Thanks for the post, Jess. This guy's unreal. But not so surprising if you look at who invited him to speak on "feminism" (from the Crimson article):
"Mansfield was invited to speak by Harvard Right to Life, whose president, Meghan E. Grizzle ’07, described the government professor as 'an ally and friend' to her organization."

And, also, from his wonderful webpage: "He has hardly left Harvard since his first arrival in 1949..."

He really needs to get out more. Seriously.

It's blatantly obvious that women should be offended by this guy, but I'm also surprised at how crappy this guy is toward other men. He's assuming that all men are sex crazed animals, implying that men are without moral codes of ethics as far as sexuality is concerned. I think this guy is effectively screwing both sexes.

Alaha you're right but I think the offense towards men is really not so much an offense. After all, since men are amoral and sex-crazed, then clearly it's women's responsibility to keep them at bay, since women are of course the all-holy, all-knowing, all-loving "superior" sex. And, since women are inevitably going to fail at the impossible task of keeping men in line, just as quickly as we're placed on the pedestal we're pushed from it.

It's the whole pedestal is a cage thing. This guy wants us to think he believes women are on innately on a higher moral plane than men but that's just bullshit. It's clear to me that once again some dude in academia wants us to accept that it's all women's fault for, you know, everything.

I'm going to set aside for a moment the fact that he wants to sacrifice the lives of people like me so that everyone else can be better off.

Even if his priorities weren't callous in the extreme, his calculus is wrong.

Marginalization _makes_ family life dysfunctional and individual lives impossible. If you can't get a job, how can you provide for your children? How can you convince them that they will be employable? If you can't afford health insurance, how can you keep your family in food, clothing, and shelter after a medical catastrophe? If you can't send your children to a decent school, how can you get them to take any interest in their future? And even if you don't yet have a family, how can you have any kind of life at all if no one will hire you, rent to you, or speak to you?

All that aside, it is moral poison to have a group of people in your society marked off as subhuman. It is impossible to maintain that dichotomy between one group of human beings and another without turning the group given precedence into monsters.

Sigh. First off, what does being a government prof have to do with what he's ranting about? That's like me wandering into an engineering class and lecturing about bridges. Sheesh.

Second of all, this is just the old "myth of male weakness" raising its tired head. It's the number one thing pro-feminist men have to combat.

I love it when men try to tell women what feminism should be.

Call me shallow, but I think we need more lectures by 75-year-olds where the following lines are uttered:

"'Hook-ups,' the perennially-dapper professor said, 'will get you in a bad habit that is very hard to get rid of.'"

I mean, somebody ask him the follow-up question to name names! They're probably all dead by now!

"Respect the cock"? Jessica, my dear, I think the appropriate phrase is "Worship the cock."

frig, you're right. duly noted.

I didn't see him listed as 'emeritus', but at his age and length of time on the faculty (and his stone age attitude), shouldn't Harvard be rolling him out of his office and into the street? What a fossil!

He probably already owns this shirt.

I've always found that "modesty is erotic" thing to be highly sketch. To me, it says that a woman isn't sexy unless she seems to dislike sex. It's another form of that whole "Barely Legal," you-want-me-to-do-WHAT?-oh-no-mister! male fantasy. The idea seems to be that unless you FORCE sex on a woman, it's not an appropriate assertion of your manly dominance.

>>The idea seems to be that unless you FORCE sex on a woman, it's not an appropriate assertion of your manly dominance. >>

There's also the patriarchal idea of, ahem, exclusivity. If she enjoys having sex with you, then she might be willing to enjoy sex with other men! Scared frigid women are much easier to control.

Snort!

So, a gov prof can't express opinions about feminism -- but Nancy Hopkins, a biology prof, CAN express opinions about a statistically-based HYPOTHESIS about the relative ability of men and women to do math at very high levels of abstraction? (not "women suck at math", btw)

Or is it just that Mansfield is a man -- and thus can't possible share in "a woman's way of knowing"?

I just love it when women tell men how to be masculine in a way acceptable to them --- as so many do --- and then object when it's the other way around. Don't you?

And women aren't supposed to care when a 75-year-old man talks about what is erotic --- but men are supposed to care what the late Andrea Dworkin had to say about sex?

I suspect that opinions that don't toe the feminist line are consigned to the bit bucket and won't appear as a comment. Please prove me wrong.

You know what's really fucking rude? Telling people that you assume the worst of them for and then demanding that they treat you respectfully. You have no reason to believe that Jessica would delete your comment. You just like fascist-baiting because it makes you feel like you've scored points on the man-haters. All you've really done is turn a normal level of acceptance into a self-absorbed psychodrama. Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

>>So, a gov prof can't express opinions about feminism -- but Nancy Hopkins, a biology prof, CAN express opinions about a statistically-based HYPOTHESIS about the relative ability of men and women to do math at very high levels of abstraction? (not "women suck at math", btw)>>

Biology doesn't require math skills? Biology has nothing to do with innate ability? Nancy Hopkins may certainly express opinions about how unsupported beliefs in the lesser innate abilities of women to do math hurt her as a woman and a scientist. That was what she was doing when she walked out: protesting unfounded attribution to biology from an official who was himself at fault for underrepresentation. Furthermore, by your own logic, Summers's remarks about the causes contributing to underrepresentation of women in hard science and math are definitely more her territory than his. Finally, "very high levels of abstraction" merely means "broad-stroke generalizations." Hopkins was tarred by that brush. She doesn't deserve to be labeled exceptional now any more than she deserved to be labeled a long shot as a young girl.

You are supposed to sit up and listen when Andrea Dworkin talks about _rape_. She didn't write about what was and was not erotic to her, and I don't think she cared very much whether men knew what she liked in bed. She wrote about how misogynistic sexuality hurt her and women like her--as a battered wife, rape survivor, and prostitute, she had reason to know. Feminists in general don't write about what is and is not hot about masculinity, but what is and is not damaging to women. When I see comments about how stereotypical masculinity isn't terribly attractive in a partner, they're usually in response to cultural pressure on men to be masculine: they're pointing out that the incentives aren't real.

