On 3/28/06, ted pedersen <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
While having a conversation with a student today I mentioned remarks
made last year by Harvard President Larry Summers on why there are
so few women at the highest levels of science. At that time I was so
dismayed and discouraged by his comments I did not have the
inclination to even discuss them, but perhaps the passage of time makes
it possible for me to think about it in a more objective light, and
perhaps see past the controversy, etc. etc. In that spirit, I went back
and looked again, ....
...and his remarks are still stupid.
So, that's the passage of time talking. :)
Anyway, for those of you that did not follow this closely here is a nice
collection of commentary and articles on this controversy.
http://www.uoregon.edu/~wmnmath/Summers/index.html
I myself am dismayed by the under representation of women in computer
science at UMD (both at the faculty and student level) and I puzzle over
why that is the case. I am not sure exactly, but if you are in a
department of Computer Science somewhere, look around and count the number
of female faculty and students. If less than 35% of the students or
faculty, then your institution has a big problem. You should not accept
this as the ways things should be, nor should you simply say "well, I
guess men and women are different and men like computers and machines and
women don't, etc. etc."
One of the things that I like so much about ACL and the associated
research community is that women are reasonably well represented, and I
think that makes it a more comfortable place for me to be. I do not
think academic conferences or academic departments should be like locker
rooms, where they boys mingle and snap each other on the backside with
wet towels. (That's an old locker room trick I learned in my youth.)
Anyway, we should probably talk about this issue more. I think I'm going
to start doing that at UMD. You should do it at your place too if you
think it's necessary (sadly, it probably is at most places).
Ted
--
Ted Pedersen
http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse
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