Date: Saturday, May 2nd (1st Wk)
Time: 8pm
Location: Staircase 8 (Lecture Theatre), Pembroke College
In 2005, Lawrence Summers (then president of Harvard University), famously argued that there could be three reasons for the lack of women in high-level science and engineering positions:
(1) women were less willing than men to make the time commitment
(2) men intrinsically have more aptitude—they are simply better at science
(3) discrimination and differences in the socialization of women
In his view, the first and second reasons are more important than the third. His views raised a torrent of protests in academia and contributed to his eventual resignation from the post of Harvard president…
Was Summers simply reporting empirical, non-ideological, scientific evidence? Or do his views reflect patriarchal and sexist attitudes towards women? To what extent is it possible for scientific research about gender and sexuality to be neutral and divorced from broader social attitudes and assumptions? Are the claims of science about gender opposed to those of queer theory, or are they asking different questions?
And more generally, to what extent should “the natural world” tell us what should and shouldn’t be sexually permissible? And what are the real life consequences of these differing views on gender?
These are only some of the questions that we will be discussing at our first meeting of Trinity term. As usual, there will be drinks and crisps aplenty! Hope to see you there!
For further (totally non-required) reading, check out the following articles:
Full transcript of Summers’ remarks on women & science:
http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/summers_2005/nber.php
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505362
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/jan/18/educationsgendergap.genderissues
May 5th, 2010
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