In this context, Jessica is pointing out that Mr. Shallitt is imposing standards of forbearance and modesty on women that he has absolutely no intention of adopting for himself. She wouldn't have pointed out his canned-ham complexion and healthy ego if he hadn't told women that they should worry about whether or not men think they're wifely enough.

Let's be honest. Feminism has failed. It leaves behind societies in which women are angrier than ever; in which men are more bewildered and effete than ever; and in which the reproduction rate is below replacement levels. Everywhere feminism has taken root, these things are true.

But there are more vibrant and energetic cultures without the taint of feminism--and these cultures are immigrating into western countries wasting away from the disease of feminism. And so, thankfully, the horrible perversion called feminism will die out in the next 50 years along with the westerners who spawned it. France and the Netherlands are already 10% Islamic and the population trends are showing the failure of a feminist ideology. With the current declining birth rates in the West and the rapid influx of immigrants from a burgeoning Islamic population who have more healthy views of the relations between genders, all this shouting and shrieking among western women about their so-called rights will ultimately amount to nothing in a few decades.

So, refuse to hear the wisdom of this Harvard professor, if you like; but Feminism has lost in the realm of cultural darwinism. Only the fittest and strongest of cultures survive. Prepare your burqas for a demographic certainty.

effinayright:

"Expressing one's views" is not quite the same thing as "giving a lecture" on the subject.

More importantly, Mansfield wasn't sharing with others his personal preferences with regard to "what is erotic" - he was making sweeping generalizations without doing any research to back it up.

If he had simply stuck to giving a speech about his opinions, that would be one thing, but when he tries to speak for all men - or all women for that matter - it's more than "fair" to question his authority on the subject....and his motives.

The one time that feminists do expect men care about what we find erotic is when we are correcting the biased and often misguided opinions that some people spout off as if they were undeniably the one and only truth.

Mansfield may very well find modesty erotic. There may very well be women who would need to be coaxed into sex irregardless of their upbringing or socialization. These statements are not true for all people, however. It is also not certain, if they are true for some - or most - or all - that they have a genetic basis. Neither is it certain, even if there is a genetic basis, that genetics is and/or should be insurmountable.

One could argue, after all, that genetics says that people can't fly and that we need to hurt people who hurt us. Both things that have been modified, to everyone's greater benefit, in modern civilization.

"..Islamic population who have more healthy views of the relations between genders.."-Piny
Do you seriously mean this? Do you agree with those Islamic sheiks who explain why it's okay to beat your wife when she doesn't behave herself? How about the terror--the rapes, murder, enslavement etc. of women, endorsed by ayatollahs throughout the Muslim world and now Europe. Remember Ayan Hirsi Ali, who has dared to question the treatment of women under Islamic sharia law? Her life is in constant danger. She lives with full time protection by the Dutch police. In fact it's shocking how little attention Western feminists have paid to this brave woman, and to the ongoing brutality towards women under Islamic sharia law. Do any Western feminists celebrate the liberation from oppression of Afghani women? Of course not, because that would mean giving credit to the hated George Bush and the American military. The hypocrisy of Western feminists is, however, no reason to endorse Islamic fundamentalism.

I sure hope this comment thread has some life left in it for it looks like it could be fun.

I read all of the comments, and followed the links in the main post, and I'm bewildered by the sense of outrage. Mansfield is right to argue "that the questions and confusion facing feminists arise from their attempt at achieving “autonomy” and asserting that “men and women have no distinct nature.”

A central tenet of feminist thought is built on the complete malleability of human nature - that gender identity can be constructed from ideological axioms that aren't bounded by innate gender qualities. In this day and age that's a pretty revolutionary philosophy and has as much chance of success as Marxists had in creating the "New Soviet Man."

He's also right about the radicalism of some feminist writing. I especially liked how Harding equated Newton's Laws to Newton's Rape Manual. Such leading edge theorizing, especially when it is by the leading lights of the movement and is so divorced from science and reality, certainly can be construed as a failure of feminism being a worldview with an enlightening insight.

If I had to guess at what is so offensive about Mansfield's lecture I would assume that it hinges on "the disgusting double standard" and the presumptive axiom of equality that it purportedly violates. If one believes that gender identity can be constructed from whole cloth then of course it would follow that standards are arbitrary and when applied differentially then such standards would be suggestive of a double standard. This reasoning only holds up if the initial premise holds true - can gender identity be constructed from whole cloth? Or are men and women different, at some innate level? If they are, then surely it follows that their differences would inform their preferences throughout life, and their preferences would inform their behavior and goals? If this reasoning holds true then double standards are not in the least offensive, for if the standards best serve the interests of the respective genders, then they are quite optimal. To argue that the double standards are not optimally serving each gender is a whole different argument than opposing the existence of double standards in themselves.

As to the criticisms of individual sexual preference, vis a vis hooking up, there is quite a large spectrum of individual sexual preference that can distinguish the individual from the group, but that doesn't invalidate the statistical profile of the group. Individual women may feel free or enpowered or sexually satisifed by one-night hook-ups and that doesn't invalidate Mansfield's point that most women have different desires in the mating game than do men. Some individual men and women may not adhere to the statistical profiles, but generally men aren't too concerned about marrying down with a partner of lower SES, and women are. Is that strictly because of socialization? This seems to be like the Marxist contention that self-interest as an economic principle could be eliminated.

The sexual double standard isn't digusting because it treats men and women differently (although, no, that usually isn't good) but because it makes no sense.

Whether you believe that men want sex more than women or not, saying that it's ok for men to have sex, but it's not ok for women to have sex is so insanely illogical - unless you think that men should only fuck each other.

There's a lot that I don't like about sexism because I value equality, but it's the lack of logic that usually surfaces in sexism that drives me really batty.

"..if the standards best serve the interests of the respective genders, then they are quite optimal."

