The article reads as if because of political correctness it HAS to be true that there are no differences in intellectual capacity between men and women. It also misrepresents Summer's quote - I think what he said is that the distribution might be different, he never said women can not be as smart as men.
I don't know if there are differences, but I think it's very wrong to assume there aren't just because it seems modern and politically correct. Especially since the alternative theories put forward to explain lack of women in maths or CS are usually harmful, heavily prejudiced and inflammatory. And barking up the wrong tree is unlikely to solve the problem (for example if billions are spent to fight assumed sexism and sexism isn't even the cause).
It's also funny that whenever there is a job which seems to call for "women's strengths" nobody has qualms to claim "women are better at x" (say empathy, risk management, relationships, whatever). I wish people would at least make up their mind, do they believe there are no differences or not? Then if they go praising papers that seem to show female CEOs are more successful, how do they explain it if they don't believe in differences?
There is also little debate about physical differences - I think few would suggest it is sexist to have separate football leagues for men and women. Although, to be sure, women can be stronger than most men - but most simply aren't.
Edit: HN doesn't let me comment atm. To the comment accusing me of sexism: I said it's wrong to assume there are no differences for PC reason. You say it's sexist to assume differences. That's something entirely different. It's always wrong to assume something without evidence (and then there are just degrees of belief):
I don't know if there are differences, but I think it's very wrong to assume there aren't just because it seems modern and politically correct. Especially since the alternative theories put forward to explain lack of women in maths or CS are usually harmful, heavily prejudiced and inflammatory. And barking up the wrong tree is unlikely to solve the problem (for example if billions are spent to fight assumed sexism and sexism isn't even the cause).
It's also funny that whenever there is a job which seems to call for "women's strengths" nobody has qualms to claim "women are better at x" (say empathy, risk management, relationships, whatever). I wish people would at least make up their mind, do they believe there are no differences or not? Then if they go praising papers that seem to show female CEOs are more successful, how do they explain it if they don't believe in differences?
There is also little debate about physical differences - I think few would suggest it is sexist to have separate football leagues for men and women. Although, to be sure, women can be stronger than most men - but most simply aren't.
Edit: HN doesn't let me comment atm. To the comment accusing me of sexism: I said it's wrong to assume there are no differences for PC reason. You say it's sexist to assume differences. That's something entirely different. It's always wrong to assume something without evidence (and then there are just degrees of belief):