Ok, so maybe this is a bit late...but I just really had to say something...
Dr. Lawrence Summers,
What do you have against women? Who would have thought that someone as educated and refined as you would make such an outrageous claim? Okay, here's the given: men and women have different cognitive abilities. One of the few differences is that men have better spatial reasoning. But that definitely does not mean that women cannot excel in the fields of science and engineering! Women can crunch numbers with the best of them. Newsflash, buddy...this is 2005. Women don't just belong in the kitchen anymore like one of those print ads in the 50's. I'm sure you've seen many such ads in your lifetime - a woman wearing an apron, a fresh-baked pie in one hand and the laundry basket in the other. Yet, for some strange reason, she still smiles and still has enough time to make her hair look perfect! Women nowadays juggle a whole lot more, yet you still find a way to undermine our accomplishments. I do have much respect and admiration for stay-at-home moms who pretty much put their lives and careers on hold to care for their families, but society needs to shake off the mental picture of the traditional woman. And to think that I actually wanted to go to Harvard...
Of course, you wouldn't admit that all this has nothing to do with the fact that during your presidency, the jobs offered to women in your beloved university dropped from 36% to 13%. Not to mention that only 4 out of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women. It's not that we can't, it's because you won't let us! It is the preconceived gender roles that limits what we can truly do.
You can apologize all you want. But the beauty and the beast of the spoken word is that you can never take it back.
More info:
http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02/18/421599f7efe11
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/20/MNG9RAT84I1.DTL
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