Blog 10
Lawrence Summers was a well known and highly regarded educational administrator at Harvard University. The things he said and claims he made as the president of Harvard should have been able to measure up to academic scrutiny. Making statements to the effect that women don’t want “80 hour a week� jobs when there are so many women who hold powerful positions in corporations and government is not something such a high ranking official in the field of education should feel comfortable making. With the wealth of academic knowledge at his disposal, one would think that a person in Summers’ position would have taken the time to at least provide facts relevant to an argument as poignant as the “fact� that women lack the necessary brain power and aptitude to succeed in scientific fields of research. One of the more laughable concepts Summers brings to the table is that when a woman drops a college course, it displays an inferiority in that subject. All I really know about dropping courses is what I have learned from dropping courses on a high school level. However, dropping a course usually meant not liking a professor, or needing a teacher was more suited for a different learning style, not an inadequacy in a subject. I think that much of what Summers says is based on misconceptions, opinion, and what he believes to be true from his own experience.