Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard University, recently stirred controversy by suggesting that women's relatively weaker performance in science and mathematics might be due to innate differences between the sexes. He later followed those comments with apologies and clarifications.
Some of the conflicting evidence on this complex issue is recapped in a Jan 24 New York Times article, Gray Matter and the Sexes: Still a Scientific Gray Area [password required]. Among other things, the research indicates that: "Neuroscientists have shown that women's brains are about 10% smaller than men's, on average, even after accounting for women's comparatively smaller body size.... [But] size aside, some evidence suggests that 'female' brains are relatively more endowed with 'gray matter' - the prized neurons thought to do the bulk of the brain's thinking - while men's brains are packed with more 'white matter,' the tissue between neurons." Unfortunately, this may be an area where attitude trumps evidence. According to the Times article:
A recent experiment showed that when Princeton students were asked to evaluate two highly qualified candidates for an engineering job - one with more education, the other with more work experience - they picked the more educated candidate 75 percent of the time. But when the candidates were designated as male or female, and the educated candidate bore a female name, suddenly she was preferred only 48 percent of the time.
Comments