I know it’s not politically correct to say it, but it has become unavoidable:
Men are too emotional for a career in science.
Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt has made it official with his blithering about “trouble with girls” in science labs:
A Nobel Prize-winning British scientist apologized Wednesday for saying the ‘trouble with girls’ working in laboratories is that it leads to romantic entanglements and harms science.
But Tim Hunt stood by his assertion that mixed-gender labs are ‘disruptive.’
Hunt, 72, made the comments at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea, according to audience members.
Connie St Louis of London’s City University tweeted that Hunt said when women work alongside men in labs, “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry.”
From Ms. St. Louis’ Twitter feed:
… At … lunch today sponsored by powerful role model Korean female scientists and engineers. Utterly ruing by sexist speaker Tim Hunt FRS [Fellow of the Royal Society] who … says he has a reputation as a male chauvinist. He continued “let me tell you about my trouble with girls.” 3 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” … “I’m in favour of single-sex labs” BUT he “doesn’t want to stand in the way of women.” Oh yeah?
See what I mean about men being too emotional? First he acknowledges that he cannot maintain professional relationships in the lab (“you fall in love with them), then he displays complete irrationality and delusion (“they fall in love with you”), and finally, he demonstrates his inability to handle anyone’s emotions, let alone his own.
Riiiiight! Who wouldn’t immediately fall in love with this stunning example of male beauty?
We all know that men are surprisingly irrational creatures. Consider Rosetta scientist Matt Taylor in #shirtgate. Instead of dressing soberly for an interview as a woman scientist would, he could not help dressing provocatively and inappropriately in a Hawaiian shirt adorned with scantily clad busty women.
Sure, he ultimately issued a tearful apology (demonstrating that when you criticize male scientists, they cry), but it’s difficult to imagine a woman scientist committing such an egregious faux pas in the first place.
Hunt is already apologizing, too, if by “apologizing” you mean digging himself in deeper:
Hunt, a biochemist who was joint recipient of the 2001 Nobel for physiology or medicine, said he was just trying to be humorous. He told BBC radio on Wednesday that he was “really, really sorry I caused any offense.”
Then he added: “I did mean the part about having trouble with girls. … 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.”
Riiiight! He didn’t mean to cause any offense with his blatant sexism. Can’t anybody take a joke anymore?
I do agree with Professor Hunt on one point though, single sex labs. I don’t think we need to go as far as to ban men from science labs, but as Hunt himself has demonstrated, we should not allow them to have leadership roles since they are too emotional to handle leadership. Going forward we should put women in charge of research labs. It won’t be forever, of course, just until men can demonstrate that they have enough control over their emotions to handle working with women in a professional way, not as objects for their romantic attentions.
We need a Twitter hashtag for these types of incidents. When Matt Taylor wore his provocative shirt, they called it #shirtgate.
I suggest that we call this #shitgate since many male scientists, utterly incapable of controlling their emotions, can’t help spewing shit when confronted with women in science.
Very funny retort https://medium.com/@a_rubin/i-m-a-female-scientist-and-i-agree-with-tim-hunt-8158bb657349
According to some of the comments here, some men are too emotional for intellectual conversation!
You can’t be pedantic! Only I can be pedantic when it suits my arguments!!! Waaaaah!
Oh fun…I see that the MRAs have come out to play. I do hope they continue mansplaining feminism to us. I could use a laugh.
Gotta love this tweet that is currently circulating:
“Sorry I’m late. I was busy with grant meetings and trying not to cry or fall in love. What did I miss?” – Lady Scientist
I guffawed aloud when I saw this the other day.
Surely no? Surely he’s being misquoted? Nope. All of the above, and then some.
Also, as if the sexism isn’t bad enough, this is incredibly heteronormative too. ‘Same gendered labs! Nobody to fall in love there!!’.
Gross all around.
Not to mention cisgendernormative.
Yeah since I really, really don’t want to hear his thoughts on gender queer, gender fluid, or trans individuals if this is what he says about women in general. Tumblr might explode. o_o
Oh, for sure, but I figured “gays exist” was slightly more low hanging fruit (since clearly that’s necessary for Mr. Hunt) than the intricacies of the rest of the LGBTQetc alphabet c:
Yes, I was thinking to myself that this gentleman must be unfamiliar with the existence of homosexuality.
It’s hilarious that feminists want segregated learning environments, but if a man suggests the same thing somehow it’s egregious. Very telling.
Hypocrisy becomes you.
Do these feminist refer to full grown men in science labs as boys?
Boo hoo. You get called girls. :(((( And bossy. :((((
This is probably part of why he wouldn’t want people like you involved in the lab.
But, don’t mind me, I’m just a hetero-normative shitlord, die cis scum me, my masculinity is toxic.
…Wut?
As someone who’s a great fan of men and of heteronormative bedroom relations, even I find it patronizing and dumb to call women girls. It’s patronizing and dumb to call men boys. You are calling that person a child when you do that, which is why we don’t care for it. No adult would.
That is your own perception. I do not see calling anyone “boy” or “boys” or “girl” or “girls” as patronizing, or as calling them a child.
But your perception is skewed by gender politics, while I’m on the sane side of things.
So keep on carrying on!
Why reply to a comment someone made a year ago?
The good thing, when a man refers to women ‘girls’, is the women then know how to speak to, treat and respond to that man. I wouldn’t advocate stopping it, just because it provides such a reliable and useful filter.
So carry on, and thanks!
I was asking a question, that of course, you didn’t answer because you mostly reply with insults and foul language. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t like his comments, but I don’t think he should have been fired for them.
I didn’t answer because, of course, I didn’t get the notification from this idiotic website.
No, he shouldn’t have been fired, that much is silly.
The people I meant, not “as in women” are the people who complain about these things and demand someone be fired for tiny little transgressions that in the end of the day, while unprofessional, mean absolutely nothing.
“People like you…” as in, women? You are aware that women have been successfully working in science labs for more than a hundred years, are you not? Even in chemistry labs. I know we’re not supposed to be any good at those non-biological sciences, but you know, some of us manage to break through that darn femininity and eke out careers for ourselves.
As in women. It probably doesn’t help that I am a black woman at that. Can I start playing my little violin?
LOL Of COURSE you would interpret it that way, of COURSE.
You are hilariously moronic.
…wow. Way to come back a year later, to a conversation the rest of us have long forgotten. I’ve been too busy not falling in love while working in my mixed-gender lab. You?
I came back because there were notifications for this conversation, much the same as you – you presumptive, arrogant little twat.
Well! That escalated quickly. I fail to see how my comment was presumptive or arrogant, and as for the rest, I would have hoped we’d be above using misogynistic epithets. Alas.
Twat isn’t misogynistic or even gendered – but, you’re going to perceive any attack on you as a human being as misogynistic, so why even bother?
Did you tear your spinal cord twisting yourself into that convoluted pretzel?
You don’t have to twist yourself into any kind of pretzel to acknowledge that intent and context is more important in a conversation for a harmless, non-misogynistic word like twat, than your own, very biased perception of it.
Or, I mean, if you’re a common person who isn’t twisted by some confirmation bias enabling ideology like you obviously are.
I don’t even want to report him. I’m sort of interested in seeing how much deeper he’ll dig in.
Here it is again, because he went back and deleted his reply:
“Leibfarce
“Listen, twat. I didn’t come back here after a year to continue an argument at random – like you, I received a notification from some idiot that drew me back. I don’t know if reading comprehension is necessary in these “labs” you’re working in, but god damn. Please learn to read.
“And yes, it is completely unreasonable for you to assume that the word twat is misogynistic. I wasn’t referring to you as your genitals, but how you’re being stupid and obnoxious – more than likely, I am being a twat now. You must have severe autism or you must be a shut in, because twat is p retty common vernacular for people who annoy you.
“Is it the fact that we’re right”
“No, it’s the fact that you ASSUME you’re right, that there is no room in your twat heads that you could possibly be wrong. That arrogance is infuriating. Look at how you reacted to me calling you a twat – you probably KNOW it’s not really a misogynistic term, but because you perceive it to be, you’re not going to back down on the fact that it isn’t.
“The way you view the world is totally askew, like the way an actual misogynist views the world askew. But your confirmation bias is twisted in a totally different way.”
11:45 a.m., Friday Nov. 4 | Other comments by Leibfarce
I deleted it.
Should’ve known. 🙂
Yes, it’s completely unreasonable for me to assume that a word for which the *first definition* is “vulgar slang for a woman’s genitals” could be construed as a gendered insult, or misogynistic in any way. My bad.
You really are…special. You come back here a year later to continue an argument that everyone else in the world has already forgotten, and here you are telling us that we’re the ones overreacting. There is something about this that really gets under your skin.
Is it the fact that we’re right?
Listen, twat. I didn’t come back here after a year to continue an argument at random – like you, I received a notification from some idiot that drew me back. I don’t know if reading comprehension is necessary in these “labs” you’re working in, but god damn. Please learn to read.
And yes, it is completely unreasonable for you to assume that the word twat is misogynistic. I wasn’t referring to you as your genitals, but how you’re being stupid and obnoxious – more than likely, I am being a twat now. You must have severe autism or you must be a shut in, because twat is pretty common vernacular for people who annoy you.
“Is it the fact that we’re right”
No, it’s the fact that you ASSUME you’re right, that there is no room in your twat heads that you could possibly be wrong. That arrogance is infuriating. Look at how you reacted to me calling you a twat – you probably KNOW it’s not really a misogynistic term, but because you perceive it to be, you’re not going to back down on the fact that it isn’t.
The way you view the world is totally askew, like the way an actual misogynist views the world askew. But your confirmation bias is twisted in a totally different way.
:O
twat
twät/
noun
vulgar slang
noun: twat; plural noun: twats
1.
a woman’s genitals.
2.
a person regarded as stupid or obnoxious.
Note there is no gendered pronoun in the second definition of the word twat.
This is what you are.
Jj
16 hours ago
you just go ahead and believe your own little poutfest. women’s liberation is under no threat by you.
and cis is a slur.
When did Wombat advocate for single-sex schools? I am a feminist and I do not advocate for single-sex schools.
When did you not learn to read?
Did it start early or is that a recent development? I wasn’t even talking about Wombat.
You were replying to Wombat. Then you said that feminists argue for same-sex schools. Not all feminists do.
It’s hilarious that you think all feminists want the exact same thing, as if we were robots. Heck I’ve actually written diatribes about subareas/movements of feminism I find insulting to my identity -on this very community-.
You might want to look elsewhere for your supposed ‘hypocrisy’.
P.s. Since apparently it will need spelling out: I don’t personally want segregated learning environments.
I’m not (usually) against them either – for people of all genders/gender identities – who want them for themselves, but that’s because it doesn’t really matter. They’re almost always private schools anyways, and more choice in that realm hurts no one. If it’s not an ‘in demand’ choice it will fail and either change, merge, be supported in another manner, or end.
The only time I start to have an issue is situations like small, almost always religious, private universities that really push the ‘Mrs. Degree’ and do creepy/discriminatory shit like only let male students date, only give female students curfew, hold candlelight ceremonies for girls who get engaged while in school, etc. Even there, it’s mostly personal. If someone -legitimately, without outside pressure from family/church – wants that for themselves, more power to them.
It doesn’t matter that feminists aren’t the exact same thing. The ones with the loudest voices, and coincidentally the most power are the same thing. They follow the same radicals from the 60’s and 70’s.
Unless you’re an equity feminist that speaks out against the rest of feminism, you’re part of the problem, just another useful idiot.
And again, you show the feminist trait of being unable to separate yourself from the conversation at hand – or narcissism, I’m not sure.
Did you watch this interview? The FEMINIST involved, suggested segregated schools, and continues to advocate them, DESPITE being against things said by this elderly man being pretty much the same exact thing. THAT is hypocrisy, and your post is idiocy.
Are you talking about Dr. Amy ‘advocating’ for single sex labs? Lol? I think you might need to learn the meaning or sarcasm/satire before you start throwing around narcissism and idiocy.
You’ll save yourself a lot of humiliation.
Edit: And I shouldn’t even bother, but: Your original comment did address me, at the very end if nowhere else. It’s not narcissism to reply to that, but whatever floats your boat.
Are you capable of reading? Please. Try again.
She advocates for segregation of gender in SCHOOLS for much the same reasons this man advocated for segregated labs.
Your post is narcissistic in that you conflate me talking about another persons ideas as though I were talking about your own.
And it had nothing to do with satire.
Schools or classrooms never appears in this piece – she mentions not having men in control of labs, AS SATIRE at least in degree if not entirely, but that is about it.
I really will resist the rest of the comment this time – that armchair psych is way too self involved for me to touch c:
I’m not TALKING about Doctor Amy. I was referring to a debate that two people had on this subject before Doctor Amy even decided to write this snide little blog piece. Please pay attention and stay with the conversation.
“Did you watch this interview?” that’s the only thing you’ve said.
The comments were made during a speech, not an interview. No interview is mentioned in Dr. Amy’s piece – aside from his later apology – which we are all commenting on here.
SO maybe you should specify what the ever living fuck you’re talking about if you’re going to bring up something off-topic before you repeatedly criticize someone’s reading comprehension. Then again, I’m beginning to believe the ‘farce’ at hand is your inability to even troll all that well.
-I- was talking about an interview. Are you capable of reading?
Firstly, single-sex education has been shown to improve educational attainment in both girls and boys (although personal experience of single-sex schooling seems to be better for/rated better by girls). Single-sex learning environments go a long way in addressing the imbalances common in education (girls being weaker in STEM and boys in english) they also break down some of the negative gender roles and stereotypes. I do advocate for single-sex schools/single-sex classrooms in mixed schools, but I know plenty of feminists who don’t and for very valid reasons (inclusivity for trans and nb people being a very important consideration), feminists aren’t The Borg.
