ummmm, Michael Powel - the leader of the far right "PC" police

I never experienced that...at my school, I was encouraged to take classes in science and math, though I never liked math.

And while my mom communicate alot of gender paradigms to me, my dad always told me that I should work, and that I could be whatever I wanted to be...

Guess who I believed?

Catz

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I'll get nicer when you get smarter.

Brain studies sound very scientific and rigorous, but basically boil down to correlation between some biological variable and behavior -- and thus do little to address the nature/nurture issue. Did the brain difference cause the behavior, or the behavior cause the brain difference?

They aren't, but they are also a good indication. And the evidence doesn't suggest that brain connections are affected by nurture. In any event, at the very least there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Sommers was partially correct. To call for his job speaks to those who believe in free speech as long as it's free speech they agree with.

IF it is small, that doesn't change the point that Sommers did not lie. Yet he is being treated as if he did and is deserving of firing. I find that hypocritical at the least.

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All you need to know about the energy crisis:
ANWR Exploration Republicans: 91% Supported. Democrats: 86% Opposed.
Coal-to-liquid R's: 90% YES. D's: 78% NO.
Oil Shale Exploration R's: 90% YES. D's: 86% NO.
Outer Continental Shelf Exploration R's: 81% YES. D's: 83% NO.
Increased Refinery Capacity R's: 97% YES. D's: 96% NO

SUMMARY: 91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of America’s own oil and gas. 86% of House Democrats have historically voted against.

Actually, on the whole, women do better than men in classes. They have higher GPAs, graduate at a higher rate, take more AP classes, and are more likely to go to college. Despite all of this, men tend to perform better than women in AP classes and on the SAT (overall).

If your main point is that calling for Sommer's job is an extreme reaction to what he said, I agree. Absent that extreme, I think he's fair game for at least some criticism given his position.

And lets also note that at least some of the people calling for his head have other axes to grind with him; this is just a convenient leverage point. That's politics. Doesn't make it right or even particularly attractive; but it makes it more understandable.

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Man up.

I don't think it all fits in neat little compartments. I remember as a little girl preferring to play outside..."cowboys and Indians" and to climb trees. (Although I did also play lots of "paper dolls.") I would have been described as a "tomboy." And yet I dropped all that early on....and became very interested in "girl things" in my early teens. There was this one little boy in our neighborhood who wanted to play "paper dolls" all the time with the girls...and didn't want to ever play with the boys outside. I'm talking about before grade school. And sure enough.....he grew up to be gay and is now living in San Francisco. But it doesn't necessarily always mean that's going to be the case.

Also.....ever notice this? Give a little 9 month old baby boy a little car to play with....and he'll make "car noises." It seem very automatic with them.

Some of it just has to be innate it seems to me.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

I think it's ridiculous that she should have to defend his right to speak his opinion, one that is clearly based on some facts, and fight to keep his job. Others are welcome to criticize him. If someone is against the war they have the right to say so and others have the right to criticize him for opposing it. But to have to defend their right to keep their job is ridiculous.

I'm not sure the feminists have much of an axe other than they don't like hearing the words.

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All you need to know about the energy crisis:
ANWR Exploration Republicans: 91% Supported. Democrats: 86% Opposed.
Coal-to-liquid R's: 90% YES. D's: 78% NO.
Oil Shale Exploration R's: 90% YES. D's: 86% NO.
Outer Continental Shelf Exploration R's: 81% YES. D's: 83% NO.
Increased Refinery Capacity R's: 97% YES. D's: 96% NO

SUMMARY: 91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of America’s own oil and gas. 86% of House Democrats have historically voted against.

Yet his opponents don't challenge the data or the conclusion with factual counter points... just more loud noises.

While taking a class in logic, I had a professor who would play a game of word substitution, whenever one of us made a bonehead comment or a complaint about this or that. If we substituted the word male for female in this story, would we even hear a peep? If the professor had been a woman, and had made an even more inflammatory comment about males, would anything be said? And if you say yes... is Catharine MacKinnon still teaching law?

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."

Well, Sommers is president of Harvard, not a professor. A somewhat different, totally untenured (and far more political) position.

Not to defend an idiot, but I seem to recall a lot of people suggesting Ward Churchill should be fired. And he *is* a professor.

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Man up.