Lawrence Summers Real Slap to Women

Lawrence Summers Real Slap to Women

"Harvard to
Hire Token Women" from Outside the Beltway as well as Michelle
Malkin discusses Lawrence Summers alleged caving in to campus activists
by forking over $50 million to increase diversity on campus - ostensibly beefing
up the hiring of women in key areas. This was done in response to some runimations
he uttered at some think tank, conference type session in which he posed the
thought that perhaps women are inherently not as hard-wired in the hard sciences
areas such as physics, chemistry, etc..

But another remark he made was more offensive - in which he allegedly noted
that women were not able or willing to put in the 80 hour work weeks - perhaps
due to child rearing resposibilities.

This continued denigration of the role of parenting by all manner of elites
demonstrates real stupidity about the consequences of not valuing child rearing
as critical to our nation's future.

Numerous stuides, usually trotted out around Mothers' Day as well as piles
of anecdotal evidence, offers overwhelmin testimony to the hours and dollar
values that can be assigned to the daily labors that parents - mostly mothers
- perform. Yet the elites seem to feel that this contribution is of lesser value
than manipulating the stock market, pushing a new widget, or bloviating in an
op-ed on some semi-important issue such as Congressional travel expenses or
the latest hiccup on global warming.

Schmaltzy shibboleths about children being our future take on the hard edge
of reality in an era where we depend on the younger generation to either contribute
to Social Security or provide such a vibrant economy that personal accounts
will overflow with value. This does not happen without a work force that is
finely honed for global competition from early on. The most important education
takes place in the pre-school years and yet we consistently entrust our children
to often low paid day care or parent substitutes for short term gains. Even
in elementary and high school, too many children are left untended.

Our children are our most important national and economic security investment
and attitudes such as Mr. Summers expressed are in direct contradiction to this
fact. Perhaps some of the $50 million should be spent in finding ways to support
good child rearing, increase respect for parenting and in exploring ways for
parents to be good parents and part of the work force - regardless of their
jobs or genders.

 

Comments

[Larry]

What college professor works 80 hours a week?!?