A Glass Ceiling for the Ivory Tower

In light of the apologies Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers issued following Monday’s article in the Boston Globe, it is clear that he was not looking to show that women are inherently inferior to men in math and science during his last Friday at the National Bureau of Economic Research. But while Summers’ remarks may have been taken out of context, the comments and controversies surrounding his statements are not without merit. On the contrary, I believe that this subsequent discussion has raised some important points about the role of women in math and science, which, from my perspective as a woman studying mathematics, deserve further emphasis.

I grant that it is likely, as President Summers alleges, that he made this hypothesis “in the spirit of academic inquiry,” intending to provoke a scholarly investigation into the causes behind the current gender disparity in math and science. But while there is scientific merit in exploring these possibilities as a thought experiment conducted in private or as a controlled scientific study, the remarks at Friday’s conference fit neither of these models, despite the exclusive character of the gathering. Summers may have been invited to speak as an economist, but he cannot divorce himself from his role as the president of Harvard University. In this capacity his remarks bring political weight to bear and can have serious repercussions. In addition to the inflammatory nature of the speculations, his comments dismiss the role that prejudice plays in employment practices, a very risky move for a man who has recently come under fire for Harvard’s declining proportion of female tenure appointments.

As an economist, President Summers should recognize the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Stocks that are predicted to fail often do, and a political candidate can be aided by polls that anticipate her victory. Similarly, if men are expected to outperform women in the sciences, then this belief may affect hiring practices, and men who land high profile jobs with large research budgets will likely outshine women who have fewer resources. At the university level, male science students may be increasingly prejudiced against their female peers when forming study groups, and women looking for their academic niches might be steered toward other disciplines where they perceive they are more likely to succeed. To the extent that Harvard is seen as a model for other universities, these patterns of behavior could resonate nationwide.

While the women at last Friday’s conference were understandably provoked by President Summers’ comments, one might argue that they are not justified in taking offense at his remarks. After all, under the hypothesis that innate gender differences do exist in the scientific aptitude, it is quite possible that those women, who represent the nation’s leading scholars, were exceptions to the trend of female inferiority, and hence this belief does not directly provide a judgment on their individual merits. The same may be alleged of the Harvard female science concentrators that President Summers represents: that they are outliers, exceptions to this trend. But the fact of the matter is, the women Summers should praise will nonetheless have to deal with the repercussions of the sentiment that he expresses. Naturally, genetic predictions do not affect an individual in the sense that his or her genes might defy expectations. Discrimination based on perceived innate qualities of one sex or race does exist, as the racial “sciences” of the not-too-distant past remind us.

I am also troubled by Summers’ implied association of innate ability in science and mathematics with “innate” qualities of gender (such as a predilection to name trucks “daddy truck” and “baby truck”), both of which he ties to an individual’s biological sex. In doing so he ignores the scholarship that describes ways in which gender expression and our perceptions thereof are constructed as a result of societal practices instead of from genetic blueprints. The suggestion that gender differences affect scientific aptitude is also problematic, as it reinforces a gender hierarchy that gives preference to male behavior over female behavior and fails to recognize other genders altogether. Additionally, these beliefs promote the anti-feminist message that women are able to succeed only to the extent that they behave like men, which I would hope President Summers does not support.

As a woman who dreams of becoming a professor of mathematics, I feel personally affected by society’s perceptions of women in science. While I believe that my work as a mathematician will speak for itself, I also suspect that my path to secure employment may be more difficult in departments, such as Harvard’s, that have never had a female tenured professor of mathematics. It is important that I earn the respect of my peers, who will one day be my colleagues, for my talents and not as a statistical anomaly: a woman who is adept at mathematical reasoning. I do not expect that science and mathematics will ever be blind to gender, but obsessing over sex characteristics is not going to help end discrimination practices.

At the present time there are many theories as to why fewer women than men succeed in math and science, and until we can determine the effects of prejudice, socialization and innate biological differences on this distribution, it is important that we continue scientific research in this area. But in the meanwhile, the position of aspiring female scientists and mathematicians, like myself, is harmed by the prejudices that result from the assumption that our sex is destined to fail. Furthermore, President Summers’ expression of this hypothesis ignores the role that prejudice plays in the employment and evaluation of women in science and sets back the important work that must be done to ensure equitable hiring practices.

As we continue our struggle to solve the problem of the under-representation of women in the sciences, we should not hinder these efforts by assuming that this disparity is caused by biological factors that are beyond institutional control. We have not yet reached a place where each individual can be judged solely on her merits, and until we do, there is more work to be done.

Emily E. Riehl ’06 is a mathematics concentrator living in Adams House.