Women and the Academy

Well, I've read a lot of articles reacting to Lawrence Summers's comments about women and science. For those who haven't been following this story, Summers, the president of Harvard, spoke at a conference about women in science, and offered three hypotheses for why women are underrepresented in that field: 1) that careers in science demand more time than women (i.e., mothers) are willing to give; 2) innate differences between the sexes may result in women not excelling as much as men do; 3) discrimination.

There was the predictable outcry. Then there was the backlash against the outcry. Those who complained were trying to restrict academic discourse; Summers is entitled to his freedom of speech; feminists are just a bunch of shirll complainers (okay, I made that up, but that is the subtext in a lot of cases, in my opinion).

I am way more pissed off by the backlash against the outcry than I am by Summers's original remarks. Many of the articles I have read condemning those who spoke out against Summers' remarks use similar language to the general backlash against feminism in our society today.

Here are my thoughts (because I haven't really seen some of them expressed elsewhere):

1) I believe that people who do not give the status of women in our society very much thought do not think that discrimination against us still exists. These people are just plain wrong. Women still make less money than men for performing the same job. Women are underrepresented at high levels in all sorts of fields: as lawmakers, on the faculty at colleges and universities in most disciplines, in high-level positions in the corporate world, and so on. Women, despite the fact that they have been in the workplace for a few generations, are still expected to be the primary care givers of children. When work and family responsibilities collide, that is a women's issue.

2) Given the fact that women do not have equality in our society, of course those of us who see it and don't like it are going to be upset when we're told that our continuing underrepresentation in a discipline is or may be the result of our biology. As long as discrimination exists, such talk only adds fuel to that fire. When a population is discriminated against, it is only natural that it will take any attempt to continue that discrimination seriously, and that it will protest loudly. We are in self-defense mode because we need to be. Anyone who thinks that the women's movement is irrelevant needs to open his/her eyes. Once our backs are no longer against the wall, then we can see the investigation of such scientific questions as an attempt to further knowledge, rather than another attempt to keep us down.

3) I am SICK AND TIRED of "woman" being equated with "mother." Why on earth is it a women's issue that being a real, committed parent and having a challenging career are incompatible? Where the hell are all of these childrens' fathers? Why do they not struggle with trying to hold down a job and raise their children? When this society realizes that raising children is not women's work, and when the husbands of these women who cannot have a career because they have to raise their children start making sacrifices of their own, then the workplace will be forced to change to accomodate parents.

I know that many men are wonderful husbands and fathers who do play an active role in their childrens' lives, but that has to be the norm. A women is not singled out and commended for being a wonderful wife when she chips in around the house or drives the kids to soccer. She's doing her job. Somehow, in our culture in general, the house is still the woman's domain. When this changes, when a husband and father is just considered to be doing his job when he is an equal partner in raising children and taking care of the house, then maybe the woman won't be the only one expected to "juggle" work and family. Then everyone will need to juggle, and then the workplace will change.

4) The other factors that Summers mentions are very real. I know young women in academia who are not willing to work the number of hours required to be tenured faculty--in any discipline--at institutions like Harvard. This is because these women want children, and they know that the number of hours required are nearly incompatible with raising children. This is not a problem of these women. This is a problem of the culture of these institutions. And our larger culture. The fact that men are not expected to mind making these sacrifices, while an unwillingness to make these sacrifices is expected of women, galls me. Why don't fathers agonize over not being there to raise their children!?!

This factor, Summers's first, is intimately connected to his third: discrimination. This exists. Since Summers, perhaps more than any one else in the United States, is positioned to do something about these two factors, why do we need to even speculate about a third, something that we don't have any proof of? Why not DO SOMETHING about these factors rather than make provocative speeches and otherwise maintain the status quo?

5) In disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, women are underrepresented in academia. Although a greater percentage of undergrads are women, and the numbers are roughly equal or relatively close to equal at other low levels (grad students, junior faculty, etc.) there are many, many fewer female tenured faculty across the board. Is this because women are innately less able to read, write, analyze texts, speech foreign languages, create logical arguments to express their points of view, etc., etc., than men? Is it because this innate disadvantage kicks in around the time when we are up for tenure?

Studies have shown that women are not taken as seriously as men, regardless of the quality of their work. We have few role models among the ranks of tenured faculty, women we can look at and see that someone has managed to do this juggling act that for some reason (I guess because Eve gave Adam the apple) is our special curse. And I'll say it, and I don't care if it's unfair: it's because our husbands (not mine!) still expect that we will bear the brunt of child-raising responsibilities. Even the most enlightened men I have met, without even realizing it, have been conditioned to believe that the home and family is the woman's domain.

Turning a blind eye to a problem and dismissing those who see it and refuse to shut up about it doesn't mean its not there. Summers would do well to be truly provocative and take the opportunity to really address discrimination against women at places like Harvard.