Summers would tell you that women don’t have the necessary “intrinsic aptitude”. Of course the intrinsic aptitude in question is being able to participate in a nepotistic boy’s club.
What Summers would point out is that boys do better at maths, which is true. In fact, in the UK, the only time boys have had worse results in maths was when exams were cancelled during Covid and teachers (hint: primarily female) were allowed to dish out grades. Girls suddenly shot ahead. When exams resumed, boys took the lead again.
But don't notice anything from that. That would be sexist, right Anton?
First, Summers’ sexist claims were much broader than that.
Second, yes, you are being sexist, and irrational. What you’re doing is exactly the same as the reasons that it’s racist and irrational to say “whites are better at x”.
You’re cherry picking data to examine, to reach a conclusion that you want to reach. You’re ignoring relevant causal factors - or any causal factors at all, in fact, aside from the spurious correlation you’ve assumed in your conclusion.
You’re ignoring decades of research on the subject - although in your defense, you’re probably just not aware of it.
Most irrationally of all, you’re generalizing across an entire group, selected by a factor that’s only indirectly relevant to the property you’re incorrectly generalizing about.
As such, “sexist” is just a symptom of fundamentally confused and under-informed thinking.
Actually, Summer's claims were much narrower - he said that boys tend to deviate from the mean more. That is, it's not that men are superior, it's that there are more boy geniuses and more boy idiots.
Decades of research shows that teachers give girls better grades than boys of the same ability. This is not some new revelation.
A whole cohort of boys got screwed over by the cancellation of exams during Covid. That is just reality, and no amount of creepy male feminist posturing is going to change that. Rather, denying issues in boys education is liable to increase male resentment and bitterness, something we've already witnessed over the past few years.
I quoted one of the unsupported claims that Summers made - that "there are issues of intrinsic aptitude" which help explain lower representation of women. Not, you know, millennia of sexism and often violent oppression. This is the exact same kind of arguments that racists make - any observed differences must be "intrinsic".
If Summers had in fact limited himself to the statistical claims, it would have been less of an issue. He would still have been wrong, but he wouldn't have been so obviously sexist.
It's easy to refute Summers' claims, and in fact conclude that the complete opposite of what he was saying is more likely true. "Gender, Culture, and mathematics performance"(https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0901265106) gives several examples that show that the variability as well as male-dominance that Summers described is not present in all cultures, even within the US - for example, among Asian American students in Minnesota state assessments, "more girls than boys scored above the 99th percentile." Clearly, this isn't an issue of "intrinsic aptitude" as Summers claimed.
> A whole cohort of boys got screwed over by the cancellation of exams during Covid.
I'm glad we've identified the issue that triggered you. But your grievances on that matter are utterly irrelevant to what I wrote.
> no amount of creepy male feminist posturing is going to change that
It's always revealing when someone arguing against bigotry is accused of "posturing". You apparently can't imagine that someone might not share your prejudices, and so the only explanation must be that they're "posturing".
> increase male resentment and bitterness
That's a choice you've apparently personally made. I'd recommend taking more responsibility for your own life.
> which help explain lower representation of women
Yes, they do help explain that. This does not preclude other influences. You can't go two sentences without making a logical error, it's quite pathetic.
I'll do you a favour and disregard the rest of your post - you deviate from the mean a bit too much for this to be worth it. Just try not to end up like Michael Kimmel, lol.
> You’re cherry picking [...] You’re ignoring relevant causal factors [...] You’re ignoring decades of research [...] you’re generalizing
You're very emphatic in ignoring common sense. You don't need studies to see that almost all important contributions to mathematics, from Euclid to the present day, have come from men. I don't know if it's because of genetics, culture, or whatever, but it's the truth.
> you are being sexist [...] it’s racist and irrational [...]
Not sure "elected" is the right way of looking at it. More like "selected" or "nominated" by Sam/MSFT perhaps. His main qualification may be that he's an adult?
