Ah, thanks for posting that. I've been wondering when a transcript would hit the streets. At least Summers released it himself rather than hide it.

I like how he tries to mend what he is saying by using comments like, "I hope I'm wrong, I wish this wasn't true."

"I guess my experience with my two and a half year old twin daughters who were not given dolls and who were given trucks, and found themselves saying to each other, look, daddy truck is carrying the baby truck, tells me something."

I don't even know where to start with this.

"And it is a fact about our society that that is a level of commitment that a much higher fraction of married men have been historically prepared to make than of married women."

Women are just too darned domestic to ever work 80 hour weeks. Fathers, on the other hand, have little interest in their families so will work 80 hours a week without batting an eye.

Also:
"I noticed it's being recorded so I hope that we'll be able to have a copy of it. That would be nice.

LHS: We'll see. (LAUGHTER)"

And the transcript is coming out how long afterwards?

It's actually worse than I thought it would be.

Wow i guess I am a real wierdo. I wonder if being good at math and science makes me a man.

Apparently this jerk has a history of bigotry at Harvard, including offending the head of their African Studies department (or something of the sort) within his first few months and hiring very very few women professors.

And to this point the people that acutally make the calls regarding this guy's future at Harvard are backing him, that is the sickest part in my opinion.

Here is a great article on the kind of discrimination women face in scientific academia. (Washington Post, registration required. Is there a disjointed login to use?)

The author points out how subtle it can be, and gives good examples.

After getting my degree in math, I decided that when I studied math I put too much pressure on myself. For the last two years of my studies, I was the only woman in most of my math classes. Of course these were very small classes and there was nowhere to hide, so everyone was under a lot of pressure. But now I have to wonder if I put even more pressure on myself because I was the only woman in the room (I never had a female math prof). I felt like if I fell behind, then it would prove to everyone that women couldn't do math at the same level as men.

I remember happily telling a fellow student in a class that I had gotten an A the previous quarter. He dismissively said, "Psht. He gave everybody A's last quarter." It was like my getting an A had tarnished his A.

Maybe that's an over-reactive presumption, but when you're the only woman in the class, it's hard not to wonder if everything that happens is a reflection of your gender. Or to wonder if everything you do reflects on your gender.

Before I begin, let me say that I know that no one cares about a white male complaining about anything. ; )

I'd have to say that a lot of it is in your head.

I'm working on my masters in computer science right now and as a white male I am by far the minority in my classes. Last semester I had a class with 18 students and I was the only white student. My instructor was also white and I always felt like he gave me an extra hard time compared to the other students. Looking back, I think a lot of it was all in my head -- my own insecurities about feeling like I had something to prove.

Oh, I know it was in my head. But that doesn't invalidate it as an experience.

The article I mentioned talked a lot about how many women will get educations in these male-dominated subjected and then choose to do something else. After I read the article I realized that I fit in that pattern.

The assumption (made, for example by Larry Summers) is that women choose not to pursue their careers in the field simply because they would rather raise children.

When I was a math student, it was difficult for me to envision a career in mathematics. Now I wonder if not having any female teachers or fellow female students was a part of that. Because now I work in a female-dominated workplace and I am excited about pursuing further education and a career.

Oh, and I should make it clear that I don't mean to be complaining. I'm viewing my choices through a particular lens to gain understanding of the issues at hand. I think it's a valuable thing for anyone to do.

I can't get past the "Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture" line. Has anyone pointed out to him that Jews weren't allowed to own land for hundreds of years, so that might be the reason they don't have a farming tradition?

But, I will throw my two cents in on the importance of having female role models; it makes a huge difference. If I didn't have a female boss at my first internship, I wouldn't have stayed in engineering. And, if I didn't see working mothers in my daily environment, I would switch jobs/careers.

Karen, can you email me the post article?

Women in Physics Match Men in Success:

http://nytimes.com/2005/02/22/science/22phys.html

Summers has to meet with the FAS this afternoon, though the no-confidence vote threat probably won't happen. I've been working on an NHJL segment for tonight on women in science; we talked to Julie Gerberding about it--she was awesome.

JG: "there was a point in my professional development when I was at a university where I really did feel almost like giving up, because I was told by someone in a position of authority that the field I was engaged in, epidemiology, was not really a science and that as a woman if I wanted to be eligible for tenure I would need to find a different discipline because I would have two strikes against me. I was very discourged, and very very tearful, and then I got mad. And then I got energized and I said no, that's not right, I'm a competent scientist, I'm going to be the best I can be."