The Crimson Canaries

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Does the Socratic method keep women down?

JAMES TARANTO

4/5/13

 

An offensive video has sparked another spat over sexism at an Ivy League University. This time it's at Harvard Law School, where a professor describes female students with the following shocking metaphor:

 

So I think what I would say to you is probably captured by the miners' canary metaphor--that the women in law school are the canary in the coal mines. So they're more vulnerable when the atmosphere in the coal mines gets toxic. The canary, because of its different respiratory system, is more likely to start gasping for air, and that's a sign that the atmosphere is toxic not just for the canary but for the miners as well. So it's a signal to evacuate.

 

Where does one begin enumerating the problems with this metaphor? It likens women to animals--and not just animals but birds, a word that male chauvinists in England use to objectify women in the same way their American counterparts use chicks.

 

(Snip)

 

Or a Harvard woman. With the video, the WLA does a grave injustice to those female Harvard Law students who are up to the challenge, who are able to compete with the fellows, who do make law review or graduate magna cum laude on the merits.

 

Not all women at Harvard Law are canaries. The Socratic method doesn't seem to have kept Elena Kagan down.