You are defending the same thing he was talking about. LOL I hope you understand that. Segregation is segregation. Perhaps men would work better without women in the science lab if that’s what they want.
Feminists are much like the Borg, yes, and those people commenting on the internet, supporting modern feminism are little better than useful idiots for those who actually have the power, and the real voices.
Girls also aren’t weaker in STEM, just certain fields. Women dominate biology, psychology and the medical fields.
Again, segregated schools does not mean segregated ALWAYS one applies to children, and the development of skills for working. The thing that benefits the child might not benefit the adult. Like it’s good for children to live in a stable home with caregivers, but after a certain age it’s more harmful than beneficial.
Of course we support modern feminism, supporting modern feminism leads to positive change, for men and women. Ok, so single-sex schools address the issues of imbalance in areas where boys and girls differ. For girls and young women they allow for their voices to be heard and valued, their ideas to be discussed and their weaknesses worked on. For boys, it enables them to ‘have’ weaknesses to work on which, in a society that tells them that men are never allowed to be weak, is a good thing. It also allows boys/young men to explore options that are predominantly seen as ‘for girls’ or that girls generally do better at, without the negative feelings that may present if they are constantly at the bottom behind the girls in their class.
Like I said, there are issues with single-sex schools, primarily the lack of inclusion for trans and nb youth, but if those problems could be addressed then it’s a valid choice for a young person and their family. I do believe that like most things, it should be an option rather than an obligation. It may surprise you that feminists are actually pretty into letting people choose for themselves, as long as that choice doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights to choose.
Side note: do you also hate boy and girl scouts?
And very thick is very thick.
Let’s recap-women having their own opinion that differs from yours, bad. Not clear on what might be good, since all you do is whinge.
But do carry on, since you are making all MRAs look like grouchy morons.
She’s referring to education. Of kids. Not the workplace of adults. And as a woman who WAS in STEM (college in the 80s, grad school in the 90s) i disagree with the notion of same sex schools. I went to coed public school thru high school and it did not hinder my learning in stem or other subjects in any way. And this was the 70s and 80s. But that’s neither here nor there. Elementary school, junior high, and high school are not the workplace. Duh.
If you can’t see the irony – then I can’t help you.
There isn’t any, is why just me can’t see it.
You are a vulgar and profane person. Your values and expression are corrupt and your views moronic.
You are a great example of the MRA viewpoint, and should carry on sharing the message-lots of us get your message loud and clear.
Please. Keep your help. Please
(Cough) I certainly hope you aren’t suggesting women are weaker in chemistry. Oh hell no.
I think you’ll find he’s suggesting women should sit down (though obviously not anywhere that would stop a man sitting down if he wants to), shut up and stop hogging all the power and money that rightfully belongs to men.
Of fucking course not. Sweet Jesus. You people are so painfully insecure, it really makes me wonder if Tim Hunt is right.
Women dominate the biological side of STEM – somewhat chemistry, very much biology, and very much the medical side of it.
(This is never brought up)
An interview? Just any, since you have never and further repeatedly refuse to specify which exactly/you apparently think mind reading is a thing? Then I choose the John Wayne Gacy interview and I gotta say taking his side makes you look pretty bad.
And I still say you gotta be trolling, because being this combination of intentionally non-specific and insulting can’t be anything but purposefully affected.
So for real though, what interview? I want to judge this woman who speaks for all of feminism for myself.
When did females and therefore feminists become the hive mind he’s implying? Why am I not part of it?!
first off, men don’t WANT segregation. they like harassing, stalking, making fun of, degrading, and raping women. be smart, now.
you know why white men didn’t want black men in their restrooms? did you think black men wrote those jim crow laws?
white men knew they’d get jumped an beaten to death in private by the ones they’d been massacre-ing.
“first off, men don’t WANT segregation. they like harassing, stalking, making fun of, degrading, and raping women. be smart, now.”
The ridiculousness of this sentiment is both sad and hilarious.
I’m staggered at how dishonest this article is. It never addresses his points, and merely responds to a strawman.
So what did he say?
1) Office relationships are bad.
Hmm. You know who else says that? MOST COMPANIES HR DEPARTMENTS. You can be sacked in some places for them.
And who runs the HR departments?
Take a guess.
Young women – who often identify AS FEMINISTS.
So feminists say they are bad – and when they say that, that’s terrific! That’s the natural wisdom of a Sister!
But when he says it? It’s just a stupid old white man talking. Vilify him!
What else did he say?
2) Crying in the office is bad.
Well, yes! People who can’t cope with stress are a big problem. At my old workplace, which was a call centre, thousands of people managed to cope with criticism every day – it was mandatory for our performance evaluations.
We seemed to have done so without crying.
If the women are crying in his workplace, I’d say that the likely reason is not distress but because it’s effective at manipulating people.
Now, you don’t provide counter evidence – indeed, the main argument I have heard is that crying is good and men not doing it is why they kill themselves in ever increasing numbers (and it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact men are now vilified for being men, like he is).
This is so incoherent. Wow.
I wondered if it was just me.
Do you want to build a strawman?
Come on let’s go and Troll!
I never see it ever stop,
It’s all just slop.
Come on let’s all dive in!
The goal post keep on moving,
Oh, now they’re there
Without ever saying whyyyyy!
Do you want to build a strawman?
It doesn’t have to be just one, man!
Go away asshole!
…
This means war.
Are we working together in a mixed gendered lab, wearing distractingly sexy personal protective equipment?
Because I think I’m in love.
Only if scantily clad men and women are on the protective equipment!
Will you two stop distracting me? I’m about to cry now.
I can only be the birdy on your shoulder who leads you into bad decisions!
Dude, you should check your Y chromosome. Something is seriously out of whack with your logical thinking skills.
And your evidence is…
Nothing.
Just an ad hom. How dull you are.
The evidence is your own writing, which is an incomprehensible stream of loosely connected falsehoods and deliberate misconstruals.
and another… because that’s the feminist way. Engage on the emotional level, never the rational!
Because you know the cold world of logic and reason is one where your kind, like the communists before you, cannot prosper.
You have nothing to offer but lies and manipulation.
And your day is coming.
And when it’s done, the only thing people will remember of you was that it was remarkable anyone could believe such nonsense.
Or perhaps they will program a robot to believe as you do, and another a creationist, and so on, and so on, and people will come to gawp at your heritage. Your kin shall be freaks in a museum – valued, in a way.
Perhaps that is the most kindness you can expect.
WTF just happened?
I think his insane rhetoric tried to divide by 0.
Ooooookay. Well. That was certainly illuminating.
Usually I have to walk into the wrong church to get this amount of damnation and hellfire. Learn something new every day.
I’m not sure what you just said, but I’m pretty sure you aren’t either.
Poor brett.
But one day his people will rise!!! Because he says so!!!! And we know they are neither women nor bible bashers, so there’s that. Or communists, he seems to have a thing about communists.
Pretty sure, if he’s representative, they are not logicians, either. And I can’t help feeling if someone invented a robot that was much at all like a woman, the brett-fellows would find a number of things to do with it that might involve gawping, before they dove in, so to speak, but would not be at all kind.
you’re an obsessive little troll, aren’tya?
Dr. Hunt was implying that men and women (or girls, as he put it) can’t work together and remain professional. Do you find that ridiculous?
He was talking about his experience in the work place of labs – not all workplaces.
Is the idea of gender separated labs bad? Guess what, feminists came up with that in the 60s.
What about office romances? Banned by HR departments in many workplaces. HR departments staffed by women – so clearly women agree with him!
The idea that men and women work better gender separated is a testable hypothesis – yet instead of testing it, he’s attacked on the grounds of his race, age and sex. Isn’t that the opposite of what science should be about?
And the evidence FOR his idea is that studies have been done on kids – and it was feminists arguing for separate education for girls, because they performed better!
He was taken to task for his comments, which were sexist and deeply troubling coming from someone in a position of influence and authority, not attacked on the grounds of race, age, and sex.
His comments – which as I have already made clear, merely repeat what generations of feminists have already said.
Were they “sexist and deeply troubling”?
Of course not; the essence of doublethink is the ability to keep yourself from seeing how many fingers someone is holding up when the answer is different from the party line.
He’s old, he’s white, and worst of all, he’s a man. He’s wrong, by definition.
I am married to an old man, so I definitely don’t have a problem with him on those two counts. I have nothing against him being white.
I have a lot of respect for a lot of old, white men. To have even one conversation with them would be a dream.
Richard Feynman was an old white man when he participated in the Challenger disaster panel. Worked closely with a woman who turned out to be the anonymous source that pointed towards the O-rings being the point of failure. He advocated for truth to overcome politics as there should be no room for politics in science. And was something of a creative prankster and I always love a good creative prank.
My own grandfather was a nuclear physicist that worked out the equations for the ferro-concrete mixture that would make up the reactor shields for civilian reactors. He had to measure neutron-flux resistance and gamma radiation penetration along with tensile strength to find the best ratio for strength and radiation shielding. He could do the math himself but instead created his own program on the old punch card IBM computer to do it for him so he could do more calculations in less time. He also programmed one to print a large poster of Xs that formed a good likeness of Snoopy the Dog for my oldest aunt. Both my grandparents were extremely proud when she became the first female student body president of her high school.
He died before he could be considered “old” at 51 but being of 100% Danish/German ancestry he was certainly white. I was born five years after he died. One of my regrets in life is that I’ll never be able to have even one conversation with him. Dad said he was kind of an asshole but he was an equal opportunity asshole. Still would have been worth it to talk to him.
Alan Turing didn’t die old either but to spend even five minutes listening to him work out how he came up with his algorithms would be amazing. I probably wouldn’t even understand a fraction of it but to just listen to how his mind worked would be worth it. He also worked with women.
Now he’s not white but he is old and male, but a neighbor I had a few years ago was a Chinese man who retired from science to paint. Very, very interesting man. Tended to paint on his back porch in his gold speedo. Why? I dunno. He enjoyed it so more power to him. He had several patents under his name, one for a PCR wash process to reduce contaminants on DNA/RNA samples.
He’d rather talk about painting and observing other people though. And how as an old man you can’t sit in the park and look at little children’s feet for painting reference when the photo you’re using cut them off. Apparently this gets you labeled a freak in America. He had such a great, wry sense of humor. A fantastic grasp of color theory and it was always hard to tell what medium he was using because of how he used it. Very humble, always downplayed his achievements but he was brilliant. I think he moved to Seattle a few years back. I was happy to have met him. He didn’t want separate labs.
I don’t hate old, white men. I have a certain fondness for asking the veterans that wear their veteran hats and pins about their service if they’d like to talk about it. Most people my age ignore them when they talk about it so they light up when I ask them to continue.
I don’t see any of them as wrong by default. I even give a certain amount of leeway based on the culture their generation grew up in. Most don’t know better and no one ever mentioned it to them.
However someone of this man’s standing does know better. He’s worked with women who love their work and just want to continue it without being harassed. And women do get harassed just to chase them out of the field. Then he said that? It’s disheartening as a woman pursuing STEM field education and hobbies to see someone who should be one of the best of us say that. Especially knowing so many other men do not share that opinion.
Amazing how you can make a completely false assertion like that. Feminists have not advised segregation, but emancipation and full participation for women and for them not to be discounted and treated like second-class citizens just because of their sex.
It was men that blocked women from participating in politics by not allowing them to vote and stand for positions. It was men that didn’t allow women a proper education and who blocked women wishing to get an education, even once they got in they refused women scientists full use of labs and gave them inferior facilities. It was men that set up Gentlemen’s clubs which disbarred women from membership. And all of it was totally illogical and unecessary, just like his indefensible comments.
“Feminists have not advised segregation”
Wow. You have not a clue. There are shelves full of books like “the female man”, ” the first sex” and “the SCUM manifesto” which talk about that.
There’s entire branches of feminism dedicated to it – Feminist Initiative denounced women who have sex with men as “gender traitors”, Lesbian Separatism has been preached about since the 1960s (only stymied by fact that actually forming colonies is hard work and so it’s so much easier to be a bitch and whine online).
Go to a library, pick up a book about the history of feminism, or try searching historical records rather than feminist revisionism.
“Feminists have not advised segregation”
So… we are just pretending lesbian separatism never happened, then? Will you be burning all the records of it?
So now you are conflating mainstream feminism with lesbian separatism? I think that’s a reach, at best.
Not that I’m in favor of sex segregated schools for KIDS, but he’s referring to ADULTs being segregated in the workplace. Not the same thing.
Not to mention all the blame is on the women.
“Not that I’m in favor of sex segregated schools for KIDS, but he’s
referring to ADULTs being segregated in the workplace. Not the same
thing.”
If sex segregated schooling is effective for ‘kids’ (which is including people up to 18, who still attend schooling), then there’s no reason to assume it won’t also apply to older people. It’s a testable hypothesis, and someone proposing such a thing should never be attacked, especially not in the realm of science.
Was he wrong? Test it.
But what if he’s right?
Actually there is a difference between children learning and adults working. And having been a female working in a lab I think the idea is full of shit. Basically he’s saying keep women segregated so we men don’t have to bother to stop bring misogynists.
This is really the crux of the trouble with Prof Hunt’s remarks. They assume that all male is the ‘normal’ setting for labs, and that when women come in they upset that ‘normal’ setting.
