Feminists are not amused.
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."
Had he only done like his boss, become President, and raped a bunch of people, NOW wouldn't have uttered a peep.
Conversely, had Larry's secretary been servicing him under his desk, and had that fact leak out by some other third party - again, no problem.
But he's white, he's male, and he's only President of Harvard. Say goodbye Larry.
I think the staffs of all Ivy League schools should resign to truly make this up to NOW. That might affect the careers of maybe half a dozen true conservatives. ;o)
Feminists are not amused.
It's really not a "debate", except among those who are completely ignorant of the irrefutable scientific facts.
But--everyone knows that IF women were allowed into the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc., they'd play better and draw more crowds (witness the very popular & financially successful women's basketball experiment). Twenty years ago the literary spoke of NOW came out with an incredible finding--that the brains of men secreted chemicals different from the brains of women, and THAT, at long last, was la difference! Talk about missing the obvious!
Gandy had to sacrifice one of their own for this little power-play demonstration.
Had she taken on a member of the right (or even a moderate - like Hootie) she would have been laughed at and told to pound sand.
Dude, you had me up until the point when you started in on teachers. The teachers unions, yes, are evil. Teachers, not all are. We all can remember teachers who were thicker than a whale omelette. I bet we can also remember those teachers who stimulated our intellectual curiosity, encouraged us, and were quite a bit sharper than we could hope to be.
The sad fact is that some people HAVE to teach just like some people HAVE to be cops and some people HAVE to be firemen. Granted, you have to be a bit of a dullard to get a degree in education, but most schools (at least in FL)look for people with degrees in the subjects they will teach. Sociologists have the lowest GRE scores, for the record, and they tend to be liberals as there is a "litmus test" for those who want to work in their field. Call that job security.
BTW, I'm not a teacher, I just remember that I had some great ones who inspired me.
Why aren't scholars with conservative views better represented in top positions (or any positions) in universities? Is there some deficiency in the conservative brain that makes them less capable in academic work?
Hardly. You just have to have sponsorship or approval to be accepted into a doctoral program. Leftist professors can sniff their own kind.
I'm not saying that you have to be a leftist to make it in that system. I'm saying that if you're a conservative you need to be ninja-like in your ability to conceal that you have values, scruples, morals, and ethics.
>> The National Organization for Women has called for the resignation of Harvard University President Lawrence Summers.
Summers should have raped a woman, like Bill Clinton did, and NOW would have proclaimed him a hero.
"You just have to have sponsorship or approval to be accepted into a doctoral program. Leftist professors can sniff their own kind.
I'm not saying that you have to be a leftist to make it in that system. I'm saying that if you're a conservative you need to be ninja-like in your ability to conceal that you have values, scruples, morals, and ethics."
You mean there is DISCRIMINATION??? Maybe some more research should be done to find the root cause for this lack of diversity.
Geez, get over it.
Please bear in mind that Mr. Summers never said that women weren't equal to men, or were incapable of competing with men. He said that the fact that women were underrepresented in Harvard's math and science departments might be the result of physiological differences. Such diferences exist. Male brains tend to have more gray matter. Female brains tend to have more white matter. That's not saying that exceptions to the rule don't exist (and I commend you for being an exception). But there's no need to get your panties in a twist over the God's honest truth.
I appreciated your message until you went for the panties.
I'll quit trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Larry Summers is a FOB and I have no love for him. THe panties comment was instructive about how light a trigger feminists have. You bit it. You won the sex war. We surrendered. Now stop wasting everybody's time and get on with your protected life.
"Now the PC sharks sense weakness"
YUP, he should have stood his ground, defended his right to raise such questions, and challenged the PC-police to explain their double-standards of academic freedom....
rabid America-hating radicals = absolute right to free speech
thoughtful slightly un-PC but LIBERAL university president = no rights at all to free speech
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