"Everyone" knows girls aren't good at math

Reaction to Harvard president Larry Summers' remarks to the effect that men are hard-wired to do better in the sciences than women has been all over the web. I don't want to see the man made the subject of a feminist jihad, but I can certainly see why a female scientist would be irritated. So what if most other women's eyes glaze over at the thought of equations and computer models. I happen to be one of those blank gazers, but I can see that if a woman's area of expertise is in the sciences, it must be infuriating to deal with men who assume they know more than you because "everyone knows women don't do the math/science thing."

I understand that Summers was just offering an explanation as to why there were not more women in the sciences and his point probably accounts for some of the gap, but really... can he be surprised by the reaction? I know he didn't intend to, but he told every female scientist in the room that they were either not as smart as the men, or they were freakish women, since women don't do science. Hmmm, maybe that was his male lack of verbal ability coming into play.

I could go on, but I have that stereotypical sick kid to take care of. Check out Sissy Willis on the topic. Great site, even if she does blog like a girl.

By the way, I happen to fit this stereotype of women pretty well. I don't do the math thing at all and I only do the science thing a little. However, my daughter is so much like her father (the professor of mechanical engineering) that I have a feeling we will be dealing with this issue in the future.