While all male may have been the usual set up for labs (and many other workplaces in the past) that’s no longer the case. So now we have to confront whether the workplace should change to accomodate the new arrangements, or whether the incomers should take all the heat for anything perceived be negative, whether it has anything to do with them or not. Prof Hunt implies the latter-that is, after all, ‘the trouble with girls’. Others disagree, and suggest that the dinosaurs had better get used to some disruption, whatever the cause. And the dinosaurs don’t like it.
“there is a difference between children learning and adults working.”
Except that the ‘children’ can be 18 years old or more – your belief that workers are younger than students is quite naive. I worked in a lab at 15 and that wasn’t unusual.
“And
having been a female working in a lab I think the idea is full of shit. ”
How many Nobel prizes did you get again?
“Basically he’s saying keep women segregated”
No, he proposed keeping workplaces segregated by sex. Either as a joke, or seriously; but let’s assume it was serious and it’s not a case of Feminists going mental over a joke.
“so we men don’t have to
bother to stop being misogynists”
There’s not one word of hatred towards women he has said, except in your paranoid imagination.
Yes, having a nobel prize makes one an expert on all things and above reproach. Cf. James Watson. Shall we adopt his notions on race relations?
Seriously, it doesn’t take a Nobel prize to see that children learning is different from adults working. Spending time in a lab as a teenager (did that) is not the same as being in the adult workplace. But you can’t get past that. Your position is basically: some feminists think same sex education is good, so no woman can ever suggest that same sex segregation in the workplace is bad, even if that same woman does NOT think same sex education is a good thing. Wow.
And apparently one has to have a Nobel prize to opine on workplace standards. Huh. And it’s paranoid to think calling women girls, referring to them crying, and suggesting they be segregated from men lest any relationships manifest is misogynistic.
Me thinks I’m not the paranoid one here.
“having a nobel prize makes one an expert on all things and above
reproach. Cf. James Watson. Shall we adopt his notions on race
relations?”
Was James Watson commenting in a field in which he has had intimate experience? If so, then we should assess what he has to say logically yet critically. Or we could just do the SocJus path of assuming any dissenting view must be discarded automatically.
He has worked in these teams very successfully, has had an office romance that had a good result for him but which would generally be frowned upon in most workplaces, and has said nothing about such romances that isn’t orthodox HR wisdom in any case.,
If you would kindly point out Watson’s equivalent actions?
“it doesn’t take a Nobel prize to see that children learning is different from adults working”
You really are determined to ignore that your hypothetical ‘children’ can be older than your hypothetical ‘adults’. I have to assume at this point it’s not that you don’t realise students can be older than workers – you genuinely don’t care, because acknowledging it would be honest – and there’s no part of you that can make that claim.
I’ll not play games with a liar.
And so, we are done.
A child is under 18-an adult is a person over 18. Some adults do behave like children, Bret, I’ll concede that, but that doesn’t make them a child, or entitled to the rights or protections of a child.
Tim Hunt is sooking like an infant as far as I can make out, with ‘it’s sooo unfair’ as his primary cry. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s just a caught out dinosaur.
Either way, he’s out of a job that clearly his employer didn’t much want him in since they made no effort to support or protect him.
https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/13749018
http://brett-caton.tumblr.com/post/78637787135/ughsocialjustice-the-unpopular-opinions-just
https://mobile.twitter.com/bcaton2
Misogynist much?
I prefer to deal with what he said. The essence was that women and men work better separately. The evidence from schools is that seems at least interesting, not to mention a testable hypothesis.
Since feminists have argued for fifty years now that men and women SHOULD be separated, I find it laughable that they castigate him for expressing THEIR OPINION.
Make up your mind. Are they wrong? Or is saying feminists are wrong too close to heresy for you to dare?
The doctor blamed women for the problems of a workplace romance, not both parties. It still takes two to tango.
I don’t know why you are taking up for this doctor. He insults men as well, as if men have no control when they work with women. Aren’t you more intelligent and professional than that?
Workplace romances of cause a lot of workplace unnecessary drama. But it is not impossible for men and women to work professionally. Everyone is not on the prowl all the time.
I think you are one of these people who defines feminism as any woman who doesn’t want to be a doormat.
“No crying openly on the floor at work. No workplace relationships.”
Yeah, he didn’t say that, exactly, but you’re sure writing your comment as if he did.
‘There are these problems in the world’ vs ‘There are these problems in the world because of the damned *minority or marginalized group here*’.
If you really can’t see the difference, I’m very sorry.
I’ve witnessed relationships develop in the workforce. Some even led to marriage. Somehow people managed to do this and still be professional in their job.
Oh yeah, it’s totally possible. Even at different levels of seniority – though direct supervision is still probably a bad thing most of the time, for perception if nothing else.
I’m not arguing with you – but since it’s maintained by HR depart’s that they are bad, and has been for decades, then vilifying him when he’s simply repeating their argument – and who runs HR? – is immensely hypocritical.
Who runs HR? Last time I checked, HR jobs were open to both male and female candidates. You make it sound like some kind of feminist cabal.
And then you speak as if you know the rules of all HR depts.
So the solution to no office relationships and crying in the office is sex-segregation? That is pretty silly.
There’s two parts.
” the solution to no office relationships”
is something HR departments talk about and write books about and if you think it’s silly, maybe you should mention that to the CEO of your company, since you know better.
The crying bit is more controversial. However, it is idiotic to say women don’t cry more than men. Women not only cry with less reason, but in far greater quantities. Even if you had never encountered a woman before, you could look up the studies done where they discuss why.
You missed the grammar of my question, which is, “the solution is sex segregation?” which included a prepositional phrase separating the object from the subject. Sex-segregation is not the answer.
I don’t care about the grammar when the substance of your argument is what is lacking. You’re ignoring my points and looking to deflect attention from that.
My point is that you were distracted by the prepositional phrase and could not see that I refute the notion that sex-segregation is the solution to office relationships and crying.
As for Tim Hunt’s complaint about crying in the workplace being used to manipulate rather than coming from true distress, identifying HR departments as young female feminists who are then being hypocritical in vilifying Tim Hunt, and that the counter-evidence in favor of crying is that men commit suicide…
All I can say to that is:
1. Illogical leaps and juxtapositions.
2. No sources cited.
3. Tripe.
There’s not a lot of point in me citing sources to someone whose mind is already closed, and who is doing their best to sabotage the discussion rather than dealing with the points raised.
“As for Tim Hunt’s complaint about crying in the workplace being used to manipulate rather than coming from true distress,”
I never said that HE said that, and I have to wonder why women would be less capable of dealing with stress in that workplace than men – if it’s from true distress, if anything, that would be evidence they couldn’t cope and shouldn’t be there.
“identifying HR departments as young female feminists who are then being hypocritical in vilifying Tim Hunt”
Are you saying they are not female, or not feminists, or that they do not claim that office romances are a problem? A few seconds of research – or just, I dunno, TALKING TO YOUR HR DEPARTMENT, would have revealed that all three were largely correct, and have been correct for decades now.
But let’s imagine – just for a second, that you are an honest person, albeit a lazy one, and you simply haven’t worked in any office with a HR department, or interacted with them in any way, and it’s all shockingly new to you.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=office+romance+problems+hr
Oh my! Seems like this is something grown ups know about.
I’ll leave you to your diet of innards and a little light reading. Have fun.
So you’re saying the solution is single-sex workplaces? That’s what I’m saying is STUPID, Brett.
I’m not seeing evidence of armies of young female HR departments tweeting about Tim Hunt, but rather the scientists themselves. Nor am I seeing sources of feminists saying men are killing themselves because they don’t cry enough. That’s what YOU said in your original post above, and what I am saying is illogical, a bizarre juxtaposition, not rooted in evidence, and absurdist twaddle.
Poor Bret, you’ll make him cry with rage and frustration in a moment.
But yes, the old ‘hr are evil feminists’ is pretty rich when most of the people that run companies are men, who employ those in hr who they think will do their bidding. In my experience hr works for the benefit of the organisation, not the individual. Most organisations are run by men, therefore, surely, hr serves the requirements of those men.
The fact that some young women work there, and that some of them may identify as feminists on their days off, doesn’t make the hr department either female controlled or feminist in tenor.
And yes, I’ve worked in big organisations, with big hr teams-the lazy mistake the shell for the substance, as Bret does, the rest of us figured it out years ago.
Just call me the evil cougar feminist Disqus troller… That’s how I roll, making grown men cry based on the tapping of my keyboard.
Brett, did you by any chance have problems with the HR department at your last job?
I wonder why.
Ad hom deflection – no I worked with HR, and we had to discuss issues like that. But seriously; please ignore me and tell your HR department you intend to sleep with people in your workplace. I’m sure that will go down a treat.
My workplace has no problem with employees getting involved. We are all adults, and we manage to get our jobs done regardless of what is going on in our personal lives. Kindly put down the debate textbook and go away.
http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/employeerelations/articles/pages/forbidden-love-workplace-romance-policies-stricter.aspx
Gosh. I guess all those experts are just idiots. You should go tell them that. Their international multi-trillion dollar organisations just don’t know what they are doing – go explain things to them, why don’t you?
Multi-trillion dollar? Gosh, I didn’t know who I was dealing with here, clearly.
Look. This blog post is satire. It is in response to some ill-advised comments made by a prominent scientist. Clearly you are taking something here very personally. I don’t know what it is, but I assure you, we can’t help you with it.
So what is your point? You think the sexes should be separated in the workplace? That’s your opinion, and you’re entitled to it. You think workplace relationships are ill advised? Again, your opinion. But your opinion does not dictate the public discourse. You’re aligning yourself here with someone who is out of touch with reality.
Even if if separate the sexes, same sex relationships in the work place could still be problematic. And please don’t think they would be any less dramatic.
They would be a lesser problem, as most people aren’t same sex attracted. You don’t have to aim for a perfect workplace, just a more efficient one than what you have currently.
I work with my local school district. Most of the teachers, especially in the lower grades are female. It is a hen club. In short, I think it would be better if they hired more male teachers. The school I worked at this year has mostly black male students. From grades pre-kindergarten to 6th grade there is only one male teacher. I think a school with male and female teachers would benefit the staff and the students.
I forget to address this. If the workplace is so inefficient, is that because men and women work together, or because of something else?
” did you by any chance have problems with the HR department at your last job?”
No, I was friends witha few and sat on committees with them. Jeez, one of these days I will see a comment here that isn’t either an ad hom or a Strawman. One day.
Oh well, back to you.
“I wonder why.”
I doubt the ability to wonder remains in the dried husk bouncing about in that skull of yours.
Tell me more about ad hominem attacks.
One of these days you will make a comment that doesn’t include name calling and personal attacks.
I needed the laugh today…thanks 🙂
You’ll really enjoy this then:
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33099289
That’s so funny.
This is great! I should pose with a PAPR!
This link (ad link-around the web), full of scantily clad busty women: http://americanlivewire.com/2015-05-21-emmm-emmm-cosplay-that-make-your-toes-curl/
provided to me by a blog page (this one, authored by a woman), which criticizes a man for wearing a shirt full of scantily clad busty women 😉
Which basically just goes to show what you usually look at online. The ads I get on this page are currently to do with banking, but have also been for books, caravans, clothing, and so on.
Mine are for spark plugs and wacom tablet styluses.
I had odd hobbies and search histories.
I get a lot of adoption centers and international dating sites. This is the only pregnancy/parenting related site I visit, though, and I never visit anything to do with dating or the sex trade.
Sometimes, the algorithms are just nuts.
When I first start visiting this blog, my ads got positively clogged by diapers.
Two words: ad blockers. I whitelist sites I like so they can get income from ads.
Same.
During January and February most of my ads were for Disneyland. Let me know if you figure it out.
Taking advantage of the shorter lines thanks to the measles outbreak?
Mine is a Sear’s ad for shoes.
I get diaper bag and shoe ads, guess we know what I’ve been looking at!
Mine are for glasses. It’s not the website dude, it’s you.
So you can’t tell the difference between cosplay and proper work attire in a professional setting, as well as the difference between a blog and the automated advertising placed on it? It’s not a gotcha.
I’m a cosplayer and Google random stuff like EL wire, bulk acrylic sheets, Raspberry Pi, liquid latex, DC to AC converters, soddering guns, acrylic paint, a variety of craft and non-craft foam, blue gun training replicas, shop vacs, peg boards, ceramic heating units, and other assorted oddities. Very rarely specialty bras and similar undergarments.
…that’s probably how the spark plugs ended up in there now that I take a closer look at that list.
I certainly don’t get the adds they’re getting! What cosplayer stuff have they been looking at? 😮
Looks like there are actually consequences:
Sir Tim Hunt resigns from university role over girls comment
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33090022
“Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday, Sir Tim said he was “really sorry that I said what I said”, adding it was “a very stupid thing to do in the presence of all those journalists”.”
He really doesn’t understand why, though. At least he’s honest.
Nice non-apology: classic “I’m sorry I got caught.”
“I’m sorry people got upset at the things I said.”
Not even that. He’s sorry he said it in front of journalists, because he knew it was wrong and was hoping to get away with it.
If he’d said it in front of other scientists he thought he’d have gotten a better reception to his comments? Or he thought it wouldn’t be broadcast into the wider community whereby it would be less acceptable than in the scientific community? He does think much of the scientific community, does he?
He thought they’d either all agree with him, or be too powerless to do anything, or wouldn’t be believed if they mentioned it outside the room. If he’d been recorded by other scientists, someone in the room would have put it on youtube or wherever and he’d be where he is now, it just would have taken a bit longer to get here.
I think he intended to disparage his female audience’s femininity. By his own admission, he knew what he was saying, meant what he said, and is loyal to the ideology that spawned the comments. He regrets the presence of the journalists (who will carry his comments to audiences he has no influence over), not his ideas, words, or audience response.
