Nobel laureate forced out of studies after making joke about women

[Superbeast]

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.

It probably would have been dealt with that way had he not gone to the frickin' BBC and basically said that he was sorry if anyone was offended, that it was a stupid thing to say with journalists there, but he meant it and stood by his comments. A non-apology always makes things worse - puts any institution that may have been considering a quiet bollocking and a generic PR response into a bit of a predicament.

 

[AgedGrunt]

The guy's real mistake was not realising that in the current sociopolitical climate, making an off-colour quip about women is grounds for summary dismissal.

That's why it's better to have female privilege, because you can challenge and criticize men without being off-color until you talk about killing all of them. That's when a woman is allowed to be told she goes a bit too far.

 

[Nikolaz72]

This here is what is turning more and more people off of feminism. (Not necessarily 'against' feminism but fearing to be associated with these Witch-Hunters results in the reduced size and importance of a movement who still has a significant role to play in the future equality in society)

Emma Watson pretty much hit the nail on the head that these witch hunts over social media is whats bringing down feminism as a whole and it has to end. The guys comments were out of line but removing him from Cancer Research, a field in which he contributed immensely to combating breast cancer, I mean comeon. His removal from the field hurts women far more than his comment.

Its as if these peoples thoughts process end where their feelings begin.

 

[Batou667]

That's why it's better to have female privilege, because you can challenge and criticize men without being off-color until you talk about killing all of them. That's when a woman is allowed to be told she goes a bit too far.

...and even then, her incitement to hatred will be waved away as "satire" and continued to be published and widely available even decades after she demonstrated just how metaphorical her stance was by attempting to murder a man.

(We're talking about Valerie Solanas, right?)

 

[Kameburger]

You know what if he said it ironically, then I think it's absolutely ok... I think it's stupid that they fired him..

And here comes my rant...

Why the hell do people keeping demanding blood for words? honestly, we treat people who say stupid things as if we just discovered that they're secret sexist lizard people and we need to kill them and dissect them for study as soon as we find out. That's not how thoughts work, that's not how people work and the worst part is WE KNOW THAT!!! We've all said stupid embarrassing stuff that someone got mad at us for, and if you haven't you're probably not an honest human being. We're human beings god damn it, we have flaws and we don't need to crucify every single person who's ideas differ from our own, or worse, who's ideas don't differ from our own, but they said something that we were able to decipher as indicating that they did. When did we become like this?

Shouldn't we be a little ashamed that every 10 minutes we chase people out of the room with pitchforks and torches? Never before has it be easier to take people out of context.

I mean people keep building a business out of just pissing people off now?

And if that makes me some kind of privileged sexist pig, think what ever the hell you need to that helps you sleep at night.

 

[Kwak]

There was a summit in India, where he was invited to give (a rather narcissistic) account of his activities in his field of science.

That's a puzzling criticism to tell someone who was invited to give a talk about their experiences and their work. He can't exactly not talk about himself if that was the agreed on subject in the first place can he?

But yes to the rest of your post's wider points in general.
That he thought it might be worth commenting on the fact that relationships at work complicate the job, an obvious cliche, is poor judgement and may indicate a more problematic underlying attitude to women's place in science, but I'd need more information of his past behaviours to see him as representative of the forces ranged against women, as opposed to someone making a poorly-placed 'lol, office politics' comment who's old and out of touch with modern work environments.
One wonders if had a point in bringing that up in the first place (given the context of a talk meant to be encouraging women in science), and if he ever got to it.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

That's a puzzling criticism to tell someone who was invited to give a talk about their experiences and their work. He can't exactly not talk about himself if that was the agreed on subject in the first place can he?

You can be the pleasant recipient of an honour, or you can be an unpleasant recipient of an honour. It is possible..

But yes to the rest of your post's wider points in general.
That he thought it might be worth commenting on the fact that relationships at work complicate the job, an obvious cliche, is poor judgement and may indicate a more problematic underlying attitude to women's place in science, but I'd need more information of his past behaviours to see him as representative of the forces ranged against women, as opposed to someone making a poorly-placed 'lol, office politics' comment who's old and out of touch with modern work environments.
One wonders if had a point in bringing that up in the first place (given the context of a talk meant to be encouraging women in science), and if he ever got to it.

Pretty much. I think the apology is actually worse than the 'joke' though. "Hey, it's just a personal failure of mine that I can't take women seriously in the laboratory! I mean ... that's funny, right!?"

Yeah. No. Not funny.

I mean, he probably didn't mean it like that. It's just that that's what he's saying. It's like ... yeah, maybe you should just not give speeches in public. He seems to have a problem with sticking his foot in his mouth.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ah the wonderful world of tomorrow, band together enough moronically offended people and you can get anyone fired.
While it sucks that he had to go over a joke you really don't want to work around people this fucking twitchy, next time you know they got you on sexual assault charges for shaking hands with someone.

 

[hentropy]

I'm tired of men in science. They're always breaking beakers with their ape-like hands, daring each other drink chemicals. So juvenile. Not to mention they're always going into the bathroom and wanking one into the sink, being uncontrollable sexual monsters and whatnot.

Now please, laugh at my joke and don't make a big deal out of my virulent sexism because I won an award.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I'm tired of men in science. They're always breaking beakers with their ape-like hands, daring each other drink chemicals. So juvenile. Not to mention they're always going into the bathroom and wanking one into the sink, being uncontrollable sexual monsters and whatnot.

Now please, laugh at my joke and don't make a big deal out of my virulent sexism because I won an award.

