Maybe Larry Summers is secretly trying to do women scientists a big favour. Perhaps the embattled Harvard president's remarks about differences in “intrinsic aptitude” between men and women scientists (see Nature 433, 790; 2005) were actually a clever publicity ploy for Harvard, and a covert way to advance women scientists' issues — the latter of which can be a sisyphean struggle, at best.

Over the past few decades, with clock-like regularity, various scientific societies, non-governmental organizations and federal agencies have trotted out the same dismal statistics about women scientists. They are under-represented, paid less than men and tend to hit a glass ceiling. Various officials would express alarm for a week or two, promising progress, then the publicity would fade, and the stone would inch back down the slope.

But now, after Summers' remarks, every report about women in science will be subject to almost as much scrutiny as Summers himself. The most recent US report, by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), paints a mixed picture at best. It says that the percentage of women holding faculty positions in physics and astronomy is consistent with the percentage of women who earned degrees in the past — but the past hasn't been stellar. More women are entering science than before, but fewer of them are going into physics compared with some other fields. And the usual problems — including salary differences and the dearth of women from ethnic minorities in physics — persist.

But perhaps the spotlight Summers has turned on women and science will help to change things — even if a summary of the report by the AIP offers a subtle rebuke to Summers' unfortunate wording of the cause: “Women's participation in physics varies historically and across countries, pointing to the influence of cultural factors on women's rate of participation in science.”