Jezebel 
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New York, 1:54 AM
Mon Dec 7
19 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/10/08
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I am all for ratting out sexist assholes, but Larry Summers is not a sexist asshole.
Come on, Jezzies, don't be reactionary without knowing the facts: [www.thecrimson.com]
11/10/08
Could we consider that women might have greater aptitudes in other academic arenas (verbal)?
Is the first possibility sexist and the second not ???
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11/10/08
1. In 1999, Summers & his Wall Street buddy Robert Rubin while advising the Clinton administration on economic affairs supported the odious Phil Gramm's Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The bill removed the barriers between banks, securities firms, mortgage lenders and insurance companies -thus a field day for Summers & Rubin's Wall Street chums to go blood simple on the protections set up by FDR to avoid the economic s&&t storm we're in now.
2. While Larry was chief economist for the Word Bank he advocated dumping toxic waste in the "under populated countries in Africa" because they are "under-polluted." Some of the logic behind this being that poor people don't live that long anyway.
11/10/08
11/10/08
That said, I hate the guy, I voted for Lamont twice and when he lost I finally registered to vote in California, where I live part-time. Better Boxer and Feinstein than Lieberman.
11/10/08
I'm frankly surprised anyone even considers him part of the party anymore.
11/10/08
Related: I have a lot of unresolved anger.
Joe Lieberman needs to be forced into retirement so that he can spend his days being scorned by his fellow retirees and a good portion of the Connecticut folk.
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11/10/08
It just makes the world a funnier place.
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11/10/08
Men are more likely to be found at extreme values of aptitude -- both high and low. So women can be pleased to know that dumb men are dumber than dumb women.
Meta-arguments are interesting (ie whether or not the science is correct or whether or not he was qualified to speak about on the topic). But a claim that, in the aggregate, he called women less skilled at math and science than men is simply wrong.
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Also, every time I see, hear, or sense that man's name, a piece of me dies. Enough with the LIE-berman. Fucktard is really the only term for him, other than turn-coat, traitor, and two-faced S.O.B.
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11/10/08
I don't doubt your statements about internal politics at Harvard, but honestly, anyone willing to even include that in his speech, no matter whether it was "a core belief," - which is not a statement I can see how you can make - really matters.
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11/10/08
I want Ms. Bair to stay at the FDIC because she is effective. Who would replace her? BTW she claim's the top spot in today's WSJ's "The 50 Women to Watch in 2008" article. (Hoping that Jezebel.com will run that article later today.)
11/10/08
When asked his thoughts as to why women are underrepresented in science and math (we are) he suggested that there could be an innate cause as well as discrimination in those fields.
That's a far cry from "Women are innately poor at math and science".
As an economist it is perfectly rational to consider genetic differences when looking at economic trends.
His remarks were NOT sexist then and he is NOT a sexist now.
11/10/08
His views were deemed academically unrigorous by anyone who heard them, for a number of reasons:
First of all, not a single modern-day geneticist/neuroscientist/whatever has ever believed we have enough evidence to make such a sweeping statment.
Second of all, Larry Summers? Not a geneticist/neuroscientist, and thus unqualified to opine on this matter.
Third of all, most neuroscientists now believe that any "predispositions" in the brains are not hardwired.
Fourth of all, whatever Larry Summers may have thought of the issue, he was the leader of a university that should have been striving to turn out more female math/science graduates. Instead he made underminer-y speeches. So even as a function of his job, it was a shitty thing to do.
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11/10/08
"In the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are, in fact, lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination."
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