted to address your usage of statistics and standardized tests. You discuss how there are inherent differences in male and female intelligence and that certain attributes directly “correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley�. However, isn’t it the first rule of statistics that statistical associations do not imply direct correlation or causation? Being an economist, I would have thought that you would have known better than to make such assumptions.
In relation to this, you imply that standardized tests in 12th graders show that men receive higher scores in math and science, and it is these people that possess certain attributes that lead them to afore mentioned positions at MIT or Berkeley. First of all, this assumption requires that all standardized tests are objective and a perfect indicator of academic performance. We know this is not true. All kids do not learn in the same way, nor are they taught in the same way. Socio-economic factors like race and class also may prevent kids from being able to take standardized tests or have the time and encouragement from their families to study properly for them. We are also neglecting that “boys and girls learning together in the same classroom do not receive the same instruction� (Fausto-Sterling 58). Traditionally, women have been pushed into fields such as nursing and teaching to fulfill women’s “primary� role as caretaker. Because of this social implication, many girls now internalize that they are not good at math, and therefore should not pursue further classes or professions in math. They also tend to receive more negative feedback from teachers and other adults than boys do (Fausto-Sterling 56). In order for things like statistics and standardized tests to really be an accurate measure of your question as to why women are lacking in science and engineering fields, the socially implicated gender bias that manipulates the data and the methods to obtain such data needs to be acknowledged and removed. As long as people like you and others in positions of white, male power are relying on statistics and tests to tell you why men and women are “different� and continue to set up gendered hierarchies, you can expect that your arrogant views will discourage more women from wanting to join you in higher positions of academia at places like Harvard. With people like you in power, however, I don’t blame them.
Emily Endert (Student, University of MN)