Transcript of Larry Summers's Speech on Dearth of Senior Women in the Sciences

Here.  An excerpt:

So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind [this dearth of women in the sciences] is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.

I'll say more about this on Monday.