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George Will: Harvard Hysterics
The Washington Post ^ | 1/17/05 | George Will

Posted on 01/27/2005 3:05:34 PM PST by blitzgig

Hysteria -- A functional disturbance of the nervous system, characterized by such disorders as anaesthesia, hyperaesthesia, convulsions, etc., and usually attended with emotional disturbances and enfeeblement or perversion of the moral and intellectual faculties.

-- Oxford English Dictionary

Forgive Larry Summers. He did not know where he was.

Addressing a conference on the supposedly insufficient numbers of women in tenured positions in university science departments, he suggested that perhaps part of the explanation might be innate -- genetically based -- gender differences in cognition. He thought he was speaking in a place that encourages uncircumscribed intellectual explorations. He was not. He was on a university campus.

He was at Harvard, where he is president. Since then he has become a serial apologizer and accomplished groveler. Soon he may be in a Khmer Rouge-style reeducation camp somewhere in New England, relearning this: In today's academy, no social solecism is as unforgivable as the expression of a hypothesis that offends someone's "progressive" sensibilities.

Someone like MIT biology professor Nancy Hopkins, the hysteric (see above) who, hearing Summers, "felt I was going to be sick. My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow." And, "I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill." She said that if she had not bolted from the room, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up."

Is this the fruit of feminism? A woman at the peak of the academic pyramid becomes theatrically flurried by an unwelcome idea and, like a Victorian maiden exposed to male coarseness, suffers the vapors and collapses on the drawing room carpet in a heap of crinolines until revived by smelling salts and the offending brute's contrition?

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: academia; academicleft; gender; genderdifferences; georgewill; harvard; highereducation; larrysummers; sexdifferences; speech
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Very smart column.
1 posted on 01/27/2005 3:05:35 PM PST by blitzgig
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To: blitzgig

"felt I was going to be sick. My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow." And, "I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill." She said that if she had not bolted from the room, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up."

No mental problems here.


2 posted on 01/27/2005 3:07:54 PM PST by Spok
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To: blitzgig
Is this the fruit of feminism? A woman at the peak of the academic pyramid becomes theatrically flurried by an unwelcome idea and, like a Victorian maiden exposed to male coarseness, suffers the vapors and collapses on the drawing room carpet in a heap of crinolines until revived by smelling salts and the offending brute's contrition?

If you're a feminist, that's got to sting.

3 posted on 01/27/2005 3:13:18 PM PST by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: blitzgig

Ping


4 posted on 01/27/2005 3:15:00 PM PST by blitzgig
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To: blitzgig
Is this the fruit of feminism? A woman at the peak of the academic pyramid becomes theatrically flurried by an unwelcome idea and, like a Victorian maiden exposed to male coarseness, suffers the vapors and collapses on the drawing room carpet in a heap of crinolines until revived by smelling salts and the offending brute's contrition?

I couldn't believe she actually she said this when I first read about the incident. Some professions are far more forgiving than others, I think.

5 posted on 01/27/2005 3:15:55 PM PST by independentmind (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité --NOT)
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To: blitzgig

doesn't george will have a ping list?


6 posted on 01/27/2005 3:17:32 PM PST by smonk
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To: smonk

He should...that guy is the best.


7 posted on 01/27/2005 3:19:34 PM PST by Tulane
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To: Spok

Sounds like Hillary's audio book:

"I could hardly breathe..."


8 posted on 01/27/2005 3:20:38 PM PST by bootless (Never Forget - And Never Again)
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To: independentmind

I read it in an earlier article. She said it.


9 posted on 01/27/2005 3:21:13 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife (" It is not true that life is one damn thing after another-it's one damn thing over and over." ESV)
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To: independentmind

Yeah, I got a big laugh when I read her reaction.


10 posted on 01/27/2005 3:23:55 PM PST by blitzgig
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To: Spok
hearing Summers, "felt I was going to be sick. My heart was pounding and my breath was shallow." And, "I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill." She said that if she had not bolted from the room, "I would've either blacked out or thrown up."

One of the Victorian treatments for Hysteria (by the way the derivation is from the greek for "uterus") was to pluck out pubic hair.
11 posted on 01/27/2005 3:25:30 PM PST by Kozak (Anti Shahada: " There is no God named Allah, and Muhammed is his False Prophet")
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To: Kozak

"One of the Victorian treatments for Hysteria (by the way the derivation is from the greek for "uterus") was to pluck out pubic hair."

Now I'm gonna puke and pass out.


12 posted on 01/27/2005 3:28:04 PM PST by Spok
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To: Spok

I thought the same thing.


13 posted on 01/27/2005 3:30:53 PM PST by Tulane
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To: Spok

I can cure that. Nurse, tweezers please. STAT.


14 posted on 01/27/2005 3:31:10 PM PST by Kozak (Anti Shahada: " There is no God named Allah, and Muhammed is his False Prophet")
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To: blitzgig
...like a Victorian maiden exposed to male coarseness, suffers the vapors...

A great idea describing the feminists as having vapors, just as in my post #39 on this topic last week:

What these academics were really saying was that: "You have violated a tenet of political correctitude, and I choose to have the vapours to emphasize your crime.."

15 posted on 01/27/2005 3:31:16 PM PST by Plutarch
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To: Plutarch

Very good!


16 posted on 01/27/2005 3:37:53 PM PST by blitzgig
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To: blitzgig
Very smart column.

Yes, very!

17 posted on 01/27/2005 3:46:28 PM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Legislatures are so outdated. If you want real political victory, take your issue to court.)
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To: Spok

Nancy Hopkins is a 62 year old researcher has spent most of her recent life cloning zebra fish. She is known neither for her writing, nor her teaching. She is, however, a useful cipher in calculating the number of female scientists on the faculty.


18 posted on 01/27/2005 3:48:41 PM PST by gaspar
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To: Spok

quick, get her some smelling salts!


19 posted on 01/27/2005 3:49:03 PM PST by Republicus2001
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To: blitzgig; ProudVet77
Actually, posted a vapors reference the day before mine.

Just another way of saying she would get the vapors.

20 posted on 01/27/2005 3:52:51 PM PST by Plutarch
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