Nobel laureate forced out of studies after making joke about women

[EternallyBored]

So he says women are oversensitive, and as a result women force him to resign? I know not all women agreed with that, but the ones who do really ought to think this through.

EDIT: Oh, and I can't recall ever seeing any single time when this happened to somebody criticizing whites, straight people, or men. Because apparently, the fact that we admittedly do have more privileges than anybody means people can say anything about you and it's okay.

The response from the internet or the response by employers? The response by the internet seems to be similar, people crawling out of the woodwork crying about, "how dare you", acting offended until they collectively stop caring a week later, and creating petitions asking for the individual to be fired. Seems pretty similar to me, from Anita, to that London woman, to the dongle lady, the response seems pretty similar, the dongle lady did lose her job over it.

If your talking about the employers, the difference seems to be that the majority of the time when it's comments about White males, it's usually coming from bloggers or writers whose job is to write clickbaity articles, in which case they are doing their job by being inflammatory. Or it's 14 year olds and unemployed people blogging on Tumblr, in which case it's kind of hard to work up a movement for people who are either unemployed or working for minimum wage at PetSmart. The only case I can think of where someone's done this who was actually in a relevant public position would be the London lady, and the dongle lady who did get fired over the internet backlash she worked up. There was also that women's studies professor that got in trouble over stealing a pro-life protestors sign, the college originally stood behind her, but she was forced out when the internet backlash got going.

Maybe you know of more cases, but it seems more like a difference in employers and careers versus inherent protectionism, the times someone does stir up controversy in a career similar to this professor, i.e. not an internet blogger (Gawker), self-employed (Anita), flat-out unemployed (Tumblr bloggers), or in a liberal arts position surrounded by like minded people (the London lady) they get fired too.

Dongle lady doesn't count. She got fired for getting somebody else fired, not for a remark.

Sure it counts, she didn't ask to get them fired, she complained about the joke, the two guys got fired, then the internet backlashed against her for her original complaint. She got fired for the controversy the remark stirred up, the two guys got fired first, but she wasn't fired because she got somebody else fired, she got fired because the company she worked for didn't want to deal with the PR backlash her remark caused, just the like the other company fired those two guys because they didn't want to deal with the original PR backlash.

In both cases, people contacted these people's employers to try and get them fired, internet activists in support of her tweet at first, and then the other side when they became outraged at the (unintended) results of her initial tweet. From what I remember her initial tweet and response did not advocate firing the two original joke tellers at all, that was others that started complaining directly to their company, then another group did the same thing to her over social media.

It's like an ouroboros of hyperbole, with no real beginning or end.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

So he says women are oversensitive, and as a result women force him to resign? I know not all women agreed with that, but the ones who do really ought to think this through.

EDIT: Oh, and I can't recall ever seeing any single time when this happened to somebody criticizing whites, straight people, or men. Because apparently, the fact that we admittedly do have more privileges than anybody means people can say anything about you and it's okay.

You know, I keep seeing this claim that women everywhere on twitter were forcing him to resign. The biggest hash tag I know of connected to this story is #DistractinglySexy where people are mocking his comments by showing themselves at work in notoriously unsexy situations. Most of the action I'm seeing is commenting on how absolutely ridiculous his comments are.

The only people I can see who have forced him to resign were University College London. If you've got some evidence that people on twitter are instead responsible for this then I'd be happy to see it

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Of course he was blissfully reminiscing, he married one of those women after all. If I was still happily married to the same woman I met in university some fifty odd years later, I'd blissfully reminisce about how it happened too.

So because he married a woman he met at university fifty years ago, we should assume that whenever he talks about women in a university or laboratory setting, he's talking about how it was fifty years ago when he met his wife? That seems like it'd get awfully ridiculous if you applied it to situations other than the ones that let you conveniently pretend he's simply talking about the past and has said absolutely nothing wrong.

That's probably because somebody held you down at some point and forcibly removed whatever section of your brain is responsible for processing and understanding humour. For what it is worth, I actually feel sorry for people like you. Comedy must be some fast diminishing resource to horded, guarded and fought over Mad Max style for people like yourself.