From his bewildered reaction to the whole kerfuffle, I suspect he’s used to these kind of remarks being received with approval.
The cynic in me wonders how much external funding Hunt has been bringing in recently and whether the university was looking for an excuse to break his tenure.
Yes, people get away with all sorts of messed up behaviour so long as the money is rolling in. He may have made easy what they’d hoped for for a while.
It wasn’t a paid position, just an honorary title.
So, he’s saying gays/lesbians/bisexuals don’t have romantic issues in the workplace ever?
Clearly if you’re inclusive the end result is that everyone should have their own lab.
The lesbians and female bisexuals can go in with the rest of the women. It doesn’t cause any issues because without a penis, women have no sex drive and can’t have real sex anyway. I know this because a man told me.
Female bisexuals only have sex with other women in order to attract men, after all. #HearThatOneAllTheTime
And it’s not REAL sex, it’s only foreplay *eyeroll* (The crap that bisexuals get is ridiculous, and I’m sorry)
Your edit made me bwah!
Oh, there’s even more where that came from!
They are clearly less significant.
I am afraid that we are all soon about to find out what happens when you cross an MRA with an intactivist….
Oh I think we’ve been hearing from them already at the circumcision page…
Yeah, I grew bored with the intactiivists a while ago but they just keep posting over there…
It’s interesting how one flows into the other. It’s clearly a set of very triggering issues for a lot of men.
My son aged 23 tells me-with only a hint of regret-that he was born 30 years too late. Life’s hard when there are double the number of good people to compete with for education and jobs. And that has happened in one generation.
He gets that the world is moving on, and thankfully doesn’t have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, but I can see that there are many in his shoes who feel resentful about a world they imagined they were coming into that no longer exists.
It has gone CRAZY over there!
They have a Facebook page dedicated to a four year old’s genitals. It started out crazy.
You know, I become more and more glad that I don’t have a Facebook page anymore.
What search word brings them here this time? Guys?
A gigantic, uncut dick?
Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
All depends on where you put it!
If it’s the sum total of your presentation or contribution to society, yes.
True, true. Sorry, since I am female I was about to get all excited. Good thing I am not in a science lab. I think I will go cry now…
So what you are arguing is that this man – who has no connection to the men’s rights movement – must be an MRA – because you don’t like him or the MRA.
Huh.
You really are an awful excuse for a human being.
To use an old idiom that’s fallen out of favor because of political correctness: If it looks like a duck, walks like a ducks, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
It’s not always true but if you don’t want to be associated with something, don’t wear the uniform. We’re unfortunately not at a place in our society that allows us to not be lumped together with like lables.
Well, that escalated quickly.
And with zero recourse to reading comprehension skills.
Nah – it’s not HIM that’s being described as an MRA – it’s all the fly-ins to this blog who wouldn’t know NCB if they fell over it.
I don’t know that letting facts get in the way is likely to make much difference.
Though our parachuters do seem to have packed up and moved on-they don’t seem to have the staying power of anti-vaxxers or negligent birth junkies.
Either they didn’t get the reaction they were looking for or they struggle to maintain a hate-on. *shrugs* Not that anyone minds returning to the usual.
Maybe their hate on needs to be circumcised to reduce sensitivity for staying power. /s
{giggle}
They aren’t done yet; see above. ..
.
>”Feminist”
>”Skeptic”
Pick one.
#LikeYourOwnStatus a la Food Babe,
Really?
I’m quite happy to pick both, as are many others.
The only way you could be both is if you were a skeptic towards feminism too. I’m yet to meet one who is. Ideologies come with inherent bias.
I’m sorry, are you suggesting that someone cannot be a skeptic unless they are willing to question the assumption that women are people of equal value to men?
A skeptic towards feminism? I am. There, you met one. Pleased to meet you.
It is perfectly possible to apply skeptical thought to feminism and end up believing that yes, women should have the same opportunities and rights as men.
Inherent bias confirmed. No point arguing with you. I don’t argue with ideologues. You’re no sceptic.
Bye then!
I see. Disagreement with you is clear evidence of bias and ideology. You are the one true skeptic and as such only you can determine whether anyone else has applied skepticism to any ideas. Reaching a conclusion different to you is proof one has not applied skepticism and is therefore wrong. Got it.
We understand that you like what you posted, given that you posted it. Not really necessary (and actually pretty obnoxious) to vote it up.
Then ask yourself; why is the option there? I say what I like, and I like what I say. Shaming people for their choice to use a harmless option available to them is pretty obnoxious.
That’s shaming is it? You’re a fragile soul. I would call it gentle mocking.
I have liked my own post on accident; these darn touchscreen phones…
> “Sexist”
> “Pathetically Ignorant”
Pick one.
I was going to post something constructive, but then you had to go and show the asinine vitriol over Matt Taylor, so I have this to say instead..
Are your feelings being hurt? I have a tissue here for you.
Of course you carry tissues. Because you’re an emotional woman. 😉
Well I did have a few left over 😉
I carry them to wipe a small boy’s snotty nose. Seems apropos
Oh, sure. Blame the kid. 🙂
It seems a bunch of BIG boys need theirs wiped! !
It would be awesome if my feelings were hurt. Unfortunately I cannot feel anymore due to all the ADHD medication that was forced down my throat as a child. But thank you for your kind consideration.
But you can feel enough anger to post that lovely image? Very self aware. Much easier to blame some past adult who was doing their best for you than take responsibility for your own emotions.
Is anger not an appropriate emotion to feel when someone sees an injustice?
So angry you post abusive images on a blog you don’t usually visit as a commenter? I don’t know whether or not your anger is appropriate, but you don’t seem to have a appropriate boundaries for it. No one here forced anything on you.
I’m sorry you are upset, but how does being as you admit yourself, ‘unconstructive’ help with anything?
It’s called speaking truth to power.
“Truth”? HAHAHAHAHA
“Power”? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Run that past us again, Billy?
Whose truth and whose power?
If a woman made the same comment about men, would she have had this much backlash?
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize”
That last argument is just plain stupid. You think woman are in power because you are not allowed to ‘criticize’ them? Are you comparing women’s fight for equality with dictatorship?
True, a woman would probably not have had this much backlash, but maybe that’s because we are the one who have been oppressed by men for hundreds/thousands of years?
Women aren’t in “power” because they have worked hard, stayed out of trouble, studied and received good grades, etc. They only have what they have because no one is allowed to criticize them.
Wow. That is like saying black people are only successful because of affirmative action. This guy just keeps digging it in deeper.
Your understanding of male/female relationships is stunted, ignorant, and biased.
A very intelligent man who has done many great things for society has been run out of his job for making a stupid comment that was supposed to be a joke. Women make these kinds of comments all the time. Men make jokes to one another and if a woman overhears him, he gets fired. So yes, women are in power.
If a highly esteemed female scientist in a position of authority made sexist comments, I hope she would be criticized as well.
She would have from me.
I’d call her to the carpet. I do it a lot IRL with race and religion bashing too.
So noble. Though it is usually the case that speaking truth to power involves some risk beyond being mercilly mocked and disrespected by a bunch of strangers online.
Leaving that aside, have you found the powerful (whoever they are in your confused world view) really receptive you your vulgarity?
But you said you can’t feel anymore. Wouldn’t that include anger?
And this comment is coming from a person who works in the school system and feels behavior medications are sometimes overused.
Billy…I don’t think your alleged inability to feel emotions can be solely attributable, or even be a long-term result, of ADHD medication administered to you in your childhood.
I actually had medication that completely dulled every emotion on accident while I was in college. Get insulted? Meh. Water off a duck’s back. I was so completely chilled out all the time.
…sometimes I miss it. Life was a hell of a lot simpler.
@DelphiniumFalcon – yes, but is it still affecting you as much today as then? Billy said the drugs that were administered in his childhood continue to affect his total inability to feel emotions to this day. That’s a bit different than saying the medication you’re currently on is doing that.
I’ve heard that in utero crack cocaine exposure can cause life long deficits in emotional development, but I don’t know if that’s true or a meme left over from the “crack baby panic” of the 80’s.
@Cobalt: it’s a meme left over from the 80’s. Contrary to the panic over permanent damage, ‘crack babies” do just fine with good parenting. Overall, babies exposed to crack in utero do no worse than babies of mothers with comparable health and prenatal care who do not use crack cocaine.
I’m just wondering how he can conjure up so much resentment for being emotionally stripped. I couldn’t conjure up the mild disappointment when McDonald’s got my order wrong in that state. It’s an odd state of being, being totally emotionally dulled.
Methinks there’s a bit of exaggeration here based on the experience of myself and others that have had meds accidentally rob them of emotion.
That’s not actually how ADHD meds work.
Hurt his feelings? Impossible! It’s been *scientifically* proven that men are incapable of having feelings or acting rationally, hasn’t it? Men don’t feel hurt. They lack the spiritual development and emotional resources to do so. What comes across as “hurt” is really just his caveman tribal knee-jerk reaction to having his male prerogatives in his repressive patriarchal society challenged by women – who are vastly superior in every way…
Besides, he’s just bein’ a crybaby.
He’s spraying his toddler-level feelings all over the page. This is a person with big, sad boo-hoos in his soul. That’s the only explanation for his inability to control himself. He really threw an image macro tantrum on a website that he obviously does not follow. Clearly, he sought out Dr. Amy’s post here only so he could shit himself in the comments.
You say that but feminists have legitimately kept young boys from getting science enrichment . especially at a time when boys need help with school greatly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjytGk4JIm0
One example of giving girls enrichment in this area means boys are being prevented from getting enrichment? Really?
Of course. Don’t you know it’s a giant conspiracy? Where will it all end if girls are offered the opportunity to catchup with boys in areas where they haven’t already done so? What will be left for the boys to be superior at? And of course the boys need to be/should be/are superior…because the MRAs say so.
Well, I remember one study where they manipulated the environment to remove stereotype threat and found that when they did, the boy advantage at math disappeared, but the girl advantage at language persisted. So men are probably inferior at everything except using violence to get their way.
Wasn’t there a study that showed men are clustered on either end of the bell curve while women’s abilities are more evenly distributed? Like men are more likely to be billionaires but also more likely to be dirt poor with not as much middle ground? I wish I could remember where I read that.
ETA: Given I’ve never taken statistics I’m sure I mangled what the study actually shows.
Wish you could remember. I looked and couldn’t find it anywhere. And I’d love to read it. It sounds like one of those studies that says exactly what some people want to here. How’s that phrase do? Something like: displaying a high degree of ‘truthiness’?
One of my profs showed it to us, too, ‘though I can’t remember where it’s from either.
I found this:
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7093/do-men-show-greater-variance-in-the-distribution-of-their-iq-than-women
http://www.quora.com/Do-men-have-a-wider-variance-of-intelligence-than-women
http://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/igsqc/do_men_have_a_wider_variance_of_intelligence_than/
I think it might be more accurate to say that men are measured at the tail ends of those curves more often, rather than actually exist there more often. Brilliant sigma-5 female minds just haven’t been allowed to follow their passions nearly as often or with nearly as much encouragement as male minds have, and low-functioning women are still encouraged/forced to learn basic socialization skills more than men and were, at least in the past, able to get married and “taken care of” more often than men, though they were also exceptionally screwed if that didn’t work out. And looking at today’s poverty distribution, both in Westernized countries like the US and developing countries, the absolutely dirt-poor tend to be women with children in both places, which doesn’t actually seem to have changed over time. I think that particular measure is skewed by researchers just not-noticing women and their poverty.
I can see the logic of the issue he’s trying to present but the message is lost in all the “What about THE MEN?” rambling.
The basic point among all the rambling, I think, is that two wrongs don’t make a right.
Women have been excluded in the past whether being barred from joining outright or being silenced while in the group.
I don’t think the answer though is to turn around an exclude men and justify it as “Well you excluded us, it’s only fair!” It only promotes the “Us vs them” mentality that needs to be broken down.
Maybe what would have worked better, and hear me out, is to have an equal amount of boys and girls invited to participate. The boys and girls are then partnered up randomly by numbers in a hat or something similar.
A problem is presented and everyone is asked, individually to come up with a solution. Once they have their idea that’s when they split into pairs of one boy and one girl.
One of the ideas is done first with both concentrating on that person’s design first. This could be determined by coin flip or another randomizer. Both parties have to work together on the idea. Then the idea is tested to see how well it worked. Then they switch to the other person’s idea. The person who came up with the idea takes the role of mentor and the other is the one being taught.
Afterwards both party members have to describe what they thought was a good idea from the other person’s project. Then decide which ideas should be combined to create a superior design. Then they create the new project from the combined plan.
Girls are able to lead boys in their project and see how they think and girls can see how boys approach projects and see how to combine their strengths to create a better team. Women in our society are supposed to be better at multitasking but I think a lot of that is learned. Boys could observe how girls learn to do it. Girls can see how boys approach projects, which in our society tends to be more head on. They can learn new ways to cooperate and blend ideas.
They’re shown that a partnership between a boy and a girl doesn’t have to be sexually charged and the boys learn the value of women with an interest in STEM fields how they approach projects.
The actual mentors of the gathering step in if a girl or a guy is trying to dominate the other’s project and gently push them towards the behavior we’re trying to cultivate. “It sounds like Jane had an idea she hasn’t been able to tell you about yet. What’s your idea, Jane?” So we avoid the guys talking over the girls as often happens.
I think facilitating a healthy working relationship between the boys and girls would go farther than any program that excludes the other. Excluding the boys just makes them resent the girls further. Including them and having them observe first hand how girls work in the STEM field and have equally valid viewpoints and ideas fosters comradery instead.
