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Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Criticizes Role of Women In Labs
An anonymous reader writes: Tim Hunt is an English biochemist most notable for winning the 2001 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. Today he's become notable for something else entirely — at the World Conference of Science Journalists, Hunt suggested science labs should be segregated by gender. He said, "Let me tell you about my trouble with girls three things happen when they are in the lab You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticize them, they cry." As you might expect, this set off a firestorm of criticism. Many asked Hunt to treat women in labs with the same respect he is afforded, and others held it up as an explicit example of the sexism that pervades the scientific community. Hunt later issued an apology, saying, "I'm very sorry that what I thought were light hearted ironic remarks were taken so seriously, and I'm very sorry if people took offence. I certainly did not mean to demean women, but rather be honest about my own shortcomings."
Today is Friday! Thanks, Dice!
Those were light hearted remarks.
Ever think that she might have been the women he fell in love with at the lab?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What you have said sounds profound but isn't at all.
Am I offended? Nope. I'm too jaded, thick skinned and argumentative to be that easily offended. Do I think it's an idiotic thing to say? Yep.
But if I was offended by idiotic things people say on the internet, I'd be in a permanent state of offendedness and that's not very fun.
Also just because politically correct[*] has turned into a disease, doesn't mean that people being idiots is not a disease.
[*] Politically correct started off as the name describes. Things you couldn't say without inviting political fallout, whether party politics or jockeying politics in some other organisation. Things like "women belong in the kitchen" etc. Of course, people being idiots, people mutated it into all sorts of stupid things.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Since this DOES happen, what's the fix?
The fix is for people to deal with it, like grown-ups. Office romances happen across the entire working population. If people are idiots there's fallout. So far the world has survived, and nothing needs to be done to fix this.
Also, if you want to fix it, what do you do about gay people? segregate them out so you have one gay person in an all-straight office of the opposite gender? And just isolate those awkward bisexual people on their own?
Nothing needs to be done.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why is it idiotic? It's just dark humor at the worst.
So it being really bad dark humour (if it is) isn't idiotic? I'd say making ill advised jokes is idiotic.
Check this joke out that I heard
You may have noticed that when a group makes a joke about itself it is generally taken very differently from an outside group making a joke about the group. You may wish to consider why.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In a world where the Internet gives every crackpot a soapbox from which to preach to his fellow crackpots, it's not longer possible to distinguish ironic self-deprecation from a serious but deranged complaint about other people.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What idiot can be so humour-impaired as to not realize that Hunt was just kidding? And it was a pretty tame, light-hearted joke at it.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
So, you have no point other than asking a question that isn't a question. Got it.
FYI, I read the whole article, and what he said, in FULL context wasn't offensive at all. It was admission of his own weaknesses towards women and how that doesn't fit Science Labs.
To be honest, is to be commended. Yet, he is being bullied by people only reading the headline from someone "offended" at his admission. He didn't say anything about women NOT being in a science lab, only that science would be better off without the male/female interactions. And he might not be wrong.
I am not offended by people being offended at such. I simply shake my head at the outrage held by some, who ignore even more outrageous comments by people they tend to "like".
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"I'm sorry you were offended. I'm not sorry for what I said."?
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
It's unfortunate.
People say all sorts of stupid, ill judged things when one's brain isn't as fully connected as one might wish it to be. I know I have. I'm glad none of them have been broadcast to the world.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
For example, there's been attempts at reclaiming the word, which is why you hear it in rap lyrics sometimes.
[...]
Meanwhile, there's also been a push to reclaim these kinds of words, which is why you sometimes hear it used in friendly conversation and song lyrics.
How the hell do you reclaim that particular word, and what kind of use would the reclaimed word be put to? My helicopter might go "wop wop wop," there might be a "chink in my armor," and when my wife throws a cup of ice water at me, I might end up with a "wet back" but I sure as hell cannot conceive of a non-insulting everyday use of "nigger." Also, your suggestion that, say, hip hop artists are using that particular word in an attempt to mainstream it (again, to what purpose?) is just absurd and smacks of grasping at any straw imaginable to justify your position that it's ok for some people to use it, but not okay for others.