And he harshly judged the women he worked with over the years?This is only one side of the story, I would love the names of the women he is making these accusations of and to hear their side of the story. It very well could be his own sexism clouded his interpretation of events. " how things were from his perspective" does not mean they were actually that way.
Now granted given his age, this was an acceptable way to address and view women in his heyday, however, it is good that has passed.

Like I said before, he must be doing something right as he convinced one of them to marry him and have children with him. But I guess the feminist internet outrage machine isn't happy with that narrative.

Him doing "Something right" does not mean in any way, shape or form that his recantation of events are based in reality. For example, I know of a man who claims " she was all over me" while the reality was he asked her 7 times and was told no before she agreed to see him. LOL

This is why if he is going to make such blatantly sexist claims about the " women" in general he worked with, I would very much like to hear the other side of the coin here to get a more realistic picture of each of the women he makes this claim of. MANY sexist men are married with children that does not mean they are not sexist. Plenty of men who beat their wives and children have wives and children to beat as well, that does not suddenly mean " they are doing something right". Just " having a wife and children" does not suddenly mean you have everything figured out, and the idea that it does is absurd. Hey look that guy chopped his wife and kids up and stuffed them in the freezer.. at least he had a wife and kids that means he did something right? YIKES! I have no idea why people think like that.Sex drive and desire have little to do with " doing something right.".

 

[springheeljack]

It sounds like the blame for him getting fired rests on his employers for overreaching in an attempt to avoid controversy
You would think his position would be more secure but I guess he found out the hard way

 

[Kwak]

I think he meant what he said - it was both something real* that he had experienced in his time that he had drawn conclusions from, and he was joking about it by exaggerating the way he put it. So I don't think he should be presumed to be lying when he says it was a joke.
He was doing bad science by extrapolating it to all womenkind. He saw a phenomena, then decided that the main variable was the presence of a woman, therefore all women...etc.
What is really awful and wrongheaded about this apparent trend of forced public resignation after dumb public moments, is why don't people take times like these as teaching moments, moments to reach out and dialogue and *teach* the old duffer something new, and give him a new perspective? Old brains are not calcified organs like we've been taught to think.
By punishing him instead of talking to him he's hardly going to change his view, and it may have reinforced or given birth to new negative ideas on women and the appropriateness of sharing lab space with them. He deserves a chance to have his mind opened rather than slammed shut by harsh punishment and social ostracism.

*to him, in his point of view.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I think he meant what he said - it was both something real* that he had experienced in his time that he had drawn conclusions from, and he was joking about it by exaggerating the way he put it. So I don't think he should be presumed to be lying when he says it was a joke.
He was doing bad science by extrapolating it to all womenkind. He saw a phenomena, then decided that the main variable was the presence of a woman, therefore all women...etc.
What is really awful and wrongheaded about this apparent trend of forced public resignation after dumb public moments, is why don't people take times like these as teaching moments, moments to reach out and dialogue and *teach* the old duffer something new, and give him a new perspective? Old brains are not calcified organs like we've been taught to think.
By punishing him instead of talking to him he's hardly going to change his view, and it may have reinforced or given birth to new negative ideas on women and the appropriateness of sharing lab space with them. He deserves a chance to have his mind opened rather than slammed shut by harsh punishment and social ostracism.

*to him, in his point of view.

Well, arguably he had that chance already, however. There was a summit in India, where he was invited to give (a rather narcissistic) account of his activities in his field of science. The thing is, part of the summit allowed women graduating into the sciences to give their talks. The accounts were horrific. Sexual assaults, open mockery by superiors, and so forth. Even if the 'apology' states it was self-deprecating humour ... meaning that despite realising that women in science have never had it as easy as he, he states he has a personal failing in treating women seriously in a laboratory environment.

World's shrinking. The idea of a single laboratory in the corporate playground, is not where the major breakthroughs are being made. But rather vast multinational organisations, inter-connected across vast distances. It would not be so bad if he merely faded from this environment, into teaching or as a scientific personality (which he did). But the problem is, he brought his rhetoric into modern science as a scientific personality, and science is showbiz. Anybody pretending otherwise has never had to ask for a research grant. Given the sheer cost of scientific research, the monumental scope that it can take to achieve scientific milestones, it makes sense to treat people who can't play nice as problematic.

