the extreme outliers) was disproportionately male. About his theory, Summers noted: “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.” Setting aside whether Summers’ argument was correct or not, his thesis was rooted in hard data and sober analysis. It wasn’t discriminatory; no matter how you define various groups of people (by race, class, gender, or otherwise), you will always find minor differences at the margins. Groups of
...more
The idea that “it all washes out in the aggregate” is not only dismissive — it’s deeply dehumanizing. It erases lived experience, shrugs off systemic exclusion, and suggests that if injustice averages out in a spreadsheet, it’s no longer worth examining.
This isn’t objectivity. It’s statistical gaslighting.
