In the Nature vs. Nurture debate, feminists rabidly insist that all
psychological and social differences between the sexes are caused by the
social environment. That ideologically-loaded belief is captured in that
innocent-sounding word, "gender."
There's a strategic reason for that dogmatic assertion. As long as
people believe that men and women are biological clones, the rad-fems
can claim that the under-representation of female CEOs and politicians
can be blamed on the Glass Ceiling, not on the informed lifestyle
choices that women make.
And that in turn justifies the gender quotas, government set-asides, and
all the other appurtenances of a feminist society.
The feminist thought police do not take kindly to persons who challenge
widely-held beliefs. So when Harvard president Lawrence Summers
suggested innate sex differences, not gender socialization patterns,
might account for the shortage of female scientists, the Lefties were
aghast.
But scientists insist Summers has a point, that the brains of men and
women are
anatomically
and functionally different. Referring to the spatial abilities of the sexes, Judith
Kleinfeld of the University of Alaska
notes,
"The average difference
between males and females on psychological tests of these abilities is
huge."
The Summers' dust-up has broadened into a broad-based examination of sex
and gender. That argument is now being waged on two other fronts.
First is the Great Op-Ed Debate, that non-stop catfight that has been
trying to answer the vexing question, Why do women represent only a
small fraction of newspaper opinion writers?
Of course, there were the pundits like Amy Sullivan who predictably
played the victim card. Sullivan
blamed
the problem on women who "have
been raised to feel ill-at-ease in the rough-and-tumble, male-dominated
world of political expression." Sorry, Ms.
Sullivan, that argument may have played in Peoria 50 years ago, but not
in 2005.
Others searched for more plausible explanations.
Gail Collins, the woman who runs the editorial page of the New York
Times, admitted in a round-about way, "There are probably fewer women,
in the great cosmic scheme of things, who feel comfortable writing very
straight opinion stuff."
And Maureen Dowd, whose writing style is perpetually stuck in
full-attack mode, sounded more like a purring kitten when she admitted,
"I wanted to be liked, not attacked...This job has not come easily to
me."
But it was Catherine Seipp who finally came out and
stated
the obvious:
"The uncomfortable fact is that women just seem less interested in
politics than men." Why? Because "that typically female
emotional-reaction-as-argument is one big reason why the op-ed pages are
still mostly male."
By remarkable coincidence, the Great Op-Ed Debate was being waged just
as the journal Nature was about to release the startling results of a
study that would profoundly challenge the basic feminist assumptions of
gender.
That research, published late last month, found the inborn differences
between men and women are far greater than previously suspected. Men and
women differ
by two percent in their genetic make-up.
And here's the jaw-dropper: That two percent sex difference is greater
than the biological gap between humans and chimpanzees. In other words,
the built-in differences between men and women are akin to the
dissimilarities between man and ape.
Now we know why millions were so engrossed by that long-running TV
series about Tarzan, Jane, and Chita.
First Larry Summers. Then the Great Op-Ed Debate. And now breakthrough
research on the genetic differences between the sexes.
It's high time that we accept the obvious: Men and women are not the
same. Vivre la difference!