I think it’s interesting that you wrote a long and well thought out critique of the video and situation whereas the MRA who was presumably advocating the position in the video can’t seem to do more than repost it over and over again. More evidence that women are more logical and better at scientific thinking wheras men just hide behind emotion and other people’s arguments.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes you get a good conversation out of it and understand the thinking of someone you thought you’d never agree with.
Other times your well thought out discussions get called logical fallacies while using the concept of logical fallacies wrong and you get called names and Troll!Delphi rears her cackling head. Ex: Circumcision discussion.
Well, now you’re being all sane and reasonable about it. Is that even allowed on the internet?
Or am I?!
And her well-thought-out comment hasn’t gotten a single reply from the parachuters barfing posts upthread. Telling.
As was expected, really. Because replying means that their narrative of being oppressed by unreasonable women has a giant flapping hole in it. Also replying without vitrol to something like this takes effort that is better spent creating a strawman where they wasn’t one before.
This one’s too hard to make a pretend strawman out of! I need to find another post that I can twist words around in so I can burn it down!
THE MRAs ARE PARACHUTING IN!
INCOMING!
This will end well.
Eh feminists are worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjytGk4JIm0
What sport is played on that field, which is representing this university which is now so ruthlessly sidelining men?
I’m sure it is an exclusively women’s sport, since they are famously the most popular, lucrative and prestigious of all sports played at university.
People who parachute in to any Internet discussion are terrible. This site is a frequent target of parachuting by angry feminist non-rationalists. That never goes well.
—
My husband suggests this new hashtag for the invasion:
#NotALLMensRightsActivists
It took them long enough. I was expecting it to be filled with vitriol in seconds.
http://persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ice-cream-misandry.gif
Then entire thing just amounts to this:
Mountains out of Mole Hills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjytGk4JIm0
just out of interest, do you have anything else to say? This video is getting repetitive.
Yeah, I mean, dude I’m autistic and I’m finding those posts to be annoyingly repetitive. Think about that a moment!
I’m autistic myself, and this amused me far more than it should have. XD
I figure if you can’t laugh at yourself a bit, you’re taking life way too seriously. XD
I think the author is trying hard to make a mountain of a molehill. And she takes potshots at a guy’s looks when he’s in his 70’s. Will she look so good when she’s in her 70′?
He’s actually closer to 75 than 70.
That’s all they can come up with. Lame ad homs and straw men.
There was one woman on television debating this with Milo Stapgbuiydbioiwenoiunasnuffleopogous(I can’t be bothered to spell that last name correctly) and, well, she essentially said women are meek, fragile little creatures that need a supportive environment separate to men – while deriding this man’s opinion that men need a competitive workplace separate from women.
I don’t think these people know what they want.
Do link to this debate, about which you clearly feel so respectful.
If you could provide minute numbers for where those remarks are made, that would be most useful.
Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBiS4qTsjCg&feature=share
There, now you can’t mince my words, you intellectual midget.
These are the words of a FEMALE.
This is a great example of exactly the issue here. If all men behave anything like the man here, it’s a wonder women get anywhere.
He interrupts the femaie constantly, speaks over her, then proposes the separate labs, and-joy of joys-celebrates being a gay man because it gives him licence to be bitchy.
So he likes behaving like his perception of a woman when it suits him-bitchy-but like his perception of a man when it suits him-interrupting and speaking over. He’s a treat, you MRA fellas should sign him up if he’s not already on the books.
The young woman talks (very briefly) about support for woman in an existing environment, he talks about ‘protection’.
She looks at and listens to him even when he is interrupting her, he predominantly looks down when responding to her. She is respectful, he is not.
Calling people intellectual midgets and idiots for disagreeing with you is not making the powerful point about your intellect you think it is. Though it does reinforce a stereotype many women are very familiar with.
So once again women are expected to have special conditions and modify their behaviour because a man can’t help himself.
On the reverse, people attacking this man’s position are saying that women are meek and fragile and need to have special conditions that support them, and only them as they rise through education and STEM.
Lol
Do you not see the silliness on both sides? It’s insulting to men and women alike.
Hang on a second. A senior person says he prefers to exclude a whole group of people from working with him because he finds it more comfortable.
Would it be right if he said he didn’t like to work with people of colour, or catholics? Because in his view they are labile, distracting and distractable.
That’s a strawman argument, please show me where those are his views.
Also, please address what I actually said instead of making up nonsense.
After the falling in love and crying anecdote, he commented “I’m in favour of single-sex labs.” Or is that insufficiently specific-he is after all the boss, no doubt what he’s in favour of is worth at least some weight, even in these days.
You then proposed that attacking this point is a suggestion that women are weak and fragile and need support. I don’t know too many weak and fragile people of either gender, but when the boss says what he prefers, and it excludes a whole group, I’d suggest that group does need support if they want to move into his world. The weak and fragile need protection, not support. Women don’t need protection from men like him, they need for him to not be entitled to refuse them opportunities because of their gender alone.
Ready to answer my question yet?
You misconstrue, and offer nothing but straw men. Honestly, talking to a brick wall would be more prudent at this point.
You are the brick wall, and a troll as well.
Anyway, the problem will resolve spontaneously, as the proportion of women choosing a science career keeps increasing.
Reposting this for the umpteenth time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ihNLEDiuM
I LOVE THIS AND I LOVE HIM. Ahem.
What was the context for the question?
Fabulous answer.
I don’t know. Given that Dawkins is sitting next to him, I’m a bit loath to dig in more, but I just love that whole speech.
VERY revealing and perceptive – thanks for posting!
Tell me where I’m wrong, is all I’m asking.
I linked you to the article. -I- did not say that women are weak and fragile and need support. That’s -women-.
Feminists will cry about what this man said, but in that interview I linked you, she said women need segregated schools. How is that any different?
Your question is irrelevant, I don’t need to tell you where you’re wrong, you have no argument.
So that’s a no, then.
“Leibfarce” asks for evidence. “Who?” supplies it. “Leibfarce” throws a tantrum. Great debating technique, Leibfarce!
It’s really funny when the single-issue trolls arrive at a blog that is mostly about obstetrics and childbirth. They stomp all around it, knowing none of the history.
What do you all think about epidurals, guys? Cesareans?
No, Who? was making an argument for me, especially after I provided them with a link to the argument I was talking about.
What do epidurals or cesareans have anything to do with this post on this blog, that has nothing to do with epidurals or cesareans?
I don’t care about the history of the blog, and I’m not a troll just because I don’t agree with you or invaded your hugbox.
YOU are the one with the chip on your shoulder.
Actually, you’re wrong. I was responding to your request for an explanation of Prof Hunt’s views, which I supplied. Took two lines. I then asked if his behaviour would be acceptable directed to other groups.
You could choose to tell me in what aspect I misinterpreted his clear words. You could also choose to answer my entirely straightforward question. You refuse to do either, instead telling me I misunderstand.
But you do jump into another thing you posted, which I dealt with at length. Let’s see if your response to that is more well rounded.
Nope – chip-free here, thanks. Your troll status has nothing to do with agreement. It’s on the basis of:
– Anonymous posting; plus
– No previous participation here; plus
– Aggressive disagreement; plus
– No interest in the main issues of the blog; plus
– Personal criticism of strangers.
That’s essentially the definition of “troll”.
He’s a wriggly one. I love how tellng people they are stupid (or whichever word he uses) just closes the argument for him.
I still want to know who all those women are having sex with if women get more straight sex than men do, though. He’s being a bit cagey on that one.
Also appears to believe that humans are triploid or something since women are somehow getting more sex when PIV generally involves two to tango.
Remember the days when trolling required a bit of artistry? *sigh* Those were the days…
WTF? Do you think women working in STEM careers are being coddled in their careers? I’ve come across this attitude before but it says a lot more about the person saying it than the women that work in STEM fields.
You’re an idiot, that’s not what I said. A woman who did an interview with this Milo guy said that women need special treatment and encouragement, if that’s not some(prominent feminist figure, might I add) implying women need to be coddled, I don’t know what is.
But, of course, you come at me with confirmation bias and straw men and act as though you are somehow righteous in the shit you’re saying.
I think what gets confused a lot is what cultural change is required to make workplaces more inclusive and more diverse vs how to “help” women in the workforce.
I use “help” because I have had experience of being coddled in the workforce and getting special treatment which I now think is generally detrimental to a career. My first job in an engineering workplace I was kept in the office and away from the workshop. All other previous graduate engineers would spend six months in the workshop getting hands on experience (I didn’t realise this until I’d gotten to know the workshop guys better). I was being protected from some of the elements of my chosen career.
Instead of targeting the actual problem (and the much more difficult one to change) which was a cultural change needed in the workshop to enable more flexible thinking, more diversity and more openness, my career and options were limited to “help” me. It doesn’t help.
Good answer for an idiot.
Your story made me smile. As a law student I was in court making notes, and the cop giving evidence looked very uncomfortable. When the magistrate asked him what the trouble was, he said he didn’t want to read out the contemporaneous note he had made, as it contained foul language, and there was a lady present.
The magistrate told him that if I wanted to sit there, I could listen. Good guy.
“Good answer for an idiot.”
Aww shucks! And I was worried nobody would be able to read the words through my tear-stained reply. At least Leibfarce has managed not to fall in love with me.
I meant to put in a 😉 after that, sorry!
As to LF’s feelings, I couldn’t possibly comment.
Poor Karen. Too competent and rational to be attractive to fly-in MRAers, it seems.
And the fellow said one of the best things about being gay is that it allows him to behave like (his perception) of a woman. He also behaved exactly like a powerful man during the interview-speaking over the other interviewee, interrupting her, going so far as to apologise for doing so at one point, and doing it anyway. He looked at his lap and the desk for most of the time he was speaking. He was patronising, overbearing and disrespectful.
Is the fact that you have hardly mentioned him at all-despite him speaking for the majority of the time, and you clearly thinking he ‘won’ the interview-the really interesting takeaway from this?
And the lady in the interview didn’t speak over the man? LOL
Your confirmation bias becomes more and more apparent.
It’s MILO, his personality has nothing to do with being a man.
Show me the moment when she did. We’ll compare how many times, and how many words were said at each interruption.
Not to mention when she was “interrupting” it was after he interrupted and she was trying to finish her argument which he wouldn’t allow. It was painful to watch. I had to take a break because I get “bitchy” in those situations and say “please stop interrupting and let me finish my point.” Then I go “sir, I’m not finished. You can make your argument after I have completed mine and I will not interrupt you.” every time they try again. I’m tired of being talked over so I refuse to allow it. Call me a self centered bitch or whatever but I’ve found my patience isn’t what it used to be.
HAHAHAHA.
I’ve heard that the hardest teams to manage are those that are all male or those that are all female because of weird power struggles which seem to be diffused by diverse work teams.
I don’t mean to insult, but every job I’ve worked that has been all or mostly female has been a henfest. I wish more men were teachers in my district.
As has probably been pounded on way too much in my own posts, I’m not a fan of extremes. Exclusively male or exclusively female work places tend to degenerate into some sort of crazy pants drama. It’s almost like partnerships between the sexes works out best!
I keep the Pick a Little Talk a Little song from the music man on my phone to make a point when I’m in a group of gossipy busy bodies.
I know, hen fests and rooster fests are both irritating.
Entirely OT but Dr Barry Kirby of ‘Send Hope not Flowers’ seems like one of the good guys.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/11/australian-baby-bundles-cut-maternal-deaths-in-png-province-by-78
You have no idea how much I needed to hear this after the last few days. Thank you for posting this.
He’s quite something, that doctor. Heard him speak last year, he used to be a builder in PNG, saw women dying in childbirth, and in his forties/fifties came back to Oz, did medicine, trained as a doctor and went back up there.
The more of these stories are shared the better.
I agree! TLC should be making shows about these people, not Honey Booboo and the Duggers!
That’d be a fantastic series, especially for kids to watch.
My faith in this doctor has been restored. Humanity will have to wait until poor women don’t choose to bleed to death because they are embarrassed to seek medical help while being poor.
This is true, but every drop in the bucket helps. I have to find a way to look on the bright side of things or the world gets too depressing to live in when really there’s still so many good things out there.
Simple, effective solutions. I love those.
Sad how quickly the tone gets ugly. Even at The Skeptical OB. 🙁
I thought we were famous for ugly tone?
Something I’ve been wondering for a little while: why does it seem like so many MRAs use ‘ugly’ as if it’s a valid criticism?
If you think women are supposed to be primarily ornamental, then “ugly” is a major criticism.
Fair point, I just can’t wrap my head around reducing a whole gender to that. I mainly see it used as an attempt to silence women, but I’ve never seen it work. It mostly comes across as pointless whining, which is why I was curious as to why they keep using it.
Because to you, me and many other women it is pointless whining, but our perspectives are silenced or ignored or deemed non-existent by the men that do it.
And to them their opinion is the only one that counts.
No…snarky maybe. (I’m a big fan of snarky.) But seldom ugly. Or sexist. Just sayin’ 😉
Back when I was 13 I had a picture of 21-Jump-Street era Johnny Depp on my bedroom wall. Well, Mr. Trixie is just going to have to deal with it, because Tim Hunt is going up on the wall tonight!
These blowhards obviously have dicks like over boiled macaroni noodles.
“Riiiiight! Who wouldn’t immediately fall in love with this stunning example of male beauty?” [photo follows]
Ummmm, I don’t know about the rest of you “girls” on here, but I had to literally hold myself back from making out with my laptop screen. He is positively BREATHTAKING.
