I’ve been following the story of Lawrence Summers’ comments about women and found this editorial defending him. I have to say that I agree that Summers should be able to hypothesize in public and rather than walking out, we should engage in debate. But it’s tough for women to be emotionally detached from this debate, especially considering that Summers’ other idea was that women can’t move ahead academically because they can’t work 80 hours a week with children. And that seems to imply that it’s OK for the fathers to work 80 hours a week. So, men aren’t really all that important in raising children?? That’s a theory right out of the biography of Abigail Adams that I just read. Glad to see Harvard hasn’t moved too far from its Puritan, colonial roots up there in Cambridge.

But, here’s what really got to me about this editorial. Summers should be able to say whatever he wants, the writer suggest. However, those voices (reviled as leftists) who are speaking out against Israel and investing in a country that routinely violates human rights are considered anti-Semites. It’s going to be tough to have the kind of dialog that Summers wants to have about women in an atmosphere where any negative comment against a particular country is considered anti-Semitic. What a surprise that the director of Harvard Hillel agreed with Summers. Certainly, there is rising anti-Semitism in the world against which we must guard. But giving Israel carte blanche to act without criticism is not the way to solve this problem.

It’s a general issue as well: I was doing a little research into Dr. James Dobson and found an excerpt from his book on boys in which he pummels radical feminism for the way it puts men down. Feminisim it seems is directly responsible for all the bad things men do: masculine despair leads to drugs, depression and abandonment. WHAT??? This is not the way to have civil dialog in our country. I even see this in my own liberal church where political discussion is being banned from the listserv because someone might be offended. Are we so emotionally wedded to our ideas and opinions that we can’t engage in honest debate anymore? In my Leadership class last night, we identified one of the qualities of a leader as being emotionally detached, and I think that should be a byword for all these radicals whether left or right. There must be a middle ground where we focus on ideas without epithets if this country is ever going to move forward.