Harvard President Larry Summers caused a hullabaloo a couple of weeks back by asking whether the scarcity of women doing math and science in top universities might be due to innate gender differences.

Summers said he was being deliberatively provocative, hoping to stimulate further research. Whatever message Summers intended, what people heard was that women aren't as smart as men, and that there's nothing much universities can do to increase the number of women on the faculty.

Context matters here. At Harvard, there are four times as many men as women on the senior faculty. The ratio isn't very different at the University of Washington. Because of this disparity, gender balance is a sensitive topic on college campuses. (Speaking of context, as a reader you're entitled to know that Larry and I are long-time, casual friends.)

Let's begin with the fundamental question: are there innate differences between men and women?

Well, duh. You don't need to a Ph.D. to answer this one. Most people have figured out that boys and girls are different by somewhere around age 13. In my opinion -- and I state this as a personal opinion only, it's not based on an extensive reading of the scientific literature, please don't complain to my boss, the dean, etc. -- "Viva la difference!"

Seriously, there is good scientific evidence that men's and women's brains work a little differently. I do not believe that there's any good evidence that these differences have to do with success in science, nor in success at much of any activity which depends on brains and hard work.

There's a good story to illustrate this point that has close analogies with math and science faculty in top universities. In the old days, at least through the 1960s, there were virtually no female musicians in the top symphony orchestras in the United States.

Everybody "knew" that at the very top of the music game, women just weren't as good as men. People said things like "women have smaller techniques than men."

Symphony players are chosen by audition. In the 1970s and 1980s, in order to increase impartiality, orchestras began to put a screen between the musician and the hiring committee. This meant that who won the audition depended much more on the quality of the music and much less on who you knew -- or whether you were male or female.

Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse told this story and conducted a statistical investigation of the outcome in an article in the American Economic Review. The concluded that hiring rates in the big five U.S. symphonies went from 10 percent women to 35 percent women.

This increase in hiring rates following adoption of blind auditions came about for three reasons of roughly equal importance. One third of the increase was the direct increase in women being chosen after the blind audition. Another third was due to an increase in the number of women going to graduate school in music and then going for a big-time symphony tryout. Goldin and Rouse suggest the final third may have been due to changing attitudes of music directors.

Are there innate differences in musical ability between men and women? Quite possibly. But changes in innate differences don't account for the increase in the number of women in symphonies -- changes in social behavior were responsible.

Are there innate differences in math ability between men and women? Could be. But just like in music, we if want to, we can make changes in social behavior that will increase the number of women in math and science.

Harvard's Summers got himself in hot water by asking whether innate differences matter some or not at all. But there's no doubt that gender behavior in the workplace is socially determined. Harvard's real question is whether decisions at Harvard matter some or a whole lot. And whether Harvard wants to change.

This isn't the first time that Summers has caused a public fuss. He is, however, a very quick study. Summers has set up a task force to ask why Harvard doesn't have more women faculty -- and he's said he wants action by the end of the semester.

That's a good move, one that other universities -- and other workplaces -- should emulate.

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Dick Startz is Castor Professor of Economics and Davis Distinguished Scholar at the University of Washington. He can be reached at econcol@u.washington.edu.

Bellingham Herald, Feb. 6, 2005

Everett Herald, Feb. 2, 2005

Tacoma News-Tribune, Feb. 6, 2005