The word in question belongs in the dustbin of history. People who get bent out of shape when they hear it should probably put pressure on their own communities, because other than a few backwoods idiots running around in sheets, the only thing keeping that word alive is popular culture which originates from the very people who should be most offended by its use.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I think the problem is not so much the office romance but the office breakup. Yours worked out because it didn't result in a breakup.
If you can't find Blazing Saddles funny, it's you who is broken.
Recognizing that there are differences between men and women is not sexism; lack of equality of opportunity is. Pretending we're all the same is moral cowardice at best; equal opportunity to succeed differences and all is a laudable goal; enforced equal outcomes is simply evil.
They are offensive because they work to set those people back
Ah, the soft racism of lowered expectations. "X people can't overcome life's normal obstacles, so we all need to treat them special, since, you know, they need our help".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
See, this is what happens when a guy gives his honest opinion. So he shuts up, and the girls start whining about why he won't talk about his feelings! You cannot have it both ways, ladies!
Acknowledging the consequences of gender is not sexist.
Yes, but calling for segregation is. So is stating that women are not capable of handling criticism (unless you've got some objective evidence). He said both of those things.
Yes, and I would need my own lab because I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me "Apache" and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The fix is for people to deal with it, like grown-ups. Office romances happen across the entire working population. If people are idiots there's fallout. So far the world has survived, and nothing needs to be done to fix this.
Significant enough numbers of grown-ups are sufficiently unable to act like grownups that yeah, the rest of us really do need to fix it.
More importantly, this is not new. Interpersonal struggles and conflict are as old as humanity itself, and we've discovered, as a species, that we really do benefit from having rules, laws, guidelines, and social norms to help us navigate these choppy waters.
"Just deal with it like grownups" is a cop-out philosophy of managers not wanting to do their jobs and employees not wanting to grow beyond what they already are. "Just deal with it like grownups" means nothing more than "I don't like dealing with the strife and drama that is the human condition, therefore I'll pretend that MY employees/co-workers are somehow magically above all that."
Lastly, if you think that the world has survived without people having done anything to fix this, well, you haven't been paying any attention at all.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Either it is offensive, or it isn't, you can't have it both ways.
Since being offended is subjective you can have it both ways.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You seem awfully fixated on stereotypes which aren't actually important in any meaningful way. History review?
Baby books, new baby announcements and cards, gift lists and newspaper articles from the early 1900s indicate that pink was just as likely to be associated with
boy babies as with girl babies. For example, the June 1918 issue of the Infant's Department, a trade magazine for baby clothes manufacturers, said: "There has been a great diversity of opinion on this subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate and dainty is prettier for the girl."
Aaaand, from NPR:
Before Gatsby, a 1918 trade catalog for children's clothing recommended blue for girls. The reasoning at the time was that it's a "much more delicate and dainty tone," Finamore says. Pink was recommended for boys "because it's a stronger and more passionate color, and because it's actually derived from red."
To our 21st century ears, all this men in pink stuff may sound a bit blushy. "It's so deeply entrenched in us and our culture," says Finamore. "We think of pink as such a girlish color, but it's really a post-World War II phenomenon."
Now, that said, employers are entitled to setup policies as they see fit: I just think such policies are generally repressive and don't address the heart of the issue.
Without intending to start a general Libertarianism-is-good-no-it's-bad argument, I'll just say that I think employers that think it's okay to try to control their employees' private lives in that way are despicable. It is none of your business what I do outside of work, and if you think it is, then fuck you.
I'm not saying regulations against a direct supervisor dating a subordinate, or stuff like that, are offensive. But there is a very clear line, and that line is at preventing clear, work-related conflicts of interest that would be caused by the relationship. And even in that case it's more respectful to have a policy like "report it so we can deal with the conflict of interest through reassignment, etc." rather than "don't do it".
Oh and segregating a workplace by gender is so stupidly ridiculous that it would honestly shock me if anyone not in the cultural orbit of backwaters like Saudi Arabia proposed it seriously. So I'm going to assume this guy wasn't serious, because he'd have to be such a shithead to seriously suggest that that it's more likely he was joking.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.