Brusque Summers
Mr Lawrence H. Summers is the president of the Harvard University and he is "hired more than three years ago to retool Harvard for the 21st century".
He is also making one of the headlines in today's Asian Wall Street Journal. He made a comment that has sparked a series of attacks against him (GOOD!!!).
He cited issues of "intrinsic aptitude" to explain the scarcity of women in the higher levels of science and engineering. He said: "...it does appear that on many, many different human attributes - height, weight ... overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability - there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means" or average levels of ability " there is a difference in the standard deviation and variability of a male and a female population. "Did he just call us (females) stupid? I have to check. I don't want to let the innate gender differences get in the way. Afterall, I am from Venus. Did Mr Summers' lack of communication skills or insecurity (can't make a straight point) prompt him to resort to long run-on sentences to illustrate his point? Poor thing.
According to WSJ, Summers, in addition to aptitude, cited as a primary factor tensions between women's family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity.Ok, now I am pissed.So, Summers decided to apologise, not because he was sorry but he was under a lot of pressure to do so.
His apology: "Though my remarks were explicitly speculative, and noted that I may be all wrong, I should have left such speculation to those more expert in the relevant fields.
"Errrr..... Why can't he just say, "I am sorry. I am wrong." ?
He is also making one of the headlines in today's Asian Wall Street Journal. He made a comment that has sparked a series of attacks against him (GOOD!!!).
He cited issues of "intrinsic aptitude" to explain the scarcity of women in the higher levels of science and engineering. He said: "...it does appear that on many, many different human attributes - height, weight ... overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability - there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means" or average levels of ability " there is a difference in the standard deviation and variability of a male and a female population. "Did he just call us (females) stupid? I have to check. I don't want to let the innate gender differences get in the way. Afterall, I am from Venus. Did Mr Summers' lack of communication skills or insecurity (can't make a straight point) prompt him to resort to long run-on sentences to illustrate his point? Poor thing.
According to WSJ, Summers, in addition to aptitude, cited as a primary factor tensions between women's family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity.Ok, now I am pissed.So, Summers decided to apologise, not because he was sorry but he was under a lot of pressure to do so.
His apology: "Though my remarks were explicitly speculative, and noted that I may be all wrong, I should have left such speculation to those more expert in the relevant fields.
"Errrr..... Why can't he just say, "I am sorry. I am wrong." ?
posted by eternal bough at 5:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home