Meh. I couldn’t get past the hairy eyeball on the front.
This article is very funny and I definitely enjoyed it because I find so many articles on the web criticizing women for being too foolish, provocative, etc etc. But I have to wonder, are these types of male bashing articles feeding into the problem of inequality we face in the world, or at least in the US?
Men and Women do have their differences but both sexes are equal in natural talents and knowledge. And please don’t take this the wrong way Amy Tuteur, this article is clever and makes good points about most men. But we really can’t generalize a sex based off of two men. If anything we need an equal amount of men and women in leadership roles. A lot of articles generalize women based off Kim Kardashian or Lindsey Lohan. We’re not all like that. Men are not all these two either. Food for thought
Who is this ‘we’. A very senior man, in a male dominated profession, noted that it was his preference to exclude an entire group of people from his workplace, based on his perception of personal characteristics of the few he had ever worked with.
Most people would have more sense than to stand up and say anything so plain incendiary, even if they were sufficiently lacking in emotional intelligence and self awareness to think it.
Be aware, is the message of Dr T’s piece. Because you never know what kind of entitled clown is standing between you and an opportunity.
“But I have to wonder, are these types of male bashing articles feeding into the problem of inequality we face in the world, or at least in the US?”
Short answer: No
Long answer: No, because articles like this challenge the social norms that have led to a world in which men and women are not treated equally (there are many examples of this inequality, far too many to list here). If men and women were actually equal then sexism could not exist, because it’s about the balance of power. Only the powerful can have any kind of systemic control over the powerless, be that men against women, or white people against POC etc… As men have the power in society, articles like this do not ‘further inequality’ they fight it. You can’t create equality by acting like it already exists any more than you can eat dinner by acting like it is already there.
“Sure, he ultimately issued a tearful apology (demonstrating that when you criticize male scientists, they cry), but it’s difficult to imagine a woman scientist committing such an egregious faux pas in the first place.”
To be fair, though, it’s hard to find a woman’s shirt covered in half-naked men.
Yeah you gotta go to Japan or import from them for that and they’re not even half naked and still look like women! /facetiousness
*begins designing shirt, opening Etsy shop*
Alexander Henry fabrics have what you need – sexy cowboy fabric, sexy vampire/werewolf, etc.
Nope, it’s not. The same lady who designed said shirt with naked ladies on it also designed one with fabric that has half naked men on it as well.
Yeah, I felt a teensy amount of pity for him when he aplogized, but mostly my reaction was “HOW in the world did he think THAT shirt was appropriate when he was being interviewed by the international press?” How hard would it have been to, if he wanted to wear a printed shirt, find one with stars, planets and galaxies on it?
Also loved the comments afterward: “It can’t be sexist, his friend made it and she’s a woman!” Umm women are sexist to other women all the time, Michelle Duggar for example.
“How hard would it have been to, if he wanted to wear a printed shirt, find one with stars, planets and galaxies on it?”
Totally this. So many equate being respectful with being boring – nothing of the sort. You can be interesting and different without being a dick.
It’s ok to be boring when you’re at work
I’m one of those peoples who has been criticised by a manager for being “too emotional”. I didn’t have the presence of mind to respond “you’re not emotional enough.” Pity.
Really? Then I must work with a bunch of gay guys or be a lesbian (wait til my husband hears!) because I’ve been working in a lab for years and not one of us has fallen in love with anyone else. And the only time one of them made me cry is when they showed me a sad to sweet animal video on YouTube once. Then he cried after I punched him for showing me said video – right where he had just gotten his flu shot. Karma sucks for him.
This guy is a total jackass.
I hadn’t heard about this story, but I ❤LOVE ❤ this post!(yes, enough to use little hearts.)
I would second your hearts…but I don’t know how 🙁 I also love this post
OT: Going along with this and the parachuting in of the MRA intactivists, has anyone else heard of the “incel” movement?
Specifically the Government’s Get Girlfriends guy? I think he dropped off the face of the earth a while ago but still… Just wow. He calls some women bitches and c*nts but he’s totally not a misogynist guys!
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3293626
Thoughts on the whole incel movement?
That’s so wrong on so many levels. Other human beings do not owe “incels” romance, sex therapy, freedom from basic social norms, access to their bodies or anything other than common public courtesy.
If there is something in your attitude, behavior, expectations, or world view that is interfering with your ability to make or maintain satisfactory relationships, you are responsible for dealing with that. Not the public.
Agreed and they’re not innocuous groups to go “ha ha you’re so sad!” too.
That teen who shot and stabbed six people, Elliot Rodgers, identified as an incel and red pill. I don’t think most “red pills” or MRA will actually do this but one actually did it so that means it’s no longer in the realm of theoretical.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/30/elliot-rodger-puahate-forever-alone-reddit-forums
There was a girl at my daughters school that was killed because she said No to going to the prom with someone. I don’t know if her killer identified as an incel but he seemed to have some similarities with Elliot Rodgers. So , no this crap is not harmless. Think back to the Ecole Polytechnique shooter in Montreal in 1989….he shot 24 women and four men, claiming he was “fighting feminism”
And people wonder why women don’t “just say no.”
Because when no isn’t being heard as “try harder” it means license to kill. Smh.
https://youtu.be/UTULoJlD_V4?t=1m30s
Relevant…
Please. Let me just blow their world apart – I’m an “incel” straight woman. And yet, I do not think the government, or anyone else, should pay a man to have sex with me.
Nooo! Women can’t be incels! Their entire world falls apart! All women everywhere can get sex at any time!
…you know except those women over there because they don’t look like the sex idol du jour despite still being attractive. But all men deserve super models!!!111
Seriously…
Women do generally get sex much more often than men, they have a commodity men want, and do hold the power in the situation.
Denying this is like denying the sky is blue because of the way light is refracted in the atmosphere.
Nobody says all men deserve supermodels, that is utter ridiculousness. Stop strawmanning, it’s a terribly ugly color.
Surely straight men and women, by definition, get the same amount of sex, since they need each other to do it?
No, haven’t you heard? Women don’t enjoy sex, or want it as much as men, women who do are ‘sluts’ or ‘easy’ and women who want sex but not with every single person with the genitals they prefer are being ‘unreasonable’ or putting people in the friend zone. Because female friendship is a shitty consolation prize, if men are nice to women they deserve the top prize of sex whenever and however the man wants…because being friends with women is difficult and unpleasant.
God I missed that memo, thanks for filling me in. Will have to make some big changes around here, then.
This thinking is why I could never totally like the Big Bang Theory tv show. The relationships seemed to follow the I was really nice to you why don’t you love me trajectory. Yeah, NO, if you want to help out your neighbor it shouldn’t matter if your neighbor is a 50year old woman, an 80 year old man or a pretty 20 year old. If you are only helping your neighbor because you expect to be paid back in attention/dates/sex, then YOU are the user. ” I was NICE , you owe ME”…newsflash, thats NOT being nice.
And women aren’t responsible for making sure all the sex is divided up “fairly” so that guys don’t get their feelings hurt.
Nope, 1 man for every ****17**** WOMEN have reproduced throughout human history.
That’s very telling.
Sex does not equal reproduction.
Of what?
It takes no time at all to get pregnant, and the best part of a year to have a baby. Most women are fertile for, what, 25 years tops? And historically many died or became infertile long before that time was up.
*****reference please*****
Oh – silence? Or is this person furiously “doing his own research”?
I’ll agree that not “all men” think they deserve supermodels, but the majority of men I know seem to feel that way. Slightly (and not so slightly) overweight 30-40 something men going for hot college aged chicks, then complaining about how stuck up and superficial they are… But if a woman their own age seems interested? Ewwww…
Same guys that complain they can’t get laid, even though they were “so nice” to that stuck up b*tch who turned them down.
Even being a little taller than average skews your chances. I’m a hair shy of 5’8″ which is tall for the area I grew up in. I’m also a bit on the wider shouldered side so I’m not exactly dainty looking. It does factor in if a guy approaches your or says yes if you approach them.
“The majority of men you know” is a tiny drop in a bucket as large as the sea.
Conversely, do women not think they deserve supermodel men as well? It goes to the ego of the young, not any gender.
Anyone is allowed to pursue anyone else, of course people want the best for themselves.
I’ve seen women do the exact same things you’re complaining about here.
Let’s back off the WaW(women are wonderful syndrome) and be realistic about our views of the world and people, huh?
And yes, there are women that do in fact string nice guys along until they become so bitter they turn into assholes. Keeping a harem of men do to little things for them and be their little emotional harem.
Men, of course, do the same thing to women.
And that’s why feminism should encourage women not to take advantage of men.
I thought the girls I knew as a teenager were extremely unethical. To demand equal treatment and then turn around and use boys that found them attractive for gifts and food. It’s immoral to call yourself a feminist and no see a problem with that in my opinion.
My female friends and I always tried to set and example to other women not to do those things. We didn’t date guys just to get what their money could pay for, their car, or their social status. We also offered to split and bill on a date and if we did the asking we assumed we would be paying for any activities. Even if the guy asked us on the date and insisted on paying we at the very least offered to cover the dinner’s tip.
If we expect to hold men to a higher standard that means we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard as well.
Women aren’t machines that you put sex tokens in and sex pops out. However, men also aren’t money dispensers that you throw out when they hit empty either.
I was the shoulder a lot of guys metaphorically cried on during middle school, high school, and college so I’ve seen the other side when men are taken advantage of and its absolutely not right. It’s not something I can understand because it typically doesn’t happen to women but I did see that they were honestly and deeply hurt. Most of them were going after girls in “their league.” These guys were my friends and I hurt with them when a girl stomped on their hearts.
However when the guys that treated me like a second class citizen, wouldn’t let me touch the computer because i was a girl and too dumb to use it despite building computets since i was twelve and using simple DOS commands since I was three, expected me to go get them their lunches or drinks, draw them a pin up girl, go home with them after they made my life hell all day, give them test answers just because they were attractive or on -insert sports team here-, I really didn’t give them the time of day after politely telling them no then progressing to firmer nos until the ignoring. That got me labled as a snobby bitch. But at a certain point enough is enough and it leaves you pretty jaded when the former type of guys is rare compared to the latter, especially as your bra cup size went up.
I don’t want to be an object and neither do you.
This guy in the article? We’ve been treated like that forever. Women on this thread in similar settings have confirmed it. Pick up a biography or autobiography of just about any woman scientist and you see the same old tale. That it’s still happening and being perpetuated by one who is part of an elite considered the brightest of us is incredibly disheartening.
Great post. Couldn’t agree more.
Thank you! We all have something to work on and to deny that is pretty much the pinnacle of arrogance. I have things I need to work on but I keep trying to be the best partner I can be to my husband and a good mother to any sons I might have. Everyone should be comfortable in their own skin.
Stringing guys along? Emotional harem? You mean… I dunno…. friendship? I have quite a few male friends who do things with and for me, and we have an emotional, non-romantic connection. Are they my harem? Am I stringing them along? No
Oh god, no, I don’t mean friendship. You know EXACTLY the kind of women I’m talking about.
It’s hilarious you didn’t try to refute my point about men doing nearly the same thing. Very telling.
Typical feminist woman on the internet, incapable of separating themselves from WOMEN, when they are an individual, and not all women. Don’t take it so personally, babydoll.
Because your point is rediculous.
WoW! This “Leibfarce” person has a giant chip-on-shoulder. AND overuses the “strawman” allegation.
What are your views on the training of lay midwives, “Leibfarce”?
I have no such thing as a chip on my shoulder. I’m not overusing the strawman fallacy allegation if people are using it, am I?
The training on lay midwives?
I don’t care.
So what brought you to a blog called The Skeptical Obstetrician, whose main focus is childbirth?
Do you just sail in and target any discussion that involves your gender sensitivities?
Just FYI you can’t have a harem of men, harem refers to a group of women (usually wives and concubines). I believe the word you’re searching for is possibly entourage. Additionally, friends do things for each other and usually don’t expect stuff in return, or if they do it’s a sort of reciprocity, so if you do me a favour I’ll do you a favour…I won’t do you.
You can indeed have a harem of men, I didn’t mean literally. Sweet Jesus.
God.
Do you understand what the word “harem” actually means?
At best, it’s the forcibly segregated “female” part of a household, most commonly found in extremely patriarchical and polygamous societies.
At worst, systematic sexual slavery. High status males forcing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of women into lives of sexual and domestic slavery.
It does not refer to a group of males willingly choosing to spend time with a woman they find attractive and then feeling ill-used if she doesn’t feel that their companionship obligates her to have sexual intercourse with them.
Man, you people are all about definitions. You know god damn well what I meant. Stop being moronic.
I’m afraid I don’t have a clue what you meant. You seem to be suggesting that men deserve sexual favors for being emotionally available and “doing little things” for women, but that can’t be it, right?
no, harem means ‘group of women’ you can’t have a group of women of men
Stop being stupid. The end.
Oh LF.
You’re so broken.
Rage away. We should know what you mean, whatever crap you’re talking?
Too hard.
Oh I’m sorry are you the Lord of the Words? Apologies your Lordship. It seems that you are so important that you feel the meanings of words don’t apply to you, let me ask do you have problems trying to get your neck to support such a large head?
He’s like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland-words mean what he says they mean. Difference is HD was a lovable buffoon who did no one any harm and just enjoyed the teasing. How we know that is he never called anyone stupid.
LF on the other hand has a mean streak and seems disappointed no one is taking him seriously.
What does a harem of men do? I am just asking….
