Women: the Weaker Stronger Gender!

The unique nature of women has made the news multiple times this week. Or should I say, suppositions regarding their unique nature have popped up among people who certainly must know them best: elite, middle aged white guys.

First up is Harvard president Laurence Summers, who intimated at an academic conference that perhaps there could be a biological reason at least partially behind data showing males more prone to very high or very low scores in math and science. Summers defended himself in yesterday's NYT article, but I suspect the cheese has already leaked out of that burrito, and the results were unappetizing:

Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who once led an investigation of sex discrimination there that led to changes in hiring and promotion, walked out midway through Dr. Summers's remarks.

"When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill," Dr. Hopkins said. "Let's not forget that people used to say that women couldn't drive an automobile."

I find the mixed metaphor somewhat amusing (does getting a stomachache keep you from breathing?), but you've gotta expect people to be a little senstitive to the idea that women are biologically less suited to an entirely intellectual endeavor. Summers tried to save himself by noting that men are taller than women, a defense that explains the NBA, but not so much the faculty at MIT.  On the other hand, if you can't throw out ideas for discussion at an academic conference, where can you? I think it's a pretty absurd proposition, but if that's so, then the truth will surely out sooner rather than later.

Next, Bobomeister David Brooks scurries around the margins of biological determinism, trying to appear thoughtful and sympathetic to Gallup survey results indicating 70% of childless women over 40 regret their "decision" to be childless. Not finding any reference to such a survey burbling about on the wires, I registered for a trial subscription at Gallup itself. If you want to do the same, seek out "Desire to Have Children Alive and Well in America" from August of 2003.  Using a search phrase of "women over 40 children" (no quotes) yielded only this one survey. There is a question asked of adults over 40 who do not have children: If you had to do it over again, how many children would you have, or would you not have any at all?

Let's assume that Brooks gets his 70% figure by subtracting the 24% who said "none," to get a roundable 66% who would have had children.  OK, fine--but there are three sizable problems with his conclusion:

1) The question was asked of men AND women, not just women.
2) The question was asked of just 90 respondents, with a resulting 11-point margin of error.  In my job as a statistical analyst, my advice to people who want to make serious judgements on popular opinion based on fewer than 100 responses is: DON'T.
3) I suppose it's plausibly fair to take this question and consider the desire to have children after not having had any "regret," but it's by no means a given. For example, a woman who finds herself unable to conceive (whether on her reproductive ability or her partner's)  may say she'd have children given the chance to do it over again...but regret not being ABLE to have kids, rather than regretting a DECISION to not have kids.

Now, Brooks does beg off the idea that all 70% are cursing the poor decision trees of their youth, but that doesn't keep him from leaping into the latest in a series of articles bemoaning the lack of babies in this country. I'll leave alone for now the "baby gap" argument from his Red Diaper Babies missive, but this appears to be another attempt to take dubious demographic trends, and apply them to contemporary political themes. Why do I say dubious? In the same survey Brooks appears to cite, Gallup declares that having children continues to be an overwhelming desire of Americans--to the tune of 96% of all adults (have them, want to have them, wish they had them).  So in that vein, worrying that we need to create financial incentives for young women to drop their careers so that we can have more babies is, how shall I put this, stupid. Unless of course, you're trying to convince people that if we don't become more pro-procreative, Social Security is bound for the dustbin of history. Jennifer Saba at Editor and Publisher takes her own shots at Brooks in this piece. Anyhow, I hope he didn't read of the Summers dustup, since he's likely to claim that as further evidence that career women should stop trying to be as outstanding as men, and just churn out the pups.

Finally,  Bill Thomas is a popular guy among liberals today for saying that the President's Social Security plans are likely DOA if presented as-theorized. But--hat tip Josh Marshall--Thomas has a different plan: cut benefits for women, because they live longer. That's not fair! Damn women! But why cut benefits? That's too politically risky. All we need to do is decide whether to redouble our efforts in the medical community to improve the well being of males ...or just start "harvesting" senior women until we reach the proper equilibrium. As Larry Summers might say, "Hey, sure it SOUNDS crazy and repugnant, but let's not dismiss the idea until we've done the research!"

--TJ

 

Comments

[Mac Diva]

How can half the population be "unique"? Many adjectives can be applied to women, but I don't think unique fits them as a group.

Good debunking of David Brooks. Telling that he went to the trouble of making up data to fit what he wanted to say. I also read at a 'race realist' blog I monitor that Brooks was lamenting the lack of white births, not births in general. That seems clearer in the earlier article. (I just checked, and some blogs, Including Tapped, pick up on the race angle.)

I also suspect there is a significant proportion of people who regret having children, or at least having the children they had. Not something folks want to think about, though-:).

What Bill Thomas is saying about Social Security isn't feasible. Real Equal Protection problems there.

[Torrid]

women are uniquely suited to childbirth, for instance. Their pelvises are unique. Etc. And I plead that the news has indeed been about the uniqueness of women, insofar as they sought biogenetic reasons to explain behavior.