Even supposing that they do - Yes, and no. A friend and I had an interesting talk about Plato (or was it Socrates?) and his views on women one night. (one of those I need to talk through my paper - hers - kind of talks) She actually could see a lot of logic in the gender roles he supported - given the physical and economic contraints inheirent in time in which he lived. The real problem, she argued, was when he went beyond supporting them for pragmatic reasons and tried to argue that women were simply incapable of being anything more than brood mares. Much like how slaveholders first argued that slavery was a neccessary evil, but then slowly grew more and more adament in their assertions that slavery was the natural order of things. Simply accepting inequality because it seems pragmatic, without trying to find a compromise, usually has really bad consequences.

"Individual women may feel free or enpowered or sexually satisifed by one-night hook-ups and that doesn't invalidate Mansfield's point that most women have different desires in the mating game than do men."

On a side note, simply saying that women have different "desires in the mating game than do men" doesn't make it true.

"Some individual men and women may not adhere to the statistical profiles, but generally men aren't too concerned about marrying down with a partner of lower SES, and women are."

Men were once very concerned with marrying up, however.

"Is that strictly because of socialization?"

Life is not binary. This does not need be an either or question. In fact, the nature vs. nurture question rarely makes sense as an either/or proposition.

"This seems to be like the Marxist contention that self-interest as an economic principle could be eliminated."

Really? 'cause the stats you provided at Echidne suggest otherwise. They seem to show a huge shift in what men expect of women.

for piny:

1. Using the word "fucking", like using the word "asshole" in a supposed intellectual argument, marks the user as coarse and a flake.
So don't give me any gratuitous crap. OK?

2. Hopkins didn't make any arguments: she just flounced out of the conference, with a bad case of the vapors.

3.If you so-called feminists think that just walking out of a conference is the equivalent of offering your own data and arguments, well, I wouldn't be surprised. Your post offers no facts, just the usual snot trying to pass itself off as rebuttal.

4. Hopkins is a biology professor, but if you think she can make better statistical arguments than Summers, used, then LET HER MAKE THEM.

5. Summers didn't make up his arguments up.
Read this, you FLAKE:

"The other prefatory comment that I would make is that I am going to, until most of the way through, attempt to adopt an entirely positive, rather than normative approach, and just try to think about and offer some hypotheses as to why we observe what we observe without seeing this through the kind of judgmental tendency that inevitably is connected with all our common goals of equality".

Get that, piny? HYPOTHESES?

And:

"There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities that this conference's papers document and have been documented before with respect to the presence of women in high-end scientific professions. One is what I would call the-I'll explain each of these in a few moments and comment on how important I think they are-the first is what I call the high-powered job hypothesis. The second is what I would call different availability of aptitude at the high end, and the third is what I would call different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search. And in my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described."

Summers clearly referred to the docs generated by the conference as offering the hypotheses, as you can see above. And do you understand the term HYPOTHESIS?

And did you notice the sociological reason embedded in there? Is Hopkins a sociologist too?

5. Just where may I find Hopkins' intellectual argument, with supporting statistics, to counter
Summers' hypotheses?

Put them right here>>>>>>>>>>>>

6. Summers was obviously talking about uber-achievers, the kind that wind up at Harvard (and MIT). He said:

"If one supposes, as I think is reasonable, that if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it's not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it's talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out."

7. Andrea Dworkin was a physically ugly person who probably had little sexual experience -- at least with men--- and thus could not generalize about male/female sexual relations, at least on an emotional level. When she did, she betrayed her weirdness and hatred for men, when she wrote:

"Male-dominant gender hierarchy, however, seems immune to reform by reasoned or visionary argument or by changes in sexual styles, either personal or social. This may be because intercourse itself is immune to reform. In it, female is bottom, stigmatized.

"Intercourse remains a means or the means of physiologically making a woman inferior: communicating to her cell by cell her own inferior status, impressing it on her, burning it into her by shoving it into her, over and over, pushing and thrusting until she gives up and gives in— which is called surrender in the male lexicon.

In the experience of intercourse, she loses the capacity for integrity because her body—the basis of privacy and freedom in the material world for all human beings—is entered and occupied; the boundaries of her physical body are—neutrally speaking— violated. What is taken from her in that act is not recoverable, and she spends her life—wanting, after all, to have something—pretending that pleasure is in being reduced through intercourse to insignificance.

— Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, chapter 7"

No bs, please, about "interpretive charity". The woman was twisted. She wasn't just talking about rape, she was talking about garden-variety sex, which she took to be personally degrading. NEVER MIND that 4 billion women on this planet don't see it that way --- but hey! What do THEY know!!!!

And you, my little would-be feminist, betray a complete inability to compose coherent English sentences, let alone marshal and argument with reasoning and facts.

You offer nothing substantive, just paragraphs of incoherent mush.

Feminists don't slam men for their masculinity? Hah! MacKinnon wrote an article in the NYT arguing that rape ought to come with a presumption of guilt, because the only class of people with a history of rape are...men.

It will take a few years, but in the end you will find out that it really SUCKS to think you can make a rational argument without offering supporting facts.

But, hey: you could always work for Boxer, or Feinstein or Hillary..........

you GO, girl!

ok for men to have sex, but it's not ok for women to have sex is so insanely illogical

Thankfully, that's not what I'm saying.

Simply accepting inequality because it seems pragmatic, without trying to find a compromise, usually has really bad consequences.

Yes, you're right, however simply striving for equality may actually lead to a suboptimal state once achieved. Equality is not a synonym for optimal or preferred. There needs to be some benchmark to measure against. Men and women are different from each other so I'm not sure how one reconciles the differences in such a fashion that, starting from two ends of the spectrum, the end states all result in the same and equal values.

On a side note, simply saying that women have different "desires in the mating game than do men" doesn't make it true.

Yes, that's an obvious observation. Are you just politely pointing out that I haven't supported the statement or are you actually disputing the statement?

Life is not binary. This does not need be an either or question.