I think that's principally the problem. The people that have defended Tim Hunt are either doing so because of personal feelings, or because they are scientific personalities. But some of the strongest resentment is from institutions such as the S. Korean Women in Science and Technology groups. We should be listening to them, because humanity's survival and progress is reliant on removing antagonistic elements out of the chain of organised research. Mobilization of as many scientists as possible, and choosing people who can leave personal politics at the door in the performance of their goals within organisational dependency.

So what might seen as a 'harmless joke' (it wasn't given his own admission) should be seen as a greater problem. Rather than people screaming; "kneejerk emotivism!! Fucking feminazis!" We should look at this from the terms of what is required for a scientist to participate towards scientific milestones within the laboratory of tomorrow.

If we can't ask of our scientists to leave their politics at the door, then how can we trust them to make the greatest use of the resources available for manipulation into scientific discovery? It's not wrong for people to criticise his rhetoric... In the same way it's not wrong to tell people this rhetoric is harmful to scientific endeavour in the future. That it harms scientific thought and progress of the species. Particularly when a few days of experimentation and research can run into the millions. The resources required for every new breakthrough become exponentially greater. It's not wrong to ask scientists to remember this, and to keep their politics as far from the laboratory as possible.

 

[Yuuki]

Why the heck would someone say that at a female gathering in 2015...this is the decade of "you offended me" flag-wavers so that's the LAST thing you want to be doing.

 

[Azure23]

Wow hey it's a good thing he didn't actually lose a "job!" He lost honorary positions at two places. They didn't want to support him anymore because his association was tainted. He still has a job, he still makes money. From ArsTechnica:

Outrage quickly followed. The Royal Society, where Hunt is a fellow, issued a short statement entitled "Science needs women." In it, it states that "in order to achieve everything that it can, science needs to make the best use of the research capabilities of the entire population," and that it wanted to distance itself from Hunt's remarks. University College London, where Hunt had an honorary faculty position, announced his resignation by stating that "UCL was the first university in England to admit women students on equal terms to men, and the university believes that this outcome [the resignation] is compatible with our commitment to gender equality." The American Association for the Advancement of Science pulled Hunt from a planned webinar in which he was scheduled to offer advice on "persevering in science."

So to recap. He lost an honorary position at a university (where his lab had been shut down for several years no less, he had switched his status to "professor emeritus" which basically means "I do fuck all here") and his fellowship from The Royal Society. He did not "lose his job." He also mortified and offended the hosts of the event, a group of Korean scientists (several of which were women). This is not the story of an eccentric old man who makes a joke that falls flat. This is a guy who delivers a sexist diatribe (apparently for five to seven minutes) to a mixed gender audience of peers. Of course he's gonna catch flak for this.

 

[Khalil Sheehan-Miles]

I am very happy that at least one person here realizes that honorary positions don't actually involve research. Literally the only reason for their existence is because unis can get some good pr by saying they have a nobel prize winner as a professor. If said nobel prize winner starts generating bad pr, they really shouldn't be surprised.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

"professor emeritus" which basically means "I do fuck all here"

I have personally known 2 professor emeritus and they both ran research groups till the day they died.

 

[Azure23]

"professor emeritus" which basically means "I do fuck all here"

I have personally known 2 professor emeritus and they both ran research groups till the day they died.

Thank you for the anecdote. In this case, he was merely paid to associate with the Uni.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Thank you for the anecdote. In this case, he was merely paid to associate with the Uni.

Carl Th. Pedersen (at SDU) and Christian Pedersen (at DTU), yes I am aware we might need more last names in Denmark.
My point was just that your statement that all emeritus hired people don't do anything is a false statement.

 

[TwistednMean]

I wonder if I am the only person who does not see that joke as problematic at all. It isn't even a joke amout women, it's a joke about workplace relationships. But, of course, tumblr dwellers and feminists have to make it all about their precious selves.

I reckon we just need more gender jokes, so they get hoarse with their mad howling .

