Issue date: 2/25/05 Section: Opinion

Mark Ayoub

As seemingly everyone seems to know by now, the president of Harvard University is an arrogant male chauvinist. Or so one would think, judging from the outcry to his remarks to a private conference of economists last month.

This could not be further from the truth, however. Larry Summers, a former Secretary of the Treasury, suggested, meaning that he admitted that he was not sure, that there could be innate differences amongst men and women that are responsible for the disparity between men and women in the field of natural sciences. He also suggested that there was some research that could back this up but needed to be studied further, and also that an unwillingness to work 80-hour weeks could contribute to this.

The key word in all of this is suggested. Summers was trying to open up a public dialogue on an issue that needs to be addressed. Whether it's at Harvard, where only four of 32 tenured positions were offered to women last year, or Hendrix, where male professors outnumber female professors in the natural sciences by more than 3-to-1, there is a problem.

The numerous organizations who criticized the remarks, primarily Harvard professors and/or women's organizations, usually said nothing more than that he had made hurtful comments, without actually addressing the problem itself. This is not a problem that will fix itself. This is a problem that will not be fixed unless more research is done into why this is happening, which is what Summers is proposing.

And this is not the only problem regarding academia and gender. Just as the natural sciences are almost always dominated by men, one could argue that English is a field primarily featuring women (Hendrix excepted). If a female president of a university made similar suggestions addressing the lack of men in English, would those same groups claiming Summers to be offensive also denounced these comments?

The bottom line is that while we have come a very long way from the days of the suffrage movement, gender equality has not been completely resolved yet. Yet unfortunately, we live in such a politically correct era that whenever someone makes a comment about any minority, be it women, gays, African-Americans, or others, they are immediately demanded to apologize if that comment possibly might not portray them in the best light.

Summers is hoping to spark debate, not offend. Much of these politically correct organizations have also failed to pick up on another significant portion of the speech - his comparisons of this problem to the lack of whites in the NBA, Jews in farming, and Catholics in investment banking. These might be apt comparisons, or they might not be. But only when we try to use his comments to move society forward and not criticize him for his admitted potentially incorrect theories, will we succeed.

As President John F. Kennedy said, "There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction." Summers took a risk when he decided to make those comments. It may even cost him his job, as some hope for. But had he not made the decision to start the important dialogue, who knows what the future of women in the natural sciences

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