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July 13, 2006
The 'Ol Women in Science Debate
Poor Larry Summers (former Harvard president). Not only was his comment about women having less intrinsic aptitude for science the catylst for a no-confidence vote (and eventual unemployment), but now this old-fashioned notion has been dubbed the "the Larry Summers Hypothesis" in the Wall Street Journal.
On the other hand, there's a lot of talk in the news about women "leaving men in the dust" at the college level. At Case, we still have more men than women (even though a larger percentage on the incoming class is female than ever. Case's historically male student body is often attributed to the fact that our strength in the sciences and engineering tends to attract more male applicants.
One of the things that makes gender issues like these so hard to talk about is that, with gender roles having changed so much in the last few decades, different people have such different personal experiences around them. Cultural factors come into play--for some, it just comes down to what your family believed was an appropriate role for a women. Partly, it's generational. A 50-year-old female science prof was more likely to be treated differently in her day than women today.
To add more uncertaintainty to the equation, social factors are now thought to mold biology:
The biggest recent revolution in neuroscience has been the discovery of the brain's "plasticity," or ability to change structure and function in response to experiences. "It's not hard to believe that differences between the brains of male and female adults have nothing to do with genes or the Y chromosome but may be the biological expression of different social settings," says biologist Joan Roughgarden of Stanford, who completed her own transgender transition in 1998.
What do you think? Students, do you think the tides have turned on this issue? How relevant are the historical perspectives offered by baby boomers to you? What are your experiences regarding this issue?
Posted by pls9 at July 13, 2006 09:02 AM
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