requiem for harvard
I just heard the most astonishing “debate” on the radio between Sean Hannity and some 21 year old Harvard student named Amy about the Larry Summers imbroglio. Now, admittedly, Sean isn’t the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but he tried earnestly and patiently to get Amy to answer one simple question: Are there any inherent, innate differences between men and women? Instead of answering with a simple Yes or No and using that answer as a starting point to discuss the subject, Amy would go off on a rant about how Summers needed to be fired because he wasn’t doing enough to promote and protect the women teachers and students at Harvard.
Sean: That’s not what I asked, Amy. I’m sure that’s an interesting subject, but it’s not why Mr. Summers has come under fire. He’s come under fire because he speculated that there might be biological reasons that women are under-represented in math and the sciences. So I repeat: are there any innate differences between boys and girls, men and women?
Amy: Yes. Men have more power than women in this society, blah blah blah.
Sean: But that’s not an innate difference. Are there any innate, biological differences between men and women? Any at all.
Amy: Evolutionary biologists have long ago established that biological changes must be seen in context, Sean, and you’re asking me to take them out of context, which is that at Harvard as in most of corporate America, men have all the power and women blah blah blah.
Sean: This isn’t a tough question, Amy. Biological differences. Between men and women. For instance, are men generally stronger than women? Taller than women?
Amy: That’s completely irrelevant. You’re asking me to give you an answer out of context. What’s relevant is that the white male power structure, blah blah blah.
What struck me about Amy’s “answers” in this “debate” is how terrified she must be at some deep and inaccessible level of her “mind” not to be able to mouth the phrase, Yes of course there are differences. I have no doubt that if Sean had asked her if men, in general, have penises, and women, in general, have vaginas, she’d have figured out a way to avoid saying a simple Yes.
Amy couldn’t admit the obvious because it was the Slippery Slope.
If you can admit that men, on average, are taller than women, or stronger, then it’s only a matter of time before you might have to admit men have more testosterone, that little boys like to play with guns and swords more than little girls, that they’re more fascinated with the inner workings of machines than little girls are, and that these obvious differences may have something to do with the way little boys and little girls are wired, and that the way they are wired may have something to do with the fact that boys tend to do better in math and girls tend to have larger vocabularies and better language skills.
Hard-wired differences between men and women?! Surely not!
Amy doesn't realize it, but this is a matter of faith for her. The actual inconvenient facts, available to any parent with a set of eyes, don't matter.
Amy is no different than the strict Creationist who won’t admit that men and women walked the earth 40,000 years ago because the Bible, inconveniently, puts the date of creation at 4004 B.C.
Carbon dating? What's that?
And what’s Larry Summers apologizing to these people for?
Sean: That’s not what I asked, Amy. I’m sure that’s an interesting subject, but it’s not why Mr. Summers has come under fire. He’s come under fire because he speculated that there might be biological reasons that women are under-represented in math and the sciences. So I repeat: are there any innate differences between boys and girls, men and women?
Amy: Yes. Men have more power than women in this society, blah blah blah.
Sean: But that’s not an innate difference. Are there any innate, biological differences between men and women? Any at all.
Amy: Evolutionary biologists have long ago established that biological changes must be seen in context, Sean, and you’re asking me to take them out of context, which is that at Harvard as in most of corporate America, men have all the power and women blah blah blah.
Sean: This isn’t a tough question, Amy. Biological differences. Between men and women. For instance, are men generally stronger than women? Taller than women?
Amy: That’s completely irrelevant. You’re asking me to give you an answer out of context. What’s relevant is that the white male power structure, blah blah blah.
What struck me about Amy’s “answers” in this “debate” is how terrified she must be at some deep and inaccessible level of her “mind” not to be able to mouth the phrase, Yes of course there are differences. I have no doubt that if Sean had asked her if men, in general, have penises, and women, in general, have vaginas, she’d have figured out a way to avoid saying a simple Yes.
Amy couldn’t admit the obvious because it was the Slippery Slope.
If you can admit that men, on average, are taller than women, or stronger, then it’s only a matter of time before you might have to admit men have more testosterone, that little boys like to play with guns and swords more than little girls, that they’re more fascinated with the inner workings of machines than little girls are, and that these obvious differences may have something to do with the way little boys and little girls are wired, and that the way they are wired may have something to do with the fact that boys tend to do better in math and girls tend to have larger vocabularies and better language skills.
Hard-wired differences between men and women?! Surely not!
Amy doesn't realize it, but this is a matter of faith for her. The actual inconvenient facts, available to any parent with a set of eyes, don't matter.
Amy is no different than the strict Creationist who won’t admit that men and women walked the earth 40,000 years ago because the Bible, inconveniently, puts the date of creation at 4004 B.C.
Carbon dating? What's that?
And what’s Larry Summers apologizing to these people for?
posted by patrickhenry at 6:27 PM
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