Posted on 01/21/2005 10:39:10 AM PST by presidio9
The National Organization for Women has called for the resignation of Harvard University President Lawrence Summers.
Summers offended feminists last week when he suggested that "innate" differences in men and women may help explain why men dominate math, sciences and engineering.
But according to NOW, the long history of male domination in these fields is attributable to "sexism" and other social constructs.
CALMING RUFFLED FEATHERS Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary from the Clinton administration, has offered a series of increasingly contrite apologies to those whose sensitivites were upset by his observations. In his third official apology, posted Wednesday night on the Harvard website, Summers insisted that he "deeply" regreted "the impact" of his comments.
"Summers' suggestion that women are inferior to men in their ability to excel at math and science is more than an example of personal sexism, it is a clue to why women have not been more fully accepted and integrated into the tenured faculty at Harvard since he has been president," said NOW President Kim Gandy in a press release.
PRESSURE FOR POLITICAL PROMOTIONS In their press release, NOW said they planed to begin "watching" Harvard University to make sure they promote women to faculty positions in math and science regardless of their ability: "Will Harvard encourage women as students in the 'hard' sciences, promote more women in faculty positions, and step up the recruitment of women for teaching positions in math and science departments? Or will Harvard be thwarted in achieving these goals with Summers at the helm?"
UNFORGIVABLE IDEAS "Apologies are not enough," said Gandy. "Summers must go, and Harvard must start with a clean slate."
GIRLS SMARTER THAN BOYS In a related story, in Britain, Minister of Parliament and Chairman of the Commons Educational Committee Barry Sheerman insisted that women are more intelligent than men, and said that the government should not become "obsessed" with boys failing in school. "We should celebrate this, shouldn't we?" said Sheerman. "The brightest kids are coming through and they happen to be women."
Sad but true.
Now the PC sharks sense weakness and will continue to circle him until he's done for.
If he believes in what he said--and I think he does--he should stand his ground, which might well spark a public debate on the subject.
He might still lose his job, but at least he and his ideas would be respected.
Spineless academic--these are women, for Pete's sake!
Stand on your hind legs and fight back instead of groveling.
I wouldn't now either. Fortunately, my meetings are ALL MEN. You have no idea how verbally freeing it can be. Meetings are a real joy for the first time in my 22 years in programming. Guys have banter, but we get to the point and there is no fluffy stuff. We also don't have to be nearly so "diplomatic" every time we wish to espouse a point.
He must be a neanderthal, because a real man wouldn't grovel when he knows he's right.
I don't think the clarification would matter. I think both are true. Most men are better than most women in those fields. More men are interested in those fields than women. Never can you say "all", and he didn't. Of course there are women who do excel in those areas. It is not as though we still put up with the "Now Suzy, it's cute that you like science, but don't you think you should be a housewife and let the men handle the hard things?" attitude. Women can do whatever they want to do, just like all minorities in this country.
It's simpler than that:
If women were equal to men--then why after a million years aren't they equal?
They even outnumber men, and they still complain that men control them.
Why should he? He apologized. When they call for the resignation of Ted Rall, Sly Sylvester,etc. I'll consider their opinions worthy of my attention.
Kim Gandy = Number One NAG HAG.
what about the theory that people who have descended from the Incas are better at math...? or that black people have a better aptitude at computers... ?
I mean, debate the issue... but don't call for a man's resignation over this.
interesting to see that NOW has finally gone after someone from the clinton years.
nick
"but, if he groped someone (ie: once) or had raped a woman but it was some years ago, he could keep his job?"
NOW recognized that as consensual sex.
nick
The NOW nags are probably one of the biggest reasons for the existence of misogynist ideology. People hear them whining and mistakenly think that all or most women are like that.
I would guess that at least 80% of women think the NOW nags are idiots.
"This man is a neanderthal - period."
"He must be a neanderthal, because a real man wouldn't grovel when he knows he's right."
Bingo - he should NEVER have apologized, NEVER, he didn't say anything wrong, just pointed out the obvious.
How about the innate differences between the life of freedom for women in the non-Moslem world and the life of slavery for women in the Moslem world?
Does NOW have any opinion about that?
So, you are assuming that at my meetings we KNIT?
NOW's opinion about that is: As a leftist group, we are slaves to leftist ideology, which forbids any criticism of Islam.
All leftist groups are slaves to their ideology, no matter how illogical or unreasonable the positions they take must be as a result.
Hey Kim, go get pregnant.
Then again, never mind, please don't breed.
I signed many sexual harassment waiver forms along the way to enable the guys to freely banter so that my being female didn't interfer with the football talk. I, in fact, LOVE sports - follow football and baseball (and an old fashioned sport called Hockey) closely.
And... I'm not a lesbian or a feminist or anything else. I am a female who worked hard to be accepted as a co-worker in a very male field.
I'm sure you're right. And it really is a disgusting sight.
It would be like Jewish American groups getting all upset about an anti-semitic statement made by a kid in a prep school in 1939.
Sure, the anti-semitic remark would be wrong. But compared to other things going on in 1939, regarding Jews...
Amen to that. Not all women are hypersensitive troublemakers who consider anything even remotely offensive to be 'sexual harassment.'
Did you really have female coworkers who thought that football talk constituted sexual harassment? If they did, they're even more loony than some of the "womyn" I used to work with.
Count me in as another woman who loves sports. I suspect there are a lot of us.
As if that will do him any good. He should have just stuck to his guns and defended himself on scientific grounds.
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