“Missing The Point At Harvard” … Or At The Washington Post?

Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum writes today that both Larry Summers and his critics are “missing the point.”

And what is the point? Why, it’s what interests her, not what interests them. What matters to her

is that we shift this passionate debate from the fate of a few women at Harvard to the real needs of millions of women across the country. I’d feel a lot more sympathy for Summers’s current plight if he’d said how ridiculous it is to require academics, male or female, to work 80 hours a week to get tenure. I’d feel a lot more sympathy for Summers’s feminist opponents if they spent less time worrying about their academic peers, and more time worrying about the agonizing trade-offs between work and family, and how they can be better managed in the interests of women, children and co-workers.

But somehow or other, that subject — the one that matters to most people, but the one feminists and employers find hardest to discuss — never quite becomes the center of debate.

The problem with both Summers and his critics, according to Applebaum, is that rather discussing what interests her, they instead, irresponsibly, chose “to debate whether the tiny group of men with an innate genius for advanced mathematics outnumbers the tiny group of women with the same innate talent….”

Shame on them! So, listen up all you panel organizers and meeting planners! (And, yes, that includes You even if you are planning meetings for mathematicians, physicists, engineers, Ivy League faculties, whatever.) Don’t plan your next meeting without checking with Anne first.

Say What? (6)

  1. Eric February 23, 2005 at 11:25 am | | Reply

    John-

    I love your blog and your views on the world, but I think your criticism of Ms. Applebaum is unwarrented. I think one of the big problems with the current flap at Harvard, aside from exposing the rank hypocracy of the acadmeic community, is the tempest in the teapot/much ado about nothing aspect of the problem they are looking to address. Just like the Martha Burk escapade of two years ago, there may be some serious ideological issues under discussion, but the forum and the specific greivence really don’t mean that much in the bigger picture.

    My wife would never confuse me with a feminist, but I also think that Ms. Applebaum is correct in saying that the larger quesiton of family-versus-career is not being discussed here, even though that is the main cause of this “gender achievement gap” in the workplace. Ms. Applebaum has one of the few job types I’m aware of that allows a woman to balance professional and familial duties while still achieving on a national stage.

    I think it’s misguided of you to cast aspersions on her for reminding her readership that, in this midsts of this superficial flap, there are serious issues out there that no one is talking about.

  2. Ross February 23, 2005 at 12:44 pm | | Reply

    Eric,

    Thanks for posting exactly what I wanted to say but writing it better than I would have.

  3. Jason February 23, 2005 at 12:47 pm | | Reply

    I disagree with Applebaum’s point. Not everyone wants to have a family. Those people who love their work to the extent that they devote 80 hours per week to it should not be punished for making that choice.

    If we set a rule that only work done within a 40 hour time frame per week is to be rewarded then those who choose to work 80 hours are punished.

  4. Richard Nieporent February 23, 2005 at 12:54 pm | | Reply

    I’d feel a lot more sympathy for Summers’s current plight if he’d said how ridiculous it is to require academics, male or female, to work 80 hours a week to get tenure.

    We could always solve the problem by instituting the French 35 hour work week!

    I see this as the death of excellence. If I can not or do not want to put in the time and effort to be at the top of my profession, then nobody should be allowed to do it. Maybe we should also limit the amount of hours a musician or an athlete is allowed to practice so that they don

  5. Michelle Dulak Thomson February 23, 2005 at 2:24 pm | | Reply

    Amen, Richard. What can you reasonably do about people who are passionately interested in their work? Forbid historians from spending more than 40 hours a week in the archives? Lock up the violinist’s instrument on weekends?

    If the “problem” is that more men than women are willing to work as hard as they have to to get to the top of a given profession, then I submit that there is no “problem” at all. Let the top spots go to those who do the best work — which will often (but not always) be those who put in the most effort.

    I remember a workshop on “time management” for new TAs in my department at UCB that was a source of much amusement to the students, since two of the three professors who spoke were famous — indeed, legendary — workaholics. One cheerfully explained that he cycled up an 800-foot hill every morning to wake up. The other (known around the Dept. as “The Human Amphetamine”) described setting out his tasks for the day and putting them in mental-energy-required order, so that the least important stuff (e.g., scanning newly-arrived journals for articles to set aside time to read) came at the end of the day, when he was least alert. Jesus. Freaks of nature, both of them.

    (The third professor wasn’t terribly helpful either; his principal advice, as I recall it, was to stay as far as possible away from the students — because, I mean, they get sick, and then they come to your office hour and breathe on you, and then you get sick too, and can’t get your work done. OK, dude, whatever. Glad I’m not one of your grad students.)

  6. swp February 24, 2005 at 9:26 pm | | Reply

    I excelled at math in the early 70’s when it wasn’t a particularly promising opportunity for a woman. I didn’t notice a shortage of women who excelled in math, even when my interest turn to technology women were beating down the doors. It was a lot tougher in the real work force, real violence, and real threats. Now I wonder were did the women go? I think they went into management.

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