I wholeheartedly agree. I never present an argument that relies solely on "nature" however I'm frequently presented with counterarguments that rely solely on "nurture" assumptions. Quite frankly I can't recall any feminist literature that presumes that any part of gender identity is bounded by innate qualities and is not completely malleable. I'm open to literature suggestions if any one has any.

Would I be inferring too generously here to assume that by your statement you are acknowledging that such boundaries do in fact exist, thereby undercutting feminist theory, or are you claiming the binary position of "nurture" while at the same time warning me not to take a binary position?

TangoMan:Quite frankly I can't recall any feminist literature that presumes that any part of gender identity is bounded by innate qualities and is not completely malleable.

TangoMan, you either misunderstand or....well, misunderstand. What feminists claim (in general, as a rule, since there is no such thing as one single "Feminism") is that it doesn't matter if there are parts of gender identity that are not malleable (although the debate whether this is true is also part of feminist discourse), since the variation between individuals is much greater then the variation between the genders overall.

The gender-segregated Bell curves usually have the same dispersion patterns, slightly offset....with tiny areas where there is no overlap. So saying that "men are x" or "women are y" is meaningless, since hardly any predictions regarding potential performance can be made on that basis. The inherent differences in potential and abilities between you and I has much more to do with the fact that I am Butterfingers and you are TangoMan than with the fact that I am the gender that forms the default for human life, while you are the result of a hormonal surge in utero.

(btw, that last bit wasn't meant to be disparaging. I've decided to put that little tidbit in wherever I can, relevant or not, as part of my own private struggle to eliminate the masculine as the human default option).

I'm coming pretty late to this discussion. But, doesn't birth control render this whole "women have a biological need to be selective" debate moot? We are now able, like men, to have sex without getting pregnant - this changes everything. We no longer have to search for the most fit mate to contribute genes to our offspring everytime we have sex. It seems that this need to place women in a position where they are always thinking about becoming mothers is really just a sad grasp at an ancient history that has long since passed. And that's a good thing. We are all better off when people have control over when they reproduce. Plus, sex is fun.

just would like to remind folks to leave personal insults and abusive language at the door. thanks.

>>for piny:

1. Using the word "fucking", like using the word "asshole" in a supposed intellectual argument, marks the user as coarse and a flake.
So don't give me any gratuitous crap. OK?>>

Among the people I talk to, "fucking" is pretty tame. It may be coarse by your standards. That's beside the point. So it was merely really rude, if you prefer. You were still behaving like a twelve-year-old.

>>2. Hopkins didn't make any arguments: she just flounced out of the conference, with a bad case of the vapors.>>

Hopkins defended her actions in several interviews, and, IIRC, in one or two op-eds. She explained herself: discrimination is real, innate differences are unsupported, and Summers's beliefs are not based in fact but in sexism. Her action, moreover, _was_ an assertion: that Summers's comments were not something she should condone. She didn't argue with him then because he wasn't worth arguing with.

>>3.If you so-called feminists think that just walking out of a conference is the equivalent of offering your own data and arguments, well, I wouldn't be surprised. Your post offers no facts, just the usual snot trying to pass itself off as rebuttal.

4. Hopkins is a biology professor, but if you think she can make better statistical arguments than Summers, used, then LET HER MAKE THEM.>>

See above. She explained herself. It's also disingenuous--on your part and on Summers's part--to behave as though there is no data available to support the existence of widespread sexism in math and hard science.

As far as 5:

This is the part of Summers's comment that caused Hopkins to walk out and other people to complain:

>>And in my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described.>>

That's not someone stating several hypotheses. That's someone saying, without any real evidence, that he believes in two particular hypotheses and not much in the third. "This is one theory," is a hypothesis. "I agree with this theory," is an assertion. He is asserting that women are primarily underrepresented because of "high-powered job" issues. The second most important reason is "availability of aptitude," i.e. innate ability. The last, least important reason is discrimination.

>>6. Summers was obviously talking about uber-achievers, the kind that wind up at Harvard (and MIT). He said:>>

It's as offensive to imply that women are less apt to be math geniuses as it is to imply that the average woman has lesser basic math abilities. Also, he's not exactly only talking about the tiny minority of "uber-achievers," but relating that disparity to standard deviation in each group. In other words, lesser variation among women _towards_ the high end translates into _no_ women _at_ the high end.

>>7. Andrea Dworkin was a physically ugly person who probably had little sexual experience -- at least with men--- and thus could not generalize about male/female sexual relations, at least on an emotional level. When she did, she betrayed her weirdness and hatred for men, when she wrote:>>

Like I said in the first comment, she was a wife, a rape victim, and a prostitute. She also was partnered to John Stoltenberg for many years. So she did, too, have sexual experience with men. Have you read all of Intercourse, or just selections from websites?

>>No bs, please, about "interpretive charity". The woman was twisted. She wasn't just talking about rape, she was talking about garden-variety sex, which she took to be personally degrading. NEVER MIND that 4 billion women on this planet don't see it that way --- but hey! What do THEY know!!!!>>

She is not talking about sex, but about intercourse under patriarchy. Under patriarchy, "A human being has a body that is inviolate; and when it is violated, it is abused. A woman has a body that is penetrated in intercourse: permeable, its corporeal solidness a lie." Without that context--she's referring to meaning within a sexist culture--the interpretation is worthless. It has nothing to do with "charity." It's ridiculous to pretend that a feminist writer should not be read as though she were writing in the context of sexism. This says it better than I can, but it doesn't sound as though you'll listen: http://www.radgeek.com/gt/2005/01/10/andrea_dworkin

Here's the money quote: "I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality." In other words, there's nothing intrinsically unequal about intercourse; it is the meanings that our culture places upon it in relation to women's bodies that make it degrading. And as long as intercourse is seen as symbolic of inequality, it affirms inequality. Read the whole book. It's not about how penis-vagina sex is evil. It's about how a sexist culture treats women in such a way as to reiterate their subordinate status.