 

[Lilani]

I think this is the natural course of things these days, for better or for worse. Those institutions didn't want to be associated with him and what he said, so they dumped him. PR is a big business these days in all fields, and lots of money can be lost by not doing the right thing at the right time. We're now in an era where a business can go bankrupt if a representative of it makes an ass of itself. I suppose that says something about the power of the consumer these days, and how much communication and the sharing of things like this have changed.

I think he should have received some sort of discipline or reprimand from his higher-ups for sure, but I don't think he outright deserved to lose those positions. Perhaps if he had a long and storied history of saying things like this, but one incident deserves a warning. But again, the aim of this wasn't to discipline him, it was to protect the institutions from going down with him, however far down he was going to go.

 

[Frission]

You hear enough stories about outrage costing people their jobs, that it sort of blends together. The 'joke' was bad, if it was even a joke, but similar to the fiasco with the asteroid landing I think the consequences went too far.

Doesn't anyone find it ironic that by trying to enforce a tolerant work environment and make them less hostile, we have now gone to the opposite problem where we are now less tolerant and our workplaces are more hostile, but in a different manner.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Doesn't anyone find it ironic that by trying to enforce a tolerant work environment and make them less hostile, we have now gone to the opposite problem where we are now less tolerant and our workplaces are more hostile, but in a different manner.

You can't support tolerance without being intolerant of intolerance. You have to be hostile to hostility to avoid being hostile in general.

 

[Frission]

Doesn't anyone find it ironic that by trying to enforce a tolerant work environment and make them less hostile, we have now gone to the opposite problem where we are now less tolerant and our workplaces are more hostile, but in a different manner.

You can't support tolerance without being intolerant of intolerance. You have to be hostile to hostility to avoid being hostile in general.

Perhaps, but you risk also falling into the paradox of 'doing war to ensure peace', where you engage in means of dubious moral value to fight an evil. Then there's also the whole problem of he who fights monsters, since the opposite incident happened during the event with the Asteroid landing scientist where I had the distinct impression that the ones being vicious was not the guy wearing the shirt.

To be practical, of course you're going to have to reprimand or even fire someone such as a fascist, criminal or a constant harasser, but there's degrees. A good society can't jump between extremes.

I think most people fundamentally want the same thing in this case. A welcome and productive workplace. It's just that our attempts as fallible human beings are doomed to be imperfect.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Perhaps, but you risk also falling into the paradox of 'doing war to ensure peace', where you engage in means of dubious moral value to fight an evil. Then there's also the whole problem of he who fights monsters, since the opposite incident happened during the event with the Asteroid landing scientist where I had the distinct impression that the ones being vicious was not the guy wearing the shirt.

To be practical, of course you're going to have to reprimand or even fire someone such as a fascist, criminal or a constant harasser, but there's degrees. A good society can't jump between extremes.

Oh certainly, but the idea isn't inherently a bad one. IMHO, people complaining about the complaints tend to be a lot louder and more vicious than the original complainers, often than what prompted the initial complaint.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Even if these asinine remarks were a joke, one I personally think isn't funny but who gives a shit, the right place was not as a guest speaker at an international symposium of your colleagues in which you are representing your honored institution.

It's like the shirt debacle all over again from both ends; the reaction has been grossly over the top but I cannot deny the action that led to it was at the very least, fucking stupid. That said, it should have been swiftly kicked in the pants by a statement to the effect of "This is an internal HR matter which we are treating as a breach of the code of conduct/ethics framework" - a swift bit of dignified mea culpa and a private but savage bollocking and the issue should be solved.

 

[Frission]

Oh certainly, but the idea isn't inherently a bad one. IMHO, people complaining about the complaints tend to be a lot louder and more vicious than the original complainers, often than what prompted the initial complaint.

Yup, although that may also be why people take it so far. The original idea and intentions are good. The problem is however, that we judge ourselves based on intentions, but others based on their results. Hooray for vicious circles.

It's one of these situations where you can sort of understand the intentions of both sides, while understanding that someone dropped the ball to let this situation get so ugly, because I don't think we should crow about forcing a noble laureate out of studies.