All’ Erta!
Egregious Sexismo
2 August 2013

¶ We somehow let ourselves be lulled into thinking that we had seen the last of Larry Summers in public life. Wishful thinking! We can think of two reason why he’s unfit to lead the Federal Reserve, and his comments about women in the sciences constitute the lesser offense. Have people forgotten the hole that he put in Harvard’s endowment? But Paul Krugman is right to call attention to the deeper sexism inherent in the keyword “gravitas.”

The point is that while the gravitas types like to think of themselves as serious men (and I do mean men) who are willing to do what needs to be done, recent history suggests that they’re actually men who are eager to prove their seriousness by doing what doesn’t need to be done, at the public’s expense.

Also, there was a time not along ago when almost everyone in the gravitas crowd, if asked who possessed that mystical quality in its purest form, would surely have answered “Alan Greenspan.” How well did that turn out?

So is Janet Yellen the only possible candidate to be the next leader of the Fed? Of course not. But the case for someone else should be made on the merits — and, so far, that hasn’t been what’s happening.

One Response to “All’ Erta!
Egregious Sexismo
2 August 2013

  1. Tassilyn says:

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