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Why Sexist Larry Summers Shouldn't Get A Cabinet Slot
New York, 12:05 AM
Thu Dec 10
65 posts in the last 24 hours
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Why Sexist Larry Summers Shouldn't Get A Cabinet Slot |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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Markets don't cure discrimination. Discrimination creates market inefficiencies, or was my (female) Econ 421 Professor making up that whole unit about the Oaxaca Decomposition?
11/14/08
People who choose to make family a priority will not succeed in the work world compared to people who choose to make work their only priority.
There are inherent differences and strengths for each of the sexes and to deny that is to make yourself blind to facts. No single (or multiple) test can determine if one sex is more intelligent than the other but I know that there are inherent strengths in each that many find it hard to accept.
It's a hard reality to face, the concept that we might not be JUST as good on average as men at certain things but how can we truly answer that question if we won't listen to a person who asks it?
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Some of what he said really wasn't that bad. Maybe women do make different choices, but he never bothered to explore WHY they do.
It was a speech to a group of scientists and he ignored huge piles of data while brining in multiple antecodotal examples. That isn't good science.
11/14/08
'M n lky mch mr ntllgnt mn prsn bcs f sxst cmmnt tht mst nw ncrrctly prphrs (hnt: whn hs n cnmst vr bn nythng bt cndtnl?!) t snd lk 'z knwz bt bg wrld nd hv pnn t hr lt m shwz y t.'
nw ths s fr frm n ntllctl wbst, bt ysh. Tlk bt mssng th pctr, th frm, lgc, fnctn, frm, hmnsm, bjctvty nd ntgrty.
Ths s TRSRY pstn. Fcsng n th wmn's prspctv, n ths rgrd, s dgrdng t fml ntllctls.
11/14/08
*sits back and waits*
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My personal objections go beyond the sexism of his comments. His speech completely ignored huge amounts of research and relied on personal antecdontes. It was ridiculous and unscientific, which is no acceptable in a professional speech given to a scientific organization.
I don't want someone who comes to meetings unprepared and relies on stereotypes over data to run a goverment agency.
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11/14/08
Summers has been getting shit for this since day one, some schools have even refused to hear his economic lectures. Be careful what you assume are the beliefs of a person so wholeheartedly obsessed with statistics. Obviously what he said was dumb, but statistically sound.
I've been having a Friday from hell so I'm naturally a little aggressive. Stab. Stab stab.
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Finally, I'm sorry you had the Friday from hell, but it doesn't excuse the appalling aggressiveness and also just plain self-aggrandizement of the comment.
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If you actually READ you will notice that the variables illustrated (i.e. I.Q.) are not meant to be all dimensions. Yes, he ignored sexism. While sexism and cultural differences are a huge part of the reason the disparity exists, sexism as a variable is not as easily observable (in terms of data) as the given variables.
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And I did read it, thanks. What I saw was Summers cherry-picking data without remarking on the flaws in its collection, or on test-bias (of which there is a great deal of literature) or picking up on even one of his own professor's work in discrimination in the labor market -- the professor, by the way, who advised my thesis on labor market discrimination -- and how it is affected by gender roles and expectations outside of the work place. That he qualified the suspect data marginally doesn't mitigate the larger point of the overall sexism of his speech that he himself recanted and apologized for. He says, outright, that he believes biological differences and lifestyle preferences are by far the larger factors holding women back in this area, and eliminates alternate socialization and sexism as factors -- and his evidence for the latter is a theoretical market analysis that would supposedly trump individual bias.
It's a severely flawed analysis of discrimination and the role of socialization on individual actors in determining social constructs. It's not as flawed as your analysis of my work, but he is smarter than you, so there you go.
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I'm now in school for my M.S. in Statistics, but that comment will always remind me that women are pushed away from math and science, even by other women.
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It also makes me want to do math. I'm really good at it, I just have little reason to do it in my day to day life. I'd like to get, like, a high school Trig book and just do some problems for the hell of it.
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DOUBLE DISAPPOINTMENT
11/14/08
Unfortunately, it looks like it's impossible to discuss these differences without certain people (cough* Summers*cough) taking it as a cue to throw up their hands and say, "See, it's biology. End of story! No more discussion necessary. In your face feminists!"
Not to mention that human beings are notoriously bad at dealing with people as individuals. Rather they tend to attribute to the person in front of them traits that on average may be more likely of the group they belong to.
11/14/08
Larry Summers --> FAIL.
11/14/08