Lecturer rebutts Summers' views on women

Author: Caroline Vial

On Oct. 13, Dr. Carla Fehr's lecture "Are Smart Men Smarter Than Smart Women?" created a twist in the heated debate set by the chilling remarks of Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers on the inherent differences between men and women in the sciences, at an academic conference in Jan. 2005. As the well-attended lecture was fittingly co-sponsored by the departments of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies, Fehr rebutted the hypotheses that fewer women are likely to succeed in science and math careers - and whose critics are to be labeled "activists" - through a philosophical approach: the Epistemology of Ignorance.

"Our culture's ignorance about women's intellectual abilities persists in the minds of even the most educated people, in the face of vast bodies of evidence," said Fehr about her non-scientific approach to the problem. By comparing societal conceptions of gender roles to the theories of Charles Mills' "The Racial Contract," Fehr established that there are three types of ignorance. There are gaps in our knowledge about the world such as topics that we believe we know, but in fact do not really know, who we count as a good listener and most significantly, the systems that create gaps and disqualify knowers. Fehr stressed the use of academics as a tool to avoid engaging in a discussion of knowledge.

"Lawrence Summers' remarks regarding men's and women's scientific abilities are examples of the Epistemology of Ignorance in action," Fehr said.

In a synthesis of scholarship on why there is such a small number of woman in high-level positions in science and engineering, Summers gave three related explanations last January. In declining order of importance, the first was the inability or reluctance of women who have children to work 80-hour weeks. The second point was that fewer women than men have top scores on math and science aptitude tests in high school. His third point was about discrimination. If the main factor limiting the advancement of women in science was discrimination, then an institution that does not discriminate would benefit from hiring the top women who were discriminated against elsewhere. Fehr argued that the preconceptions behind Summers' claims exemplify her Epistemology of Ignorance theory, by which individuals encourage a generalized cultural perception of women's scientific abilities and therefore hurt the practice of science itself.

There are many preconceptions, according to Fehr, that led scholars to decide that the critics of Summers were wrong. The organizer of last January's conference, Harvard economist Richard B. Freeman, described Summers' critics as "activists" whose "sensibilities might be at odds with intellectual debate." These remarks, from which Fehr ironically inferred that "knowledge makes you stupid," also demonstrates the deeply-rooted social norms that are attributed to men and women.

These misconceptions are reasons for dismissing Summers' critics, according to Fehr, by using generalizing labels and encouraging a societal ignorance of women's scientific potential. Scholars have also misunderstood the reasoning of Summers' critics, by categorizing them as denying biological differences, as considering cross-gender biological research politically-incorrect, or using a "liberal agenda" to limit free speech and academic freedom.

"Men and women who genuinely do not consider themselves sexist," Fehr added, "consistently under-recognize the abilities of women." To illustrate this claim, she instructed the audience to close their eyes and to imagine a math wiz. After most of the participants probably envisioned a male math wiz, Fehr convincingly demonstrated that "powerful gender schemas block our view of women's math abilities."

In a curve that traced the variations of competency among men and women on math SAT exams, Fehr pointed out that there are more men than women at the extreme tails of the distribution. In other words, men tend to be smarter, yet also stupider than women. Only the results at the upper end of that curve, however, served to back the research put forward by Summers. Fehr argued that not only do test scores still need to be correlated with career success in science - it was proven that female engineers are also more likely to score higher than male engineers - but that social variables can explain differences in test results as well as employment patterns. While unveiling the "bodies of evidence" that are often overlooked by scholars in the field, Fehr strove to prove once more that all individuals attach gender without any conscious realization.

"When most people think of being sexist or racist," Julina Rundberg '06 said, "they think of specific acts that they would have to commit in order to classify themselves as sexist or racist. What we often fail to realize is just how pervasive oppressive systems are." Rundberg added that "pulling the biology card is another way of buttressing this system of ignorance."

Fehr stressed the necessity of accepting women in the scientific realm. "This ignorance also hurts the practice of science itself," said Fehr, who asserted the need to maximize "epistemic diversity," or the ability to represent as many theoretical perspectives as possible in different fields of investigation. Without such a diversity of understanding, "prudent women may censor themselves" in their jobs as scientists and engineers, which would lead to a chilling effect in the scientific community.

Visiting Associate Professor of Economics Ann Marie May, commented, "It is also important to have women of color and students of color in the classroom and developing the research, to foment an active production of knowledge [...] The notion of knowledge can certainly change depending on who does the research."