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Remember Larry Summers of Harvard, who took some heat last summer because he suggested that women didn't generally get as far in the sciences because they were not, well, men? Not that there was any institutionalized bias against women in the sciences, but that, well, the DNA lacks that necessary science gene? You will notice that Larry Summers is no longer president of Harvard, too.
Well, if you'd sat down and thought it out with both hands you couldn't come up with a better antidote than Ben A. Barres. Barres is now a neurobiologist at Stanford. Nine years ago he underwent gender reassignment: when he was at MIT he was Barbara. And he was taking notes. My favorite: "As an undergrad at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," Barres wrote, "I was the only person in a large class of people of nearly all men to solve a hard math problem, only to be told by the professor that my boyfriend must have solved it for me. I was not given any credit."
Of course Summers would probably say that that was MIT, not Harvard, so it doesn't count. Oh, wait: Summer's not at Harvard any more.
Well, if you'd sat down and thought it out with both hands you couldn't come up with a better antidote than Ben A. Barres. Barres is now a neurobiologist at Stanford. Nine years ago he underwent gender reassignment: when he was at MIT he was Barbara. And he was taking notes. My favorite: "As an undergrad at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," Barres wrote, "I was the only person in a large class of people of nearly all men to solve a hard math problem, only to be told by the professor that my boyfriend must have solved it for me. I was not given any credit."
Of course Summers would probably say that that was MIT, not Harvard, so it doesn't count. Oh, wait: Summer's not at Harvard any more.