61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Nerve's videogame blog: Street Fighter. The movie. A new one. With that chick from that Superman show. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Mad Men's January Jones struts her stuff in Vanity Fair. Plus: Damages returns, the latest Gossip Girl guest star and Donna Martin capitulates.
For two months now, I've held back on writing a Raw Nerve about the Lawrence Summers incident. For those of you sensible enough to skip over the story — which seems to have a lifespan of a tortoise — here's a synopsis: in a January 14 speech, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, caused a national uproar by stating that women may lack an "intrinsic aptitude" for science. While I don't agree with Summers' theory that women's brains aren't wired for organic chemistry1, I'm less bothered by his statements than by the intelligentsia calling for his head. From my mouth to their ears: shut the fuck up and leave the man alone!
You'd think the folks at Harvard would have heard the adage "sticks and stones." You'd think the professors would point to the First Amendment, or at least appreciate Summers' declaration, however erroneous, as a catalyst for fiery classroom discourse among feminists, proto-feminists and horny male undergrads. You'd think the students would appreciate said discourse as a much needed respite from lectures about things — the Yanomamo, the various social and political implications of the Spanish verb chingar2, the importance of democratic spaces in urban settings — that will have absolutely no bearing on their lives outside of the venerated institution3. At the very least, you'd think some of the brightest bulbs in our country would focus their energy on more pressing issues: Iraq, Iran, AIDS, tsunami victims, social security. You'd think wrong.
Last Tuesday, Harvard's Arts and Sciences faculty passed a no-confidence vote, the first in the university's history, against President Summers. The vote was 218 in favor and 185 opposed, with eighteen abstentions. J. Lorand Matory, a professor of anthropology and African and African-American studies, told reporters after the announcement that Dr. Summers should step down. "There is no noble alternative for him but resignation," said Professor Matory, who introduced the resolution. But just in case we think the professor overly harsh, a second resolution was proposed, expressing regret first at Dr. Summers's "management style" and then his remarks about women. The faculty approved the second measure, like the first, by taking a silent ballot.4 This time, a larger majority (253 to 137) voted no-confidence. "This is not even about just style anymore," said Mary C. Waters, chairwoman of the sociology department. "There is widespread dissatisfaction with his substantive decisions as well as his style." Ah, semantics!
Does this mean Summers will lose his job? Not at the moment. Harvard Corporation, which governs the university and has the authority to dismiss its president, continues to support Summers, so the vote remains symbolic5. But it does mean that Summers, who apologized and promised "to hear all that has been said, to think hard, to learn and to adjust" will now spend the rest of his tenure wandering the campus, avoiding his colleagues.
Do I feel bad for Dr. Summers? Sure. It must truly suck to be him at the moment. Do I think he fucked up? NOT AT ALL. In fact, I encourage all those women who felt personally slighted by Summers's comment to get over it and sign up for a biology class. What happened to my feminist mores?6 They're not the problem here. What is? The frightening national trend toward hypersensitivity that reminds me of when I was seven years old and refused to call the operator because I was worried she would hate me for disrupting her day.7 It seems that while I spent the last twenty-two years working at being a little less sensitive, everyone else (or at least the faculty at Harvard) was becoming increasingly fragile, like a little ideological bird. Unfortunately, if Janet Jackson, Howard Stern, Whoopi Goldberg, that airline exec who got canned for having an affair, and now Lawrence Summers can ruffle their feathers, what are they going to do when a real problem comes along?8 — Tobin Levyn°
Key to full disclosures: 1 In college, astronomy for asshats fulfilled my science requirement. And I had to take it twice. 2 Literal translation: to fuck. Although, according to my professor in Latin American Feminist Literature, the aggressive nature of the word and "the extent to which it alternately damages or liberates the women to whom it is directed as well as the women brave enough to employ it themselves" depends largely on context. 3 I went to two Ivy League universities; Harvard was not one of them. 4 Silent ballots? Who does silent ballots anymore? Aren't silent ballots something you do in third grade, when you're trying to decide whom to vote out of your slumber party? 5 Ah, symbolism. "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." 6 I attended Barnard, a women's college at Columbia University for two years. There, I was indoctrinated in Mary Wollstonecraft, Maya Angelou, Margaret Sanger, Gloria Steinem, Naomi Wolf, Rosa Parks, Ruth Ginsberg, Betty Friedan, Kate Chopin, Judy Chicago and Suzanne Vega (a Barnard alumna). My point? I'm not sure. 7 I was also deathly afraid of escalators, but that's another story. 8 A rhetorical question.
