To the Editor:
When I read the front page article describing Kathy Paur's talk about gender equality in the Harvard math department ("Paur questions stigmas, discusses Summers flap," May 16) I had to laugh out loud. I would like to challenge her accusations with my own personal experiences. I would like to ask whether Ms. Paur has ever actually gotten to know a professor in the Harvard math department? My family is saturated with complete and total gender equality. When I was still too young to read, my father often read fairy tales and Greek myths to me, but would change the male hero into a heroine, such as Jacqueline and the Beanstalk, Herculina, etc., enough to make the most hardcore feminist blush. When I entered grade school, my father would come into my classroom once a month for "enrichment math and science," and he was every little girl's advocate and motivator toward these subjects. If anyone tried to tell me I wasn't good enough at math or science, my father would fly into a rage and march right down to my school system, to my ultimate embarassment.
My father is now currently the chair of the Harvard math department, and this is why I laugh at Ms. Paur's accusations of sexism. I grew up roaming the halls of that department, spitting off the balconies and scribbling on the blackboards, and let me tell you, there just isn't any sexism. At all. The professers are the sweetest, kindest, craziest bunch of -- mostly -- men that I have met, and their goal is to show everyone to love math the way they do, regardless of gender. I would like to pose this question to all those who are outraged by President Summers' opinions on male presdisposition: why fight it? The pure fact of the matter is, the people who are doing the most interesting, fascinating, intriguing, boundary-pushing, out-there mathematics are men. Period. Why is this? Well, it certainly isn't because Harvard discriminates against women. Perhaps, just perhaps -- just let down your gaurd for an instant, feminists -- perhaps men are biologically predisposed towards mathematics. So what? That's the way humans are wired, so stop trashing poor Harvard President Lawrence Summers for just pointing out hard, cold scientific evidence. Take it from me, the daughter of an extreme feminist and the Harvard math chair who is going into science herself -- Harvard isn't to blame -- and women, just face it and get over it: human biology is sexist.