Oh Jesus, you people are playing Fox News level word games here. You know EXACTLY what I meant by a harem of men, and I’m not going to fucking explain something that should be so simple and obvious when I know you people are being obtuse ON PURPOSE. I’m done with this comment chain, and this blog. Good day.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ASS! If someone asked me I’d just answered the question.
Try not to start the pedantic word definition game next time if you don’t enjoy it.
I’m not the one who started the word game. ANYONE would have known EXACTLY what I meant. YOU people are the one playing the bullshit word games.
Not a harem? Okay, a fucking stable of men. A gaggle of guys.
Sweet fucking Jesus, you people are insufferably stupid.
What was that earlier up thread… Something about misconstruing the meaning of “couple” to better suit your argument… Yeah I think that’s where this started.
Provided that women and men are roughly equal in numbers, and that most sex is between a man and a woman, how do women “generally get sex much more often than men”, according to you?
We did this below-apparently only some tiny fraction of all men have ever reproduced, and that PROVES EVERYTHING.
Because women can be more selective in the breeding process? lol Historically, 1 man per 17 women reproduced.
You don’t think we’ve only ever had two children per couple to replenish the gene pool, do you?
http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/17-to-1-reproductive-success
Women, biologically, are much more important than men, which means they can be more selective with their mates. One man can also impregnate many women, while a woman can only be impregnated by one man(in most cases)
It isn’t according to me. It’s according to science and logic. Try it some time.
But every time a heterosexual couple had sex, one man and one woman have sex.
Whether or not that particular sex act results in a child is irrelevant. Straight women cannot have more sex than straight men, because each time a straight woman has sex, a straight man does.
Also, you really need to cite a reliable source for that 1:17 ratio, specifically one that accounts for historical prevalence of paternal abandonment. Impregnating a woman and raising a child are very different things.
“Couples” are a relatively new invention.
I’m sorry, but you’re just ignoring reality.
So group sex was the historical norm?
Wow. Just… wow. lol
You’re powerfully compelling, with all your reason and sensible thoughtful responses.
With people like you pushing it, I’m sure MRA will go far.
Are you being this obtuse and dense on purpose or is it your natural state of being?
I want you to explain where all the extra sex that women are getting is coming from, if not from men.
Oh Cobalt, can’t you tell.
According to the implications of Leibfarce’s unsubstantiated claims, 16 out of 17 women can reproduce without having ever having sex with a man. I know some lesbians that would appreciate more details of this extraordinary information.
He clearly has many special ways of knowing, such a shame he feels unable or unwilling to share them.
And you’re just being obtuse on purpose.
It’s obvious from the context that “couple” in this context means coupling for a sexual encounter. Not couple as in the relationship sense. You’re not as clever as you think by purposely misconstuing the meaning.
Need more straw? You must be getting low.
You enormous maroon, the skewed ratio reflects the fact that a minority of males monopolized multiple females at the expense of other males (and were somehow able to ensure that their offspring survived long enough to pass on their genes), not that choosy ladies were selfishly wielding their powerful lady wiles to deny men sex…I mean, a precious commodity that men want.
Think about primate societies (one dominant male monopolizing a group of females), think about polygamous societies, rape and pillage, enormous harems, patriarchal societies in which women were chattel–the property of their male relatives, bought and sold, controlled by the males with the most power and resources. Think about biology–with no birth control, women would bear children whether they wanted to or not, but only up to a certain point. Powerful males could father a nearly unlimited number of children in comparison.
http://www.nature.com/news/genghis-khan-s-genetic-legacy-has-competition-1.16767
In the evolutionary environment, women not only *could* be more selective, but also *had* to be more selective if they wanted their offspring to survive because they could only have a few children, and each one was a tremendous investment of resources. And to a great extent, women were probably not in much of a position to be very choosy.
What that has to do with whether or not you get laid in 2015 is unclear.
Even if that statistic is accurate, and I’ve seen no evidence yet that it is, there are many factors the could contribute to an unbalanced rate of REPRODUCTION.
Gender ratio imbalance exacerbated by female infanticide. There are areas where there are upwards of 115 males per 100 females. Those extra 15 men will have trouble getting marriage partners.
Common causes of and ages at death also favor females producing a child. Historically, many men died before marriage and parenthood in battle or while hunting. The main cause of death for women? Childbirth.
There are also many examples in history of polygamy, which would limit the available marriage partners for single men.
None of these change the fact that the amount of heterosexual SEX straight men and straight have must be (near) equal, because each instance requires one of each (with the rare exception of group sex, which is very uncommon, especially at ratios of 17 women to one man).
The figures he’s citing come from genetic data, I believe. If you compare the amount of variability in Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA, you can estimate the size of the ancestral gene pool at various times. What has been found is that, indeed, a few men are heavily represented. And that’s probably because powerful men with lots of resources were able to father many, many children, and presumably many of their sons in turn were relatively powerful and able to father many surviving children, etc. Also, probably something to do with historico-political events, societal structures, and the outcomes of genocidal wars.
None of which has anything to do with women getting to have more (heterosexual) sex than men, which obviously makes absolutely no mathematical sense at all.
And the article he links suggests the 1:17 figure for several thousand years ago, and something more like 1:4 or 5 for the modern era. If Leibfarce has a problem with it, he should take it up with polygamous men.
“Women do generally get sex much more often than men, they have a commodity men want, and do hold the power in the situation.”
Ah, I forgot women don’t like sex or want it. We use it only to gain power over men.
And that there is no such thing as rape, since whether or not sex happens is entirely up to women. And men can’t/don’t/wouldn’t/couldn’t force a woman.
I’m beginning to see why LF is so crazed, it’s a complicated world he lives in.
So we get all the hetero sex and yet at the same time withhold all the hetero sex.
…wtf is this, some kind of Schrödinger’s Vagina?
One million upvotes for “Schrödinger’s Vagina”!
Women are basically frigid bitches having sex with everyone but me, because they’re drooling for my precious sperm to roll in that fat child support cash. Because farts.
MRA logic!
That’s it exactly though. They want sex without costs or consequences to themselves, and that’s not how interactions between human beings work. If you want “free” sex, you have to have it alone. If you want to have sex with other people, you have to treat them like…people.
Yes, exactly. But I’ve heard from the loudest and most vicious MRA leaders, and from the extremists writing manifestos, that this isn’t the case. Roosh, Elam, etc.
*sex with 19-year-old-virgin-sex-kitten-models you mean
That’s not MRA logic at all, that’s StrawMRA logic, created by people who have their own myopic ideological approach to life.
-Someone who criticizes feminism and MRA’s
#notallMRAs!
Do explain MRA logic, since you imply you grasp it. Annie’s explanation covered it, based on my experience of the movement, but always happy to learn something new.
He’s been calling everything a strawman argument in here.
https://youtu.be/yejtZgzB5Ik
Yes and apparently we’re all intellectual midgets and idiots because he says so.
Did you take a moment to look at the interview he posted as the ‘slam dunk’? It’s above, a classic in its way.
Unfortunately not yet since I’m not somewhere I can use speakers yet. Wish they’d have transcripts.
But it sounds delicious.
It’s beautiful. A transcript wouldn’t do justice to the interruptions, the overspeaking, his total failure to make and maintain eye contact…
If he’s the poster boy for MRA, they are dead in the water.
That comment on “male” and “female” brains always makes me roll my eyes.
I’m an autistic female so I think very logical and analytical. I’m told I have “male thought patterns” and that’s where my interest in STEM fields come from. That’s nice and all but I still identify as female and my autism is basically invisible. So I still get lumped in with “female thinking brains.” Or maybe brain thought processes are more diverse and individualized than previously thought regardless of biological sex. Which would support having a more diverse team on basically any project.
I’m gonna need an aspirin by the time this day is over…
Oh yes, I always love the argument that women are just belching out babies solely for child support checks. Checks that often don’t materialize or are so small they would be laughable if they weren’t so sad. Unless you are LeBron James or someone like that, you are most likely safe.
Like the argument that people on welfare live it up with Scrooge MacDuck pools of gold.
I know some people living exclusively off of welfare. They do not lead lives I envy.
Yeah, seriously. The people I do know who live high on the hog while receiving welfare are 1) In the far, far minority, and 2) Supplementing with drug money, which is why they have a lot of high priced material goods like fancy TVs, but live in shitty neighborhoods. That’s just what I experienced in my Kentucky fried upbringing and while living in different cities, White and Black alike.
People who go “But welfare staaate! *Kermit the Frog flailing*” irritate me to no end because they don’t care to know this basic information.
Oh the US is a welfare state, but its the corporations getting most of the money, welfare payments to actual people are a drop in the bucket compared to corporate subsidies: http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2014/03/14/where-is-the-outrage-over-corporate-welfare/
“The 965 companies in the report received over $110 billion of public
money. Berkshire Hathaway, a company with $485 billion in assets and $20
billion in profits, received over $1 billion of that money. “
And the politicians who love them. What a world.
Hah! You don’t often hear this truth!
Exactly. As a former (disgusted) subject of a socialist state, I don’t understand the urge of some to call the government every time they want something.
Forgot to mention, I once sang in a choir that was divided into soprano, alto, tenor, and maybe one real bass. Most of the women in the choir were soprano and alto. There was one woman who was a tenor. That’s just where her voice range was.
We had a man who decided to join the choir but soon quit because he didn’t want to sing tenor with a woman. He actually wanted to force her to be alto (that had been tried much earlier, unsuccessfully). I was a teenager and thought he was quite immature.
Sometimes I worry for men, masculinity seems very fragile.
I worry for my son, who has to grow up in a world full of this bullshit.
Depending on the bullshit you’re referring to he’ll probably be fine. Teach him that women deserve respect, are not inherently ‘distracting’ or ‘tricky’ and that he is not entitled to a woman even if she’s pretty and nice to him and he won’t run in to too many problems. If you mean the bullshit of having to live in a society that is unequal and values him more than an equally qualified woman, and also holds him to ridiculous standards of masculinity in the process…yeh that sucks, become a feminist and fight the power.
But you know, I see a lot of the opposite–devaluing boys in order to emphasize Girl Power (whatever the hell that is)–and I do worry for my fairly-reserved, not-stereotypically-boyish boy. We teach him to respect other people, period, regardless of sex or gender, but I always wonder what the perception would be if I started a Mighty Boy website (I see a lot of Mighty Girl). I could absolutely be on board with Mighty Kid, but I don’t get the emphasis on one over the other from early childhood. Personality traits are not exclusive to one sex or gender, and there seem to still be a lot of assumptions, either that boys are already naturally assertive (or aggressive) and therefore need to be taken down a notch or two, or that girls are naturally shy and reluctant to assert themselves, so they need to be pushed into assertiveness, neither of which is necessarily true.
Edited to add that where I live, there’s a big emphasis on boys not hitting girls. My response is always that we–people–do not hit or mistreat other people. It frustrates me that it gets made into a gender issue.
Mighty Boy would probably get you eaten alive by Tumblrites parachuting in to tell you how wrong you are and Might Kids would end up probably being about girl power from afore mentioned parachuting Tumblrites.
I do think we need to shift value to everyone, not just one or the other as you pointed out. The no hitting should be emphasized for both genders. One of the worst hitters I ever saw was actually a high school girl with her boyfriend. I wanted to say something but I was afraid I’d ge t hit too.
I’m trying to think of a more neutral word for a positive confidence camp for boys but everything is so charged lately. Because I agree that shyer boys needs that kind of reinforcement or they may start emulating the toxic behaviors that become problematic in order to find their confidence.
Personally I’ve always liked the more subdued men when it came to dating material and eventually marriage. My husband is very excitable but also very kind. Like the kind to pull over and pick up a lost kitten. Maybe a camp that shows you don’t have to be the toxic stereotypes to get a date by inviting adults who are subdued and their partners (male or female) to show that yes, they do exist?
Your son sounds like the type of guys I hung out with in my school days and had a preference hanging out with over both girls and other boys. Not as a harem but because they’re so remarkably drama free and we all had shared interests. Out of a group of around ten guys, I only dated two and it wasn’t really a girlfriend/boyfriend thing so much as a casual “Why the hell not?” date. I think you’re right to nurture those kind traits but peer pressure and media are powerful things.
I remember a girl in high school who reveled in provoking and frustrating boys, and who thought it was charming and girly when she’d slap them, then be dramatically horrified when they’d dare challenge her, and woe unto any bystander who called her out on it.
It is so charged. My son had an issue at school with a boy who was hurting him, and we had a really hard time trying to get the teacher to respond at all; it seemed to be a matter of “oh, he’s toughening him up” from her perspective. Had it been a girl who was being hurt, I’m fairly sure her response would have been different, and that is just wrong.
I hate that cutesy act to get out of being called on bad behavior. The girl I knew didn’t even bother with the cute act. She just hit when she felt like it. Karma got her in the best way possible though. Her boyfriend, a friend of mine, was usually the target but his family, also friends, were frequently targets. She tried to hit the dad one day. Suddenly she recoils looking like she’s going to cry. Well the dad was in police training and had rushed over to the activity after training. Wearing his bullet proof vest. It was a thing of beauty. She still didn’t learn though.
But on the receiving end, my husband used to be a bit on the timid side and once got the ever love shit beat out of him after school by a kid who’d been hitting him for a while. When my in-laws found out they were livid but the school didn’t do anything. So my husband go signed up for martial arts.
He said it was the best thing to ever happen to his confidence. He’s never had to use his skills but the art he chose, Tae Kwon Do, was run by something called the ATA which standardized the classes and screens the teachers for good leadership abilities. He recommends an ATA dojo to anyone interested in martial arts because there’s an emphasis on being the best human being you can be in there too, not just how to punch a board. And with a class of like minded individuals it helps to pull the shy ones out of their shells.