The fact people are not tweeting about this post and that you haven't been fired from your job as a professional Internet poster only proves the double standard!

 

[Silvanus]

I'm tired of men in science. They're always breaking beakers with their ape-like hands, daring each other drink chemicals. So juvenile.

Come on, Hentropy, that's pretty mean. I can't damn well help my massive ape-like hands, can I? It's not my fault they're like that; it's all the chemicals I drank.

 

[Piorn]

So a man says women can't take criticism, and they immediately prove him right by overreacting like crazy.
That would be ironic and funny, if it wasn't so sad.
But crying women is really something we have to live with, especially in a world where personal feelings are valued higher than science.

 

[TheIronRuler]

It's a joke. Had there not been a witch-hunt perpetrated by the new wave of feminism in Academia we wouldn't be having this conversation. Innocent! Let him walk. Let him go back to his work.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's a joke.

Which he later clarified by saying he thought it was absolutely true.

 

[TheIronRuler]

It's a joke.

Which he later clarified by saying he thought it was absolutely true.

.
They fired him from his work because of a perceived sexist comment. He's a Nobel laureate - a scientist with decades worth of knowledge - and they boot him because somebody's feelings got hurt.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

It's a joke.

Which he later clarified by saying he thought it was absolutely true.

.
They fired him from his work because of a perceived sexist comment. He's a Nobel laureate - a scientist with decades worth of knowledge - and they boot him because somebody's feelings got hurt.

They took him out because they do not want to endorse his views on women. The same would be done if he had made racist comments as well. If someone had made the same statement about Blacks or Jews it would be just as toxic. Not wanting to endorse toxic views is not something invented by " feminism", it has been the way of the world since the beginning. These institutions work with all races, genders and sexes and do not wish to exclude them by allowing those respected and endorsed by their organizations to publicly express bigotry against the members of their organization. Blaming feminism for women receiving equal respect and treatment that is given to others in the field is a scapegoat.

The good work you do in life does not suddenly excuse the bad. His accomplishments, while great, do not entitle him to say and do as he pleases without consequence.

 

[Bruenin]

It's a joke.

Which he later clarified by saying he thought it was absolutely true.

Why does everyone say this?
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33077107 goes on to show a quote from him as this-

"I did mean the part about having trouble with girls," he said. "It is true that people - I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it's very disruptive to the science because it's terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.

"I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult.

"I'm really, really sorry I caused any offence, that's awful. I certainly didn't mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually."

he then went on to say this-

On his remarks about women crying, he said: "It's terribly important that you can criticize people's ideas without criticizing them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth.

"Science is about nothing but getting at the truth and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science."

So he explained the first part of his joke by saying it related to his own personal experiences and then he explained the part of his joke that included women crying by saying he meant it to show that communication is important.

One of the people who worked with him also said that Tim Hunt has made numerous efforts to encourage both men and women to enter the STEM field as well. Although he's obviously going to be a biased source, if what he says is true it's not really consistent to say that Hunt actually believes women don't belong in the lab or that they're too emotional to handle the work as people seem to believe his statement means. http://time.com/3923316/tim-hunt-women-in-science/

I don't see anywhere where he supports the idea that woman don't belong in the lab, or that they're too emotional, if anything his only discrimination is against workplace relationships because he's commenting on their impact on performance when all he has to go off is his anecdotal evidence. The only thing I can kind of see is when he said "I did mean the part about having trouble with girls," but then just going off that is ignoring the immediate clarification he offered and even going so far as to believe him a dishonest about his previous statement even though they appear to be made in the very same interview. Things can have meaning beyond face value, that's the whole idea behind figurative language like irony and his use of it. Him saying he meant what he said doesn't counteract his use of irony or make his claim that he was being ironic false, it just means that what he 'meant' was the intent behind his use of irony, which mainly seemed to be focused on workplace relationships.I guess you could just say he got his story mixed up that quickly but it honestly seems like people just want to find reasons to dislike him instead of giving him the benefit of the doubt. Personally I'd rather assume his statements don't necessarily conflict because I haven't been given a reason to believe they do, especially when he has a vouch of character from co-workers.

I've seen several posts that say Tim Hunt says women shouldn't be in the lab or things similar to that, if anyone has any other information that will contradict whatever I've wrote out then please sent it to me, i'd be interested to read up on it. Even though I quoted someone in particular, this is more of a general question aimed at the entire thread, I just don't understand where people are seeing his remark as sexist. It honestly looks like it's more focused on relationships than women.

 

[marioandsonic]

"...and when you criticize them, they cry."

And he quickly found out he was right.

In all seriousness, my opinion is the same as the scientist who wore that shirt last year: it was unprofessional, but the lynch mob against him is unwarranted.

 

[marioandsonic]

"...and when you criticize them, they cry."

And he quickly found out he was right.

In all seriousness, my opinion is the same as the scientist who wore that shirt last year: it was unprofessional, but the lynch mob against him is unwarranted.

So he's free to speak, but no one else is free to speak against him? Your mob is only people speaking you know, exercising the same rights he did.

If he is outnumbered and outgunned, and maybe even in the wrong, he should have been smart enough to see that coming. Your sympathy is at best placed with a fool, at worst with an ass.

I never said that he can't be criticized, or that he shouldn't get punished. I just think him getting fired is a bit excessive.

 

[Siege_TF]

First, the Rosetta Spacecraft team member is forced apologize for making history and pushing humanity forward and now, a renowned biologist loses his job over this nonsense.

I wanted to write an angry comment but nothing I can think of is angry enough.

That, and you would probably be drowned in the blood of a hundred bleeding hearts.