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Take That, Larry Summers
I know I’m the last blogger on earth to post about this, but you’ve just got to check it out. Ben A. Barres, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford who began his life as Barbara, is using his rare (but not unique) point of view as someone who’s lived both as a woman scientist and a male scientist to refute Larry Summers’ sexist charges about women in science.
His original article appears in the journal Nature, but here are some samples from his recent interview in the NYT (free signup required):
Q. What about the idea that men and women differ in ways that give men an advantage in science?A. People are still arguing over whether there are cognitive differences between men and women. If they exist, it’s not clear they are innate, and if they are innate, it’s not clear they are relevant. They are subtle, and they may even benefit women.
But when you tell people about the studies documenting bias, if they are prejudiced, they just discount the evidence.
Q. How does this bias manifest itself?
A. It is very much harder for women to be successful, to get jobs, to get grants, especially big grants. And then, and this is a huge part of the problem, they don’t get the resources they need to be successful. Right now, what’s fundamentally missing and absolutely vital is that women get better child care support. This is such an obvious no-brainer. If you just do this with a small amount of resources, you could explode the number of women scientists.
Q. As a girl, were you pressured not to try for M.I.T.?
A. Of course. I was a very good math and science student, maybe the best in my high school. And despite all that, when it came time to talk to my guidance counselor, he did not encourage me. But I said, I want to go to M.I.T.; I don’t want to go anywhere else. So I just ignored him. Fortunately, my parents did not try to dissuade me.
Q. When you were a woman did you experience bias?
A. An M.I.T. professor accused me of cheating on this test. I was the only one in the class who solved a particular problem, and he said my boyfriend must have solved it for me. One, I did not have a boyfriend. And two, I solved it myself, goddamn it! But it did not occur to me to think of sexism. I was just indignant that I would be accused of cheating.
There’s loads more in the interview. But my favorite part is this:
Q. Why do some people attribute differences in professional achievement to innate ability? A. One of the reasons is the belief by highly successful people that they are successful because of their own innate abilities. I think as a professor at Stanford I am lucky to be here. But I think Larry Summers thinks he is successful because of his innate inner stuff.
“Inner stuff.” Is that what kids are calling it these days?
Comments
Women out-number men in undergrad and grad degrees - in a ratio of almost 60/40 and are the majority of medical school students (http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=HENA&TEMPLATE;=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID;=17251). And yet men like Summers still think it is an intrinsic intellectual difference, and not structural sexism, holding women back from jobs in academia? Kudos to Barres for speaking up, although what he said should be obvious even to those who haven't had a sex-change.
Posted by: Carolyn | July 21, 2020 02:07 PM
I know. I mean, I think he's completely right on about all of it, but I find it so sad that if he were "just a woman" no one at all would be listening to him, let alone the Times!
Posted by: Megan | July 21, 2020 03:12 PM
Happy to see feminist author Linda Hirshman on the front page of today's Boston Globe's Living Arts. So much of the conversation about her subject, working mothers, has been dominated by conservative thinking. I'm not in agreement with everthing Hirshman says in the piece, but she's out there, expressing a feminist perspective that has been silenced in much of the media. Her outspokenness--"it's a mistake for women to quit their jobs to stay at home with children"--provoked verbal outrage and a death threat that means she cannot reveal where she lives. When you think about it, that's so crazy. After all, she's merely putting in words one side of an argument that affects everyone. Wonder what will happen at the readings of her new title GET TO WORK: A MANIFESTO. Hard to imagine a genuine back-and-forth discussion among all sides of the questgion--more likely a shout-out. But wouldn't it be great to talk sanely about women, work, privilege, childcare, the economics of it all, etc.
--Suzanne Z.
Posted by: Suzanne Z. | July 26, 2020 11:28 AM