"Ian"  wrote in message
news:1107217230.041609.221060{at}f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> "...also an outspoken feminist. She made a name for herself in the
> mid-1990s by charging that MIT discriminated against female scientists,
> allotting them less lab space and giving them fewer plum assignments.
> Hopkins later led a university-appointed group to study her own
> charges, which -- surprise, surprise -- found gender discrimination at
> MIT "subtle but pervasive," even though the group's report fell short
> of offering evidence of such discrimination in differential salaries,
> for example. The report nonetheless concluded that gender bias "stems
> largely from unconscious ways of thinking that have been socialized
> into all of us, men and women alike.
>
> Summers, an economist, would have trouble accepting that kind of
> explanation. As he explained to the NBER conferees, if a school
> practiced that kind of discrimination against women, another school
> would gain an advantage by hiring them away. Since there is no evidence
> that is happening, Summer told the Globe "the real issue is the overall
> size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was
> held down by discrimination."
>
> He may not have won any friends among the women-as-perennial-victims
> set, but Summers deserves high marks for opening up for debate some of
> the shibboleths of academe. "
>
The BBC recently covered the Summers story on Newsnight - the introduction
to their 'unbiased' reporting on the matter started with mocking music and
bits of Harry Enfields 50's 'mockumentry' "Women Know Your Limits". It was
one of the most blatantly biased news reports I have ever seen - even for
the BBC!!! Of course Nancy Hopkins got to put her POV across but not one of
her detractors was interviewed much less Summers himself. The way the piece
was presented gave the impression that Summers was merely 'trying to set the
clock back' and his views were based only on ignorance and 'Old
fashioned'paternalism. At the time I couldn't get on line (my power supply
unit had packed in - now replaced by a more robust unit!)to express my
disgust and outrage at this latest example of how our licence fee is being
used to blatantly support an overt feminist agenda.

Phil




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