The following is from the Jan. 30 (2005) edition of The Dallas Morning News.

Bonnie Jacobs, assistant professor and director of the Environmental Science Program at Southern Methodist University, was interviewed for this story.

Success and gender debate: What new millennium?
Want to rile 5 scientists? Tell them they can't because they're women.

02:52 PM CST on Saturday, January 29, 2005
By SUE GOETINCK AMBROSE / The Dallas Morning News

At a recent academic conference in Boston, Harvard University president Lawrence Summers reportedly questioned whether innate differences between men and women may help explain why fewer women than men succeed in science and engineering. He also seemed to downplay whether discrimination has been a factor in the lack of advancement by women in such fields.

One woman scientist walked out of the conference while he spoke, others – but not all – said the remarks were inappropriate. Dr. Summers tried to quell the controversy by issuing a statement: "I did not say, and I do not believe, that girls are intellectually less able than boys or that women lack the ability to succeed at the highest levels of science." Nonetheless, he said he felt "deep regret" over his remarks and he apologized for not "having weighed them more carefully."

But the controversy has not died, and the National Organization for Women has called for Dr. Summers to resign.

The Dallas Morning News invited five local women scientists to talk about the controversy. In an hour-long discussion last week, the scientists shared their views on the past and future roles of women in science, whether a glass ceiling does exist for women in science and technical professions – and whether they've ever bumped up against it themselves.

Here are excerpts of their conversation:

What were your original reactions to Dr. Summers' statements?

Dr. Ellen Vitetta: I received a whole slew of e-mails from people saying "have you heard this?" I assumed it was something really diabolical. Then when I read some of the actual statements, I felt quite differently about it.

I have no doubt in my mind that men and women are very different. I think anyone who feels otherwise is living in a bubble. The issue that bothers me is that how any of that impacts on one's ability to become successful

Quite honestly, I think men have skills, and I think women have skills, and the challenge is to harness your skills and to use them to achieve what you wish to achieve rather than putting us into boxes.

There is no better example to me than my former student who just won the Nobel Prize [in physiology or medicine.] If you look at Linda Buck's scores and her grades, there's no way you would have predicted that she would have won a Nobel Prize. She's a good student but did not have perfect scores. But she had that creativity, the ability to think outside the box, she had that drive, the perseverance, and the ability to deal with people that got her where she wanted to go.

Dr. Bonnie Jacobs: I interpreted [the comments] to mean a difference in our basic ability, our basic intelligence, our ability to do science and math. And I think that's ridiculous. There are differences between men and women, but so many of those are culturally driven in ways we can't even totally identify. And you know none of that really matters ... because if you have a brain that works well, you have the ability to do any of these things.

Dr. Carole Mendelson: Certainly men and women think differently. Women bring a different way of thinking and perspective to science and math and engineering than men do, they look at the world differently. But I think environment plays a tremendous role in explaining why a relatively small proportion of women have not reached higher ranks in the science and math fields. I certainly don't think it's due to innate differences.

Dr. Inga Musselman: I believe his statement is incorrect. It's wrong. And the fact that he made that statement to me is quite outrageous. I believe there are many women, many young girls, who are very capable mathematicians and scientists. The reasons why they may not be pushing the glass ceiling at the very top – I don't believe that's due to innate differences. There are other factors involved.

Dr. Melanie Cobb: I don't believe there are innate differences in intelligence. I think the overriding issue is cultural differences in the way men and women, boys and girls are treated. But I also think the way he made the comments trivialized the nature of the problem. It's passing the buck.

Most of you say you were upset, but were you surprised?

Dr. Cobb: There are a lot of people who think those things he said. So am I surprised he would think those things? No. Am I surprised that he would say them? Absolutely.

Dr. Mendelson: The particularly alarming thing was that the conference he was speaking at was on women and minorities in the science and engineering workforce.

Dr. Jacobs: The problem with this statement is it drags us back 30 years. What should be discussed is exactly what we're saying in here – why is anyone even asking that question?

Could there be some positive side to this because it reminds everyone that this attitude is still out there, even among university presidents?

Dr. Vitetta: I think he put his finger on something that a lot of people think but won't say. And since it's out there now, people can see how ridiculous it is. We have to not only stop saying it but we have to stop thinking it.