And I don’t think I could hit anyone… Except my husband. He asks for it.
…no I’m completely serious he literally asks me to or will bug me until I smack his stomach or something and goes “Finally!” If he doesn’t outright grab one of my hands and starts hitting his leg of face with it first. Sometimes I wonder if I need to find a Dominatrix to learn from or something. Safe, sane, and consensual, right? XD
Ooh, yes, this. My sister went to just such a Tae Kwon Do dojo, and it did wonders for her self-confidence and physical strength.
And my husband and I agree that there’s a time and a place for fun-hitting. 🙂
My sis and your sis would get along well I think.
Unfortunately society is just hella biased in favour of males, Girl Power/Mighty Girl movements are a form of affirmative action (also, affirmative action has been proven to work) to attempt to level the playing field. However, those movements do not inherently devalue boys, unless boys are so fragile that they can’t handle it not always being about them. Also, the gender stereotyping is a product of gender inequality, and it definitely harms men too…but that isn’t the fault of women, that’s the fault of a society that does not value women. The hitting thing is true though, the ‘don’t hit girls’ thing is again a product of the stereotype that girls are weak and can’t take care of themselves/defend themselves/fight back, nobody should hit anybody else, but a boy hitting a girl is not ‘worse than a girl hitting a boy.
I always ask my students though, which society? There are countless numbers of them. “Society” doesn’t agree on anything.
I think we’re misguided if we’re looking for whose fault it is. It isn’t about (for me) male/female; it’s about people. It’s not ok for people to hit (or otherwise mistreat) people. I get the origins of it, I just think the emphasis is misplaced. When I mentioned the devaluing of boys, I’m not talking about that being done by a movement–movements are only people. I see it daily in the multitudes of Girl Power posts I read (and I’m only talking about one social media account). I fully support offering kids support in developing their abilities, but I don’t think that’s most effectively done by emphasizing gender over those abilities (I hope that makes sense).
It is.
In the last analysis, we can lie back and fake it.
They’ve got to get it up.
Good gosh. I’ve been in all sorts of choirs, many of them *very* conservatively religious, since I was about 14, and I have never hear that one–just as there’s usually one woman whose voice range is more comfortably tenor than alto. Dude, if your masculinity is threatened by a woman with a low voice then get a freaking grip. Also, get out of my choir, kaythanxbai.
This was a church choir with mostly adults. He was an adult. He was off tune and off beat anyway.
Heh. 😀 Good riddance, then!
Oh god, I can’t stand either of those in isolation. I can’t imagine dealing with both together – in a choir.
I sang tenor all the time in high school. Most teenage boys are either sopranos or basses.
Can I fall in love with his paycheck?
I would say that maybe a woman would haplessly fall in love with his personality, but I think he talked his way out of that one.
It seems that those who allegedly “fall in love with him” don’t have very discerning judgement.
All I can saw is “Eeeeewwww!”
A quick google suggests this gentleman is married to a female professor of immunology at University College London, Mary Collins. I don’t know her or her work but I would venture to suggest that if she holds that post, she must know her shit. I wonder how she feels about his comments!
if it were me, he’d be coming home to a bin bag full of his stuff, and the locks changed….but that’s just me, I mean maybe they met in a lab and fell in love and she’s very in touch with her feelings lol
Two slightly off topic things:
1. In Hunt’s defence, I’ve seen FAR uglier men who were nonetheless convinced that they were irresistable to women.
2. Matt Taylor does seem to actually get what he did wrong and be truly sorry. Though he appears to have only really come around after listening to crazed right-wingers “defending” him.
So that’s one thing crazed right wingers are good for then.
They turned Judge Posner to the more liberal side too. He gave an interview where he talked about listening to the right wing of the Republican party made him question why he was so aligned with them politically: “I’ve become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy.” http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/07/05/156319272/federal-judge-richard-posner-the-gop-has-made-me-less-conservative
Hey dude-bro Hunt, female humans that make it past puberty should be referred to as “women,” not “girls”. If I had a boss that referred to me and other female coworkers as “girls” I would want to cry too.
All of my cubicle neighbors want to know what I’m over here laughing about. I don’t think #shitgate would be a very appropriate answer to give them. And this – “Riiiiight! Who wouldn’t immediately fall in love with this stunning example of male beauty?” I can’t even…
This has actually been a recent topic in academia because of a very controversial article written by a Prof. at Northwestern (Laura Kipnis). She basically got a Title IX complaint filed against her for it. A LOT of schools in the US are actually passing policies banning relationships between prof and students, even graduate students. You can follow the whole thing on the Chronical of Higher Ed.
Sadly, this isn’t just a STEM issue. Having a baby or getting married while writing a dissertation still gets you a stern talking to about finishing your degree, and people have had directors abandon their projects when they get pregnant. There are more women in the humanities (although, not philosophy, which no one understands), but there are still some REALLY sexist and anti-family tendencies. Yes, you are expected to live apart from your spouse if your job requires it. The horrible academic job market has exacerbated this issue as you have people willing to do ANYTHING to use their PhD–even suspend major life decisions.
Just wanted to add how much I hate that he referred to them as “girls.” I’m assuming that he is working with university students or older so they are “women.” It just reminds me of my first job out of residency working at an office where the senior partner was in his 70’s and he constantly treated me like his 16 year old daughter. He seemed to think that I wanted him to be my mentor when I really wanted to just do my job and take care of my patients! (And honestly, I was much more up to date on practice guidelines than he was anyway and he constantly tried to get me to do things the old way because that’s how he did them.) I ended up leaving the practice because we had to relocate but I don’t miss being treated like a little girl and am glad I am somewhere now where I am treated as a colleague who has a real contribution to make.
OT, but this reminded me of the TV commercial for one of the erectile-dysfunction drugs. It drives me crazy when the woman talks about “guys” who have ED. My husband hates it too, because he is sick of hearing me say, “Do you mean MEN?! They’re not ‘guys’; they’re grown men!” (I’ll end my rant now.)
Yeah, I hate those commercials. They have a soft core porn vibe about them. I cant decide if they’re more or less irritating than the bath tubs…
And why do those ED commercials always have grey-haired men with much younger-looking partners?
I guess so that men watching them think they’ll be irresistible to younger women with their “touch of gray” hair and impressive erections?
Don’t get me started!!! How about those commercials for dry vaginas? Trying to convince women to use cancer causing hormones to temporarily fix a life long glitch for post menapausal women. Newsflash my sister…use lubricants not pregnant mare urine…
Yeeeeeeeeeeeech
“With a sufficiently impressive erection, you don’t have to have sex with women your own age!”
I’ve noticed that the guys who date (or try to date) women several years younger quite simply can’t maintain a relationship with women their own age because the older ladies simply will not tolerate their nonsense and don’t write it off as ‘cute’ or ‘caring’.
Because, as everyone knows, older women don’t have sex drives.
And has anyone asked the ‘guys” wives how they feel about their newly re-functioning husband? My gp friends tell me it isn’t always unalloyed joy.
Yes I used to joke that every prescription for Viagra should probably come with a free tube of estrogen cream and lube…
I am sure some of their wives aren’t getting the benefits. ..
Yep, my last (thankfully former, fucking worth it despite other issues it’s caused) boss didn’t seem to realize that women were individuals. The tech he’d worked with the longest was how we all were to behave, or we were weird and other and didn’t belong. She happened to be about my polar opposite, at least in terms of public/workplace behavior.
He just… he’d pry, because she would answer any question willingly, happily, eager to talk about it. I wouldn’t answer it? Why the fuck not? Did I hate him? Did I have a problem with him? Dude had major other issues (and pulled this slightly on dudes, but at least if they didn’t play along they were just different from him, and lesser, but they could absolutely still belong without being weird or a problem… it was more about his narcissism there than a total lack of understanding that one gender isn’t factory pressed cardboard cutouts).
Do you know the story of Sophie Germaine? (1 April 1776 – 27 June 1831) She was a French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. Her work in elasticity theory contributed to the building of the Eiffel Tower.
“Mozans writes, however, that when the Eiffel Tower was built and the architects inscribed the names of 72 great French scientists, Germain’s name was not among them: despite the salience of her work to the tower’s construction. Mozans asked, “Was she excluded from this list… because she was a woman? It would seem so.””
Mozans, H. J. (pseud.) (1913). Women in Science: With an Introductory Chapter on Women’s Long Struggle for Things of the Mind. D. Appleton. pp. 154–157.
Wikipedia on Sophie Germain has a clickable link in the References section for the above source. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Germain
So far as I am aware, Germain’s name still has not been put on the Eiffel Tower, as a historical reminder of the misogyny she faced. She needs, in my opinion, a big-ass extra plaque, because just carving her ame on there with all the others, would ignore history.
A newer example: the World Trade Centre (pre-9/11) was built such that it would sway in the strong wind currents. If it were rigid, it would snap.
Weirdly on-topic: I have shifted labs in my Masters degree. It’s going to (theoretically) slow down my graduation, but I got away from a mentor who had no idea about boundaries.
When another woman who was a graduate student in his lab got married, he went on a two-hour rant (to me) about how “real” scientists don’t get married or stay married in graduate school because he worked so hard during graduate school that it destroyed his (first?) marriage. My response: “I’m not getting a divorce. The financial benefits of the degree from [our university] are piddling compared to my partnership on a farm. If graduate school puts my marriage in jeopardy, I’ll quit here first. Also, I really like my husband.”
On finding a job: “You should put your career first. If you get a good offer in a different area, you can just move the farm or divorce your husband. I ended up here because my wife (2nd?) would have liked it here, but she left and now I’m trapped here.” *blinks* My reply “Alright. Thanks for the advice. Did you get a chance to read the data analysis I sent you?”
I receive a scathing email about a different data analysis I ran. I can’t figure out what he’s talking about and so follow up on the phone with him. About 10 minutes in, it became clear that he never actually read the overview of the analysis that I sent him. I wait while he reads it. He decides it’s pretty good – but he hadn’t had time because he was distracted because he was going to propose to his current girlfriend on the upcoming weekend in April.
That’s when I went looking for another lab…..and found a great mentor.
Ewwwww…
Erk!
Again, this just proves that women are tougher and better fit for careers in science and academia than men: Your “mentor” (he doesn’t seem to be acting like a real mentor so I put it in quotes) couldn’t stay married during graduate school, but you did stay married and your colleague actually got married. Clearly, you’re smarter and able to work better and so don’t have to spend soul destroying amounts of time in the lab to get the results you need. He couldn’t stay married. Twice.
Incidentally, my partner and I got together while I was a resident in internal medicine. In the pre-work hour restriction days. 110 hours/week of work* didn’t destroy my relationship. Perhaps it’s just that guys can’t handle it?
*Ok, ok, so that wasn’t every week. Some weeks it was as little as 80. Only went over 120 occasionally.
Yes, somehow my husband and I made it through med school, internship and residency. Imagine that!
A friend of mine was 8-9 months pregnant while in medical school on her surgery rotation. 110+ hour weeks, extremely pregnant, and her relationship with her partner was healthy. Not that I envy her, but I envy the crap out of her. I’ve never had that kind of energy.
Female supremacist garbage – and not a word is spoken against you?
So much for “Feminism is about equality”.
Not one person spoke for equality – because feminism has nothing to do with it. Never did.
You are bigots, through and through.
Feminism is about true equality, not super-equality. Some feminists take things too far in the super-equality range.
“Also, I really like my husband,” FTW! I wish I could be so clever with my snark in a situation like that!
When my boss (of that certain generation) was complaining about a male colleague of mine taking 3 months paternity leave, he made a crack about how he was back at work the day after each of his kids was born. It took all the strength I had to not say “yeah, maybe that’s why you’re divorced.”
I had a similar “mentor.” Not only was I married, my husband is military (we met and married while I was still active duty). I let said mentor have it when he decided to tell me that I should divorce my husband to really focus. I told him that everyone else in the department thought I was one of the most brilliant students to walk through the door in recent times, so obviously my marriage isn’t keeping me down. The look on his face was priceless, and he tried to abandon me. Luckily I was “in” with most of the department and was able to switch to a real mentor.
My new mentor did advise against kids while finishing my dissertation, but that was mainly because of how damn expensive childcare was in the area, and with my husband deployed that would be a lot of childcare dollars spent. Being frugal as I am, I thought his advice wise and we held off on the kids until after I was finished and gainfully employed.
I heard this being discussed on the radio this morning (but not the whole discussion). I thought it sounded so extreme he had to be satirising – ridiculing – chauvinists. But if this article’s accurate the sad truth seems that he meant it.
#shitgate – I love it!
And, of course, there are no power couples. Romantic partners in the lab are always disruptive and never productive.
Most famous example: Marie and Pierre Curie.
Lots of not famous examples I won’t list because it’s not my place to.
I’ve known so many research couples and often the woman is the bigger star of the two.
I wonder if that’s his REAL issue with women in science!
Dr Curie was the first person to win two Nobels in two different areas. Not the first woman, first person.
And one of only two people to ever do so! (The other being Linus Pauling.)
I read the biography of her by her daughter Eve when I was about 10, and that cemented her as one of my lifelong heroes. My only regret during my trip to Paris last year was that the Curie museum was closed when we wanted to go to it. 🙁
Less fortunate example: Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins were said to be a couple. Unfortunately, the dynamics of their relationship may have made it possible for James Watson to steal their work. Also, radiation is bad for you and somehow it always seems to be the women who do the actual lab work that leads to cancer.
One of my mentors told me about the time she’d do RIAs with a giant lead apron over her pregnant belly…
I was so happy to leave radioassays behind. Fluorescent assays have come a long, