Gray Matter vs. White Matter... does it matter?

In January, the president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, caused quite a brouhaha by suggesting perhaps there are fewer women in math and hard science fields because of innate differences between the brains of men and women. Now some scientists are saying that Summers may be right.

Male brains...contain a greater proportion of gray matter, the part of the brain responsible for computation, while women have relatively more white matter, which specializes in making connections between brain cells.

So... men and women's brains work differently. Is this really a big surprise to anyone?

Yet, the reaction from women's rights advocates seems to border on hysterical. Apparently the religious right isn't the only group that would like to quash any science that pokes holes in its sacred cows. I fail to see the problem here. If the way men's brains work means that more men are likely to have an aptitude for hard sciences than women, so what? Equality doesn't mean equal representation, it means equal opportunity. There's nothing in this data that says all women will struggle with math and hard sciences. Surely there's enough anecdotal evidence to the contrary. I know a woman who is quite literally a rocket scientist. I can only assume she is one because she's good at math and science and did well in school or she never would have gotten her degree. But the fact that she's done well in this field doesn't mean we should push all women to try for that anymore than we should want all men to be rocket scientists. If we stop focusing on trying to make everything the same and instead let individuals, males and females alike, work in areas for which they individually excel, then we'll be much better off. Equality means my friend should have the same opportunity as her male colleagues to advance in her field, based on her qualifications and her skills, not her gender. Equality does not mean that half the people she works with must be women.

That said, I do understand where the overreaction comes from. On the other extreme, there are those on the radical right who would use data such as this to prove that women as a whole can't do as well in science and math and therefore shouldn't try. This will be seen as proof that God made men for one set of jobs and women for another and never the twain shall meet. That is, quite simply, a misuse of the data. The mere fact that findings like this can be misused doesn't mean that we should rail against the findings themselves, however. It means we have to be careful not to make it say more than it does. Men tend to have different strengths than women. Despite this, some women excel in traditionally male-dominated fields, and some men excel in traditionally female-dominated fields. We as a society will be better off when we stop worrying about fitting men and women to preconceived molds, be they "equal" molds or "different" molds, and instead focus on individual strengths. When the best person for the job gets the job--any job--regardless of gender (or race, or any other irrelevant factor), that's when we will have real equality, not when women make up 50% of any given field.