Brad DeLong's Website: Academic Filters...: Matthew Yglesias asks a good question: Why are people talking about what Larry Summers said were his "guesses" about gender, genetics, and math achievement? Why aren't people talking about the main point of Larry Summers's talk on the underrepresentation of women in high-prestige prize academic jobs?:
Matthew Yglesias: Summers Redux: Now that the full text of the speech is out, I'm surprised so much of the discussion has focused on the genetics issue to the [exclusion of the] number one [most important] item on the Summers list [of reasons for the underrepresentation of women] -- women's alleged unwillingness to work long hours because they're too busy having kids and taking care of them. This is, I think, undoubtedly a major factor...
I do think that Matt is too glib in characterizing what is Larry's main point. The process of climbing to the top of the professoriate is structured as a tournament, in which the big prizes go to those willing to work the hardest and the smartest from their mid-twenties to their late thirties. Given our society (and our biology), a man can enter this tournament this without foreclosing many life possibilities: they can marry someone who will bear the burden of being for a decade a "happily married single parent," or they can decompress in their late thirties, look around, marry someone five years younger, have their family, and then live the leisured life of the theory class--or not. But given our society (and our biology), a woman cannot enter this particular academic tournament without running substantial risks of foreclosing many life possibilities if she decides to postpone her family, and a woman cannot enter this particular academic tournament without feeling--and being--at a severe work intensity-related handicap if she does not postpone her family.
In order to make progress, you have to either alter society (and perhaps biology) substantially, or back away from the work-intensity tournament model of choosing people for the high-prestige prize academic slots. But everyone in the debate wants to hold onto the tournament model--either because it justifies their current high-prestige position or because they fear that calling for change will get them a reputation as not being intellectually serious. Few want to call for root-and-branch reorganizations of society for fear of being dismissed as utopian dreamers. And so there are few voices saying that the problem of the disparate impact of the tournament system is a dire and severe one. It's better not to talk about it. What good could come from rocking the boat, and making the senior faculty face the possibility that fixing things might actually disturb their lives somewhat? Instead, pretend that things can be fixed with a little more affirmative action at the assistant professor level, and perhaps some extra committee meetings.
I think it is greatly to Larry Summers's credit that he did say that there are real problems and dilemmas here--that he did not stand up in front of that audience and say that real progress was being made, and that everything would be fixed soon with a little more affirmative action at the assistant professor level and perhaps some extra committee meetings. University administrators willing to think about real problems and issues--rather than focusing on keeping the senior faculty quiet as matters drift--are rare, and are badly needed. And I say this as someone who thinks that Summers's views on gender, genetics, and math achievement are almost certainly wrong, are unsupported, and should not be pushed forward by somebody who is twenty years beyond the stage of his career where you throw out lots of unfiltered ideas in the belief that what matters is the quality of your best one.
I am, after all, the parent of a mathematically precocious daughter. I now have less than a decade to build a society that is properly open to her use of her talents. Put me down as demanding a backing-away from the work-intensity tournament model.
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