>>Feminists don't slam men for their masculinity? Hah! MacKinnon wrote an article in the NYT arguing that rape ought to come with a presumption of guilt, because the only class of people with a history of rape are...men.>>

Find a cite for this article. Catherine MacKinnon doesn't speak for me or indeed for most rape activists, any more than Glenn Reynolds speaks for you. But is masculinity the same as being a rapist?

>>It will take a few years, but in the end you will find out that it really SUCKS to think you can make a rational argument without offering supporting facts.

But, hey: you could always work for Boxer, or Feinstein or Hillary..........

you GO, girl!>>

Show me what facts Summers offered to support the existence of innate differences in ability between men and women. Show me what facts he offered to support the assertion that innate differences were more important than discrimination. Then show me how he proved that it was innate ability that caused women's appointments to sharply decline during his tenure, rather than discrimination or laziness on his part.

Finally, I'm not a girl, or "little." But don't stop patronizing me--it doesn't make me look any worse.

>>TangoMan, you either misunderstand or....well, misunderstand. What feminists claim (in general, as a rule, since there is no such thing as one single "Feminism") is that it doesn't matter if there are parts of gender identity that are not malleable (although the debate whether this is true is also part of feminist discourse), since the variation between individuals is much greater then the variation between the genders overall.>>

Exactly. There's also the issue of the poisoned data set. Asking what men and women would be like without sexism is like asking whether Blinky would have had three eyes if he hadn't been living in Springfield's shadow. Or like asking a tumor-ridden plaintiff in a toxic-tort suit whether he eats a lot of red meat. We know that sexism exists, and has existed for a long time. We aren't really in a position to pronounce on the innate differences between men and women, given that society has created and maintained its own set of differences for so many years.

Here's an article from Slate that provides an overview of some better-known studies on how discrimination and socialization affect demonstrated aptitude:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2112799/

>>He also ought to know that as real as genetic differences may be, the percentage of engineering majors has risen six times since 1971, to 18 percent in 2004—which, unless you think the human genome has changed since 1971, shows that factors other than genetics play a major role in women's career choices.>>

Like I said, there's also the sharp decline in appointments of women at Harvard during Summers's tenure.

And this lays out the argument pretty well:

http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/news/LawrenceSummers_Response.pdf

"The problem is not that the question of women's represenation and achievement in science be analyzed and discussed. The problem is that Lawrence Summers appears to be ignorance of the vast body of scholarship that already exists on the subject."

And here's an article that describes another study, similar to the ones mentioned in the Slate article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46421-2005Jan29.html

And here's Donna Nelson--she's from MIT--on underrepresentation among students and faculty, and discrimination in hiring:

http://www.cwru.edu/admin/aces/search/diversityreport.pdf

"Although the student body has diversified considerably, the composition of the faculty has remained relatively stagnant. The result is a drastically disproportionate number of male professors as mentors and role models."

And here's a review of studies on innate ability in math and science. It starts with infancy, but includes some information on differences later in life. She also discusses the theory of greater standard deviation, points out that the greater standard deviation is either smaller or nonexistent in other countries, and that it has diminished over the course of a few decades:

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~lds/pdfs/spelke2005.pdf

Butterfingers,

since the variation between individuals is much greater then the variation between the genders overall.

This fallacy is likely derived from Richard Lewontin's statement: since there was greater genetic variation within any given race than between races the very concept of race was not a useful way to understand genetic variation in humans.

He bamboozled a lot of people with that statement. Consider a variation of the statement: Let's isolate sex and height as two variables. The average height of women is less than that of men. We know that the variation of height within genders is far greater than the variation in height between genders.

If you reached the same conclusion as Lewontin did, you'd then conclude that sexes don't exist, or are only a social construction, because the variation in height in greater within a group than between the groups.

The point is that it is not the variation that is of the most importance but the significance of the points of variation. Do you weight things like appetite equally with tendency towards violence? Yes there is a range of appetite within men and women and there is significant overlap. Yes there is a tendency towards violence within men and women but there is far less overlap and more clustering. The model of analysis, Lewontin's, that you're offering looks only at the existence of traits and not their significance.

The gender-segregated Bell curves usually have the same dispersion patterns, slightly offset....with tiny areas where there is no overlap. So saying that "men are x" or "women are y" is meaningless, since hardly any predictions regarding potential performance can be made on that basis.

The Bell Curves will differ in their dispersion patterns depending on the variable under consideration.

I wondering whether you want to reconsider your completely reasonable clause "with tiny areas where there is no overlap" for that point is exactly what Dr. Summers' hypothesis rested on.

Consider, this mathematical example I quoted in another thread:

One must remember that slight differences in the mean of two different distributions (imagine male and female mathematical aptitude) might result in very different numbers at the tails. For example, assume a "mathematical IQ test," where the mean for the population is 100, with a standard deviation of 15 points. Assume that the sex ratio is 50:50, if women had a mathematical IQ of 99, and men one of 101, a slight 2 point difference, while 0.47% of males would have scores above 140, 0.32% of females would have such scores. If a mathematical IQ of 140 is the minimum needed for someone to make enough of an impact to attain tenure, then you already have the die loaded toward males by a factor of 1.5. The SAT subtests have a standard deviation of 110, and in 2003 females scored a 503 on the math section, while males scored 537. Despite the modest mean difference, there tends to a rather large skew toward males at the very high end of the score distribution.

You can apply this reasoning to a whole host of different traits and interests. A small difference at the mean can have disproportionate influence at the tails. The difference in faculty gender ratios at Harvard could rest on the different bell curves, for different traits, for men and women. Yet, the feminist position is that this is not to be considered, and some even insist that it is not true, and that all such disparities are the result of social influences and discrimination.

The point I take from your comment is that one can't determine from the general to the specific. That is just because a person is a women one can't tell whether she is more or less likely than any particular man to possess some quality. I agree. This is true because that woman could be situated anywhere along the normal distribution, she could be average or exceptional, and we won't know anything about her until we assess her as an individual.

