I'm just angry and scared

[cally]

So Summers, Harvard President, let's out his inner misogyny. According to him, women have an inner nature that precludes success in some fields. I respected him once. Most on DU don't support late term abortion without understanding it's about saving women's lives. We're living in a time when I think folks are expressing their real values and it scares me. It's not about equal rights but about making others less than so you can feel better about yourself.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. BINGO!

And you will see more of this... we are going back to the 16th century if they can help it

[MuseRider]

2. I too am very worried.

I do not like what I am seeing or reading in the media. I am feeling like we are speeding backward. I have not seen women portrayed like this in a long while. Perhaps I was not looking but man, I am not feeling real positive about what I am seeing right now. This thing today was mighty depressing.

[JDPriestly]

3. He should meet my daughters!

Both talented in science and math and both very feminine. Actually, we think their love of science and math was a rebellion against our love of language and the arts. If you teach women that they can do anything, they will gravitate to science and math.

[cally]

6. My mother was a chemistry major

when it was not normal for a woman to do this. It's not about talent or ability but about what is allowed in society. Whatever your daughters talents are, they will be not advocated unless we recognize all women's rights.

[G_j]

15. my mom held patents on safety systems for the first nuclear reactors

and also invented a machine that opens oysters.
This was also at a time when women were not expected to do such things. I agree, it is about our 'culture' and our 'society', period.

[madison2000]

4. Scalia was a law professor at University of Chicago before he was

appointed to the Supremes. The student newspaper printed quotes of things he had said like all women who have children should stay at home and bake cookies. Great to have a man with those views involved in the higher education of women.

[MuseRider]

12. My main advisor

at my university said the same thing only he went one step further. He said that we should not even be allowed to go to college. This is also what he said in my application to grad school.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. Clinton's economic advisor

No small wonder the status of women hasn't changed for the better in recent years.

At any rate, I have no doubt Dr Helen Caldicott would run circles around Summers academically any day of the week.

[cally]

8. Many other women would also IF GIVEN THE CHANCE

That is my worry. Too many women won't be given the chance. BTW...Summers you burned some bridges with your statements. I will work hard against you.

[DulceDecorum]

7. One of the deans at Smith College

(an East Coast finishing school for women who resent being called girls)
was asked in a public forum as to why Smith had extremely few female teaching staff.

This woman gave a rambling speech in which she basically said that women's education is categorically inferior and since Smith wants the best, they hire only men.

It gets better.

The second last president of Smith College
was asked by a group of irate alumnae to explain why
ALL the minority teaching staff,
male and female,
had quit on the same day.
She replied that they had not quit because of racism,
they had quit because of the menopause.

Thus did Mary Maples Dunn silence all critics.

(Smith was modelled after Harvard.)

[cally]

9. I got a fundraising call from a woman at my former Masters Degree

alma mater. I asked her if they had finally hired some women faculty. She was surprised I asked but the answer was no. They were still fighting the same fights we fought 20 years ago.

I'm not willing to fight the same fights. I want to make them accountable. Let's brainstorm and figure out a way to make the Summers eat their words.

[Salluc]

14. Did you go to Smith?

Could you provide a source or sources for the comments made by the dean and by Mary Maples Dunn -- were you there when either of these comments were made? I'm extremely interested as a Smith graduate. But please refrain from referring to the college as a "finishing school" -- that's insulting and demeaning to the women who have gone there or who go there now and a characterization that is extremely far from the truth. Thank you.

[DulceDecorum]

17. Spoken like a true Smithie

Who does not question the departure of the entire minority teaching staff
but rushes to the defense of the institution.
Spend some time in the Sophia Smith Collection.

Margaret Sanger, letter to Clarence Gamble, Oct. 19,1939. - Sanger manuscripts, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
http://www.scholarscorner.com/ethics/Anti-Semitism.html

And don't forget to ask about a certain incident involving a swastika in menstrual blood on the the third floor bathroom of Baldwin Dorm.

Let me go on record as saying that:
Smith College
is not healthy
for children
and other living things.

Don't get me going.
Some of us know what goes on in that hell hole.

How many womyn are teaching there at present, dearie?
And is the rubber-room in the infirmary still operative?

[Melynn]

10. I am angry and scared too.

I am starting to think that all "establishment" liberals are just closet Republicans. The implications of that thought are too frightening to contemplate.

[vixengrl]

11. Where there's bigotry, women take a hit.

"We've come a long way" doesn't really say as much as one could hope--but this steams me. I don't bench 170 lbs (although some women can--actually) but my *mind* is my equality. Biology is not some destiny dictating what women can and can not do, unless we're talking about where to pee and who to inseminate. And I thought educated people would know this much.

But "an inner nature that precludes success". What could he possibly mean?

Oh, math and science, I guess. Well, tell these women:



http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000ws/summary.shtml


The Marie Curies, Barbara McClintocks, Hypatias and Florence Nightengales thank him for his opinion. Nonetheless, they did all right, for girls.

[TrustingDog]

13. kick

[fortyfeetunder]

16. A call for generations.

Summers is vocalizing what many are probably saying in private. If we don't challenge these folks, we are doomed to join the backward slide to reduced rights.

All Women know we must refuse to be defined by one person, regardless of station and intellect.

The young women, who thought there was no need for feminism, and can make it on their own, should be aware that if they choose to ignore what Summers and others say, will be forced to repeat the trials we geezers had to endure before we got respect.

Us old folks have to impart on the younger ones that, OK, maybe you weren't born yet when we fought for the right to vote, civil rights, Roe V. Wade, Title IX, affirmative action, etc. but you benefited from it all and it's your responsibility to sustain it for future generations. It's like an endless relay race, we'll hold the baton and want you to take your turn.