You wondered why so few women excelled in mathematics and science. The furor that followed was half-brained. If only, everyone had also decried the fact that the Great Chefs of the world have been men. Why isn’t anyone upset that men are chefs and women are cooks? Chefs are known by name, they receive accolades; cooks are anonymous. Chefs are thought to be creative and learned. A chef in France would lose face if he admitted a woman into chefdom.

Famous restaurants of France all have male chefs. In French, “Le Chef” has no feminine gender. And then, the great couturiers, jewelers, artists, and composers…. I wish you would take a look at these other fields too and provoke everyone. The world needs new wars. I wish you would continue to be Socratic.

You wondered why so few women excelled in mathematics and science. Would you say that the absence of women among the thirty top chefs of France is due to the three salient facts you listed in the “order of” their importance: a) that women are not ambitious enough, b) that men have more aptitude, and c) that women may be victims of prejudice. A French Chef might have said the same thing about women cooks, but had he done so, would there have been such a hue and cry?

You have rushed in where angels would not have ventured. You have gumption as seldom seen in public life; I wish you would run for President of the United States on the Democratic ticket. They need you. The great democratic party has lost its moorings.

What do you make of the following? I have a son and a daughter. My son came home from his first week in Second grade at the Laboratory School in Chicago, and said, “Boys play chess, and girls pay drafts.” To his credit, he was not happy at this discovery. He and I, mother and son, continued to play chess, but our game changed. Soon after we had to give up playing chess. My daughter, two years older than my son, said, “The teachers don’t quite come out and say it, but ‘something’ is out there that says math is not for girls.” It was not only in Math that this “something” existed. It’s a long story. I’ll spare you. In fifth grade, she said, “We are living in a mediocre age.” Later, she became an artist and drew her inspiration from medieval art. Last night, on the phone, she said, “We spent time in school discussing what were boy colors and girl colors. All the better colors were boy colors, and there was a debate about whether orange was a boy color or a girl color; and they decided orange was a boy color.”

Remember please, how at one time there were detailed studies to prove that blacks could not excel as athletes, and now within my lifetime, the main entrance ticket to a university for a disadvantaged black person is to get a scholarship as an athlete. Women are where black athletes were in the sixties; we are on the cusp of change, and you are one of the facilitators.

I, a supposed feminist, place the blame on women for our mediocrity, but not for the three reasons you imply. Teachers of early education are all women. They do to the girls as was done to them. No one can think outside the system. Most of all mothers are to blame. Boys who are to excel acquire their sense of entitlement from teachers and mothers. You are not the problem.

Signed, Leah Mikhael