Dr. Jacobs: I worry that people won't read all these articles and will come away thinking: well, there still needs to be research on whether men and women have innate differences in their abilities. I have had two things happen in the last two years. One thing is that I spoke to a group of adolescent girls for the American Association of University Women and one of the girls at the end asked me, "Were you a tomboy when you were little?" My major was geology, and they think only boys are geologists. And that's now, 2005.

Recently one of the academic advisers at SMU said to me, "You know it's really surprising any girls would want to major in geology." That's an adviser, at a university. Female. I'm a little discouraged by this.

Dr. Cobb: I think all students see obstacles and hurdles, and I really do believe there is a much more supportive environment, whether it looks like that to someone or not, for men than for women. And women see many, many problems, a low likelihood of success, and if they have any other issues going on in their lives, they think it is going to be too hard for them to do as well as they know they can do. They just don't think they are going to get help.

Have any of you had experiences in the past, in school or where you work, that caused you to wonder whether your gender was an issue?

Dr. Cobb: I remember my high school chemistry teacher basically advised me to aim low even though I was the valedictorian of my class.

What did you tell him?

Dr. Cobb: Nothing. Luckily I had parents who didn't think I was an aim-low kind of person.

Dr. Vitetta: We just forge ahead, keep our eye on the ball. And we don't let it distract. We have all heard it from other males, from family, from teachers. And we hear it from women ...

Dr. Cobb: ... Women who have bought all of the proselytizing about what they can't do. They buy in and encourage other women to do the same thing.

Dr. Mendelson: I had a so-called adviser when I was in grad school who sat me down right before I defended my thesis and asked me what I was going to do next. I happened to be pregnant at the time, but I told her I was going on for post-doctoral work.

She said, "You aren't going to stay home and raise your children when they are young?" That was 30 some-odd years ago ... but that was very shocking to me. When I first came to UT Southwestern, one male faculty member told me I really didn't belong here, and the other told me I would never make it.

Dr. Musselman: I had a little bit different experience. After my freshman year of college, I got a summer internship research position. My supervisor there was a Ph.D. woman scientist, and she continued to be my supervisor and mentor every summer and winter break throughout college. I got so much positive feedback from her during really important years.

Dr. Vitetta: I had an experience similar to yours, only interestingly enough, my mentor was male, and he said, "Ellen, keep your eye on the ball." So my early years were, let's not say easy, but were positive. When I smashed right into a wall was when I did reach a certain level, and there were males at that level who did not feel comfortable with me in their ranks.

What percentage of scientists should be women? 50 percent?

Dr. Vitetta: It should certainly represent some percentage of the pool ... one of the issues is clearly that women take time out for child-bearing and child-rearing so you will have a delay in terms of when they ... rise up the ladder. So I don't think 50-50 is realistic. But ... we have to aim higher. I don't know what the cutoff is, but it has to be higher.

But for the sake of argument, why is it important to have more women in science? Does it matter who does the work, as long as it gets done?

Dr. Cobb: People should be able to choose to do whatever they want. And we may be losing some people who are very talented who might be able to do some wonderful things.

Dr. Vitetta: I also do believe women bring certain skills and personalities to science that are very valuable. They tend often to have very good skills with people, with trainees, and I think you lose that if you have a totally male population of scientists.

Thank you all for coming today. Any closing thoughts?

Dr. Jacobs: When you write this up, I don't think any of us would want it to be an article full of complaints. There are definitely challenges, but there were many more challenges 15, 20, 30 years ago. There's no comparison to what it is now. So things are improving.

Dr. Vittetta: But we want to use this to realize that there is still a problem, and perhaps it is a wakeup call to be active and proactive in many ways. I'd like to take this as a positive and spin it off into something that is good for us.

Melanie Cobb, professor of pharmacology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Dean of the Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Bonnie Jacobs, assistant professor and director of the Environmental Science Program at Southern Methodist University.

Carole Mendelson, professor of biochemistry and obstetrics-gynecology at UT Southwestern, and co-director of the North Texas March of Dimes Birth Defects Center at UT Southwestern.

Inga Musselman, associate professor and associate department head in the chemistry department at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Ellen Vitetta, professor of microbiology and director of the Cancer Immunobiology Center at UT Southwestern, member of the National Academy of Sciences.