Mr. summers
It astounds me that a man as well educated and of high social status as Lawrence Summers could make such demeaning remarks towards women. The statements he made almost seem ignorant for a president of such a prestigious institution. The fact that Mr. Summers’ statement on how a woman would never want to work an eighty hour week is biased and stereotypical. He is assuming that a woman would rather stay at home with her family than work that many hours. This assumption is a very stereotypical one. He also adds that men are smarter and better than women in math and science fields. While statistically this point may be right, it does not mean that men are more capable and able than women. There is not a certain distinction between men’s and women’s brains that makes one sex better than the other at one particular action. Furthermore, the data collected to “prove� this statistic is flawed. In many aptitude tests and various surveys, the actual collection of the data and tabulation is not always correct. The statistics rely on the assumption that the data collected is truthful and accurate. Anne Fausto-Sterling’s article “A Question of Genius� supports this fact that data collection can be sometimes skewed. Anne Fausto-Sterling also adds that aptitude tests and IQ tests are not a valid way to measure the difference between men and women because researchers look for the data to support their original hypothesis and can ignore other statistics. The fact that Mr. Summers had a multitude of sources and research at his fingertips but still didn’t find out more on the topic is disappointing.