However that doesn't mean that the knowledge we have about groups is completely useless. You're right that it can't be applied to individual people, but it sure can be used in policies that address groups of people. We can no longer assume that it is widespread discrimination that is yielding disparate outcomes because the data for the group show that such outcomes are likely because of the distribution of the variable in question. For instance, if we know from math IQ distributions that Harvard only hires people who score at the 4th S.D., and we know from this data that men outscore women 6:1, then we would expect the faculty to be in the vicinity of 6:1 and no amount of anti-discrimination policies will magically give more women the push up the distribtion to close that gap. Further, it's insulting to the faculty to presume that there is active discrimination going on when in fact there are few applicants who are qualified who are applying. What often happens is that the calls to heed the Axiom of Eqaulity are so strong that unqualified people are hired so as to narrow the ratio.

>>I wondering whether you want to reconsider your completely reasonable clause "with tiny areas where there is no overlap" for that point is exactly what Dr. Summers' hypothesis rested on.>>

A hypothesis is posited for the sake of an experiment, to be proven or disproven. Explicit agreement with a hypothesis, or ranking of hypotheses, are assertions.

The problem with Summers's assertion is not that he insisted that these differences in demonstrated aptitude exist, but that they are caused by innate differences in mathematical ability.

You are also misstating the "feminist position," or, more properly, the position held by feminists who dispute Summers. It is not that there are not, cannot be, innate differences in mathematical ability or between men and women in general. It is that there is a great deal of evidence showing that discrimination and socialization both exist and cause women to be underrepresented. Therefore, it doesn't make much sense to speculate on a slight difference that may or may not continue to exist after these much larger disparities are addressed.

>>For instance, if we know from math IQ distributions that Harvard only hires people who score at the 4th S.D., and we know from this data that men outscore women 6:1, then we would expect the faculty to be in the vicinity of 6:1 and no amount of anti-discrimination policies will magically give more women the push up the distribtion to close that gap. >>

We don't really have any data showing that women are less apt in some way unaffected by socialization and discrimination. There are studies that show that women reason differently than men, but not that those differences make them lesser mathematicians--and there's no reason those strategic differences can't also be the result of training. There is also a great deal of evidence to show that fighting discrimination does encourage women to enter those fields.

piny,

Explicit agreement with a hypothesis, or ranking of hypotheses, are assertions.

Moments like this are quite priceless. On the one hand you castigate Summers and on the other hand you commit the same sin. Specifically, you are ranking your assertion of discrimination above the counter assertion.

It is that there is a great deal of evidence showing that discrimination and socialization both exist and cause women to be underrepresented.

If you'd bother to actually read Dr. Summers' remarks, you'd see that he acknowledges both factors. However, both factors cannot explain the totality of the disparity, so it is reasonable to assume that there is a factor X at work. Drawing on a wide body of literature the case for innate factors can reasonably be made.

Therefore, it doesn't make much sense to speculate on a slight difference that may or may not continue to exist after these much larger disparities are addressed.

Thank you for making this so clear. You prefer that this whole line of reasoning not be furthered because you favor a strictly environmental case, even though it is widely acknowledged that environmental factors that we can identify do not explain the total variation. Therefore, you seem to be more comfortable in assigning signficance to unidentified environmental variables, which you posit do exist but for which you can't offer any evidence, rather than appropriately weighing factors that are suggestive of innate qualities.

I hope you'll forgive me for not subscribing to such a restrictive, and ideologicallly limiting, view of science. It makes imminent sense to me to continue the research to address the unexplained factors that discrimination and socialization do not explain. The whole experimental design that you advocate is flawed to the core.

Tangoman

The difference in faculty gender ratios at Harvard could rest on the different bell curves, for different traits, for men and women.

1. I believe the ratio of men to women in top science jobs (that's what Summers is talking about) is such that the bell curve data as you give it could not explain it. 2. But if it could, that doesn't mean it does.

>>Moments like this are quite priceless. On the one hand you castigate Summers and on the other hand you commit the same sin. Specifically, you are ranking your assertion of discrimination above the counter assertion.>>

I'm mostly complaining that you and effingaright are calling his statements hypotheses when they aren't any such thing. I assert the existence of discrimination because there is ample evidence of discrimination. I assert the greater importance of discrimination because it is more evident than innate differences. He asserts the greater importance of innate differences in the absence of any such evidence.

>>If you'd bother to actually read Dr. Summers' remarks, you'd see that he acknowledges both factors.>>

I did read them, thanks. Not exactly. He acknowledges socialization and discrimination as less important than innate differences.

>>Thank you for making this so clear. You prefer that this whole line of reasoning not be furthered because you favor a strictly environmental case, even though it is widely acknowledged that environmental factors that we can identify do not explain the total variation. >>

It is? By whom?

>>Therefore, you seem to be more comfortable in assigning signficance to unidentified environmental variables, which you posit do exist but for which you can't offer any evidence, rather than appropriately weighing factors that are suggestive of innate qualities.>>

Check out the links I offered. The "unidentified environmental variables" have been identified several times in this comments thread: discrimination in applications and hiring, and sexism that causes women to believe that they are less talented. There's plenty of evidence that both are present and that both affect women's options in math and science.

>>I hope you'll forgive me for not subscribing to such a restrictive, and ideologicallly limiting, view of science. It makes imminent sense to me to continue the research to address the unexplained factors that discrimination and socialization do not explain. The whole experimental design that you advocate is flawed to the core.>>

Nor is this a precisely accurate picture of the debate. Like I said, these are not hypotheses. They are assertions. Summers was not looking for potential innate explanations, but insisting that they were real. His relationship to the issue is not one of scientific inquiry, but one of policy formulation. That's why it makes more sense for people like him to expend energy on combating discrimination than on accounting for as-yet-unquantified innate differences: the one is a known problem, and the other not yet verified.

Piny,

Summers was not looking for potential innate explanations, but insisting that they were real.

You understand on some level, I hope, that it's not really up to you to arbitrate on what is real and what isn't, and what is worthy of further inquiry and what isn't.

Summers has every right to insist that the differences exist because the research findings support his position to the same, or greater, extent, than that of sociological research which supports the findings of discrimination.

He acknowledges socialization and discrimination as less important than innate differences.

So what? He, and others, are looking at emerging research and reweighing the variables. He, and others, are placing greater emphasis on innate factors because the research is stronger, more amenable to replication, and in large part the move to examine innate factors is the result of overreach by those espousing discrimination.

I don't mean to be flip here, but ISTM that what is bothering many of his critics is that he's not bowing down before, and paying fealty to, the discrimination hypothesis as any good right-thinking individual would know is the self-evident truth.

It is? By whom?

Get serious. There is not one study on Engineering faculty disparity that you can point to that can attribute the disparity soley to discrimination. This means that 100% of disparity can be accounted for by discrimination.

sexism that causes women to believe that they are less talented.

That must go a long way to explaining why women are the majority of students in higher education. However, how does your contention explain the following comment made on Alas, a Blog by a female math professor:

Summers made no shortage of idiotic points, but his remarks about the greater variability among male intelligence at both ends of the spectrum weren’t among them; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they went virtually unaddressed by his critics in favour of his more inflammatory remarks. Here’s my question: if we (for the most part) reject an essentialist explanation of the far larger number of male (mathematical and scientific) geniuses in favour of one based on socialization, sexism, and systemic discrimination; then what accounts for the far larger number of male (mathematical and scientific) “dummies”?

I teach math, and I’ve observed that it’s my female students, far far more than my male students, who are under the impression that it is socially acceptable to remain completely ignorant about math. I’m not the only one who’s noticed this, and indeed it’s well-documented that girls, more than boys, are given permission from parents, teachers, and guidance counselors to avoid math classes and mathematical pursuits in general entirely. Why doesn’t this translate into large numbers of abysmal female scores on the math/science portion of standardized tests? Seems that the socialization explanation should result in a lower AVERAGE female scores, not just a higher standard deviation. At the same time, though, I can’t imagine a socialization explanation that applies to the high male scores but not to the low male scores that is anything other than politically motivated.

Check out the links I offered.

I already have. I also draw on for more extensive literature to form my position. Human variation is afterall what I primarily blog about.

>>Get serious. There is not one study on Engineering faculty disparity that you can point to that can attribute the disparity soley to discrimination. This means that 100% of disparity can be accounted for by discrimination.>>

Which is not the same as saying that there's evidence to support attributing the disparity to innate differences.

>>So what? He, and others, are looking at emerging research and reweighing the variables. He, and others, are placing greater emphasis on innate factors because the research is stronger, more amenable to replication, and in large part the move to examine innate factors is the result of overreach by those espousing discrimination. >>

Forgive me if I don't give Mr. "Mommy Truck" the benefit of the doubt when it comes to weighing available research, especially after he trotted out an argument against Harvard's interest in discriminating that a Chico State freshman could rip to shreds. At no point did he give any clue as to what research he was looking at. Not counting the Mommy Truck anecdote, that is.

>>I don't mean to be flip here, but ISTM that what is bothering many of his critics is that he's not bowing down before, and paying fealty to, the discrimination hypothesis as any good right-thinking individual would know is the self-evident truth.>>

Discrimination and its effects are not hypothetical; the only question is the extent to which they affect women's options. Again, the problem is that he made an assertion without much evidence to back it up, and made it from the point of view of a policymaker. Not to sound flip myself, but it's awfully convenient that he falls back on the explanation that would force him to do the least work--and which gives him a very good excuse for Harvard's record during his time there.

>>That must go a long way to explaining why women are the majority of students in higher education. However, how does your contention explain the following comment made on Alas, a Blog by a female math professor:>>

Higher education in general is not the same as math and science departments, first of all. The disciplines have different stereotypes attached to them. And that's one of the best pieces of evidence to support discrimination in hiring: even in math and science fields where women outnumber men as students, like psychology, they are conspicuously underrepresented among the faculty.

>>Why doesn’t this translate into large numbers of abysmal female scores on the math/science portion of standardized tests? Seems that the socialization explanation should result in a lower AVERAGE female scores, not just a higher standard deviation.>>

Other commenters on the thread listed other types of socialization, such as the desire to please authority figures. I would posit a different reason: as effingaright was so eager to point out, there is a difference between being competent at high school trig and being interested in mathematics on the college level or as a career. Women class themselves out at the range at which Summers insists they are less naturally apt, for much the same reasons that we've moved forward enough to accept women as students but not as faculty. And as I understand it, tests like the SAT-M do show an average gap as well as a higher standard deviation.

TangoMan

First of all I need to second this:

"What feminists claim...is that it doesn't matter if there are parts of gender identity that are not malleable...since the variation between individuals is much greater then the variation between the genders overall."

You claim that you agree that life is not binary, but you miss the point.

The hard sciences like to scoff at the social sciences because their experiments have far too many uncontrolled variables to ever meet the standards of the scientific method as it's applied in the hard sciences. Most social scienctists understand that with so many uncontrolled variables, their conclusions are not cocnclusive in the same way that F=ma is. Many actually try to patiently explain to lay people that because of such variables their conclusions really only apply to narrow segments of the population (with regard to demographics, history, etc.) even though they can be used to help illuminate society and the human condition as a whole.

Social biologists (or more often the people that take their research and run with it) far too often try to pretend that their work is not subject to the same scientific rigors or logic and instead act as if their conclusions are as infallible as g=9.8m/(s*s).

"Seems that the socialization explanation should result in a lower AVERAGE female scores, not just a higher standard deviation."

Why? It's certainly possible but saying that it is an expected result - to the point that the expected result not showing up completly invalidates the socialization arguement - makes no sense. That's like saying that because hispanics are encouraged to be macho and play sports more often than their asian counterparts, that one should expect to find hispanics to be not only physically stronger, but on average healthier.

Again, you are trying to make something that is rather complex far too simple. Among the American middle classes, there has always been the expectation that girls and women should be educated enough to be able to raise good, knowledgable citizens. There has also often been the expectation that they should not waste their time learning too much, however. An attitude that has changed drastically on average over the years, but unevenly.

So yes, the answer could be genetics, plain and simple. More likely, considering how many variables come into play, it's not just more than just genetics, it goes beyond even genetics and overall socialization. Maybe, just maybe, when you are talking about a specific demographic testing on a very specific subject in a very specific situation you should be very cautious about using such information to justify concrete, sweeping generalizations.

If you really feel the need to draw conclusions about groups of people from specific subject tests, at least try and get a large enough sample size. After all, boys have a wider overall range in national standardized math and intelligence tests. And, to bring it back to Buttefingers point, all the (current?) math and intelligence tests do conclusively show that, in our modern American society, when it comes to differences between boys and girls, the standard deviation is always much larger than the gender gap.

Lastly, it seems I need to point out that "sexism" and "patriarchy" are not synonymous with "overt discrimination" (which, if you'd read all the feminist literature you claim to have done, you'd know.)

There is also a difference between deciding:

"Well, I don't want it to be genetics, so I'm going to assume that it's socialization."

and deciding:

"Well, it could be genetics, but it could be socialization, (or both), and I think that assuming that its socialization and perhaps failing is a lesser evil than assuming that its genetics and never trying."

If you have an issue with ending slavery, or other discrimination, because society profits/ed from it - even though it was/is cruel and inhumane, then I think what we really need to debate is "The Giver' and "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" not evolutionary biology.

Jenny K.,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I'm getting hit here and at Echidne's on this topic so please excuse the brevity of my response but I do want to respond to a few points you raised.

First of all I need to second this:

..since the variation between individuals is much greater then the variation between the genders overall."

Here's a link to some recent work which I think addresses your point:

"The difference between a male and a female comes down to trading the second X for a Y," he says. "This trade involves about 1 to 2 percent of the genome, and that completely dwarfs all the genetic polymorphisms [normal variation between individuals] in the human autosomes"—all the chromosomes excepting the X and Y.

Put another way, the genetic difference between a man and a woman is about the same as that between a man and a male chimp, or a woman and a female chimp. This genetic reality will be difficult for many people to embrace and may only stir up greater controversy about genetic determinism, Page acknowledges.

Why? It's certainly possible but saying that it is an expected result - to the point that the expected result not showing up completly invalidates the socialization arguement - makes no sense.

Obviously I can't tell you what the author meant by her comment but my interpretation is that she's having some trouble coming up with a model to explain why men score higher and lower than women on math tests, when it is the women who are subjected to social discouragement. What social action within families is a more powerful depressor of male scores than the obvious discouragement that women report? If the answer to the math gap is to be found in strictly social factors then she would expect an already identified variable acting on women to have a larger depressing effect. Does that make any sense?

not synonymous with "overt discrimination"

I agree. The problem, as I see it, is what to do with covert discrimination and subtle prejudice. If it's not observed then it's hard to take action against it. If it can't be measured, but is only hypothesized to exist, then it's hard to justify legislative remedy to something that is theorized to exist.

Let me be clear, I think that overt discrimination does exist and it should be stamped out. I think that family-based customs regarding traditional gender roles exist and they may inhibit women's full potentials and then penalty for such behavior should fall on the families that hinder their daughter's development rather than onto society as a whole, and the likely innocent people who the daughter will come into contact with.

That said, I don't think there is any justice in legislating extremely intrusive measures to root out theorized covert discrimination. The remedy will likely be far worse than the problem itself. Further, I would oppose legislation to combat covert discrimination that simply proposed remedies to a theoretical form of discrimination that couldn't be measured.

Well, it could be genetics, but it could be socialization, (or both)

It's both. I know it's often perceived as radical to introduce genetics into a discussion and that one is on safe ground if they stick solely to environmental causal factors, but if you ever run into anyone claiming 100% genetic causation, then that's a sure sign that they're a fool. Genetic-Environmental interaction is quite strong. Genetic potential planted into poor soil yields very little potential.

It's both. I know it's often perceived as radical to introduce genetics into a discussion and that one is on safe ground if they stick solely to environmental causal factors, but if you ever run into anyone claiming 100% genetic causation, then that's a sure sign that they're a fool. Genetic-Environmental interaction is quite strong. Genetic potential planted into poor soil yields very little potential.

You're making an assumption here without any evidence, or at least conflating the physiological differences between women with intellectual differences. We have no reliable data that tell us that these academic performance traits are linked to the genetic basis of sex or the manifestation of the genes in the organismal form. All traits are linked to genetics, but remember that 45/46 chromosomes are the same in men and women, and the overall physiological and chemical differences between men and women are outnumbered by the similarities. Men and women have a lot of physical and chemical characteristics that are identical. If the physical differences are pinpointed, then that's that, but it clearly this has not happened. The nature (rather than nurture) causes (and their extent if they exist at all) of these differences are not understood at this time.

We do understand (like you said) that there is overt discrimination against women in the workplace and in the upper reaches of academia. Trying to ethically weigh this certainty with the uncertainty of intellectual differences between men and women is hardly straightforward. It is much more realistic - and equitable - to rely on the things we know than the things we don't when making public policy. Personally, I think that the world has a lot more to gain from creating a more inclusive academic community (something that is obviously happening if not perfectly) than it does from elucidating the specific genetic factors at play in this situation.

Given more equal opportunities, women have excelled in greater numbers over time. Let's not slow this equilibration based on a guess that this is the best our biology can give us.

I love how he's not only blaming women, but the empowerment of women, in general, for the dissentrigraton of humanity and decaying families. It's absurd when people take their poorly thought out theories based purely on personal disdain for certain other people and try to project them as fact. And it's not women's fault if certain men in their prime play too much and work too little. If they're so 'superior,' maybe they should ACT RESPONSIBLY without having to be pacified. Oh, he's another one deeming feminism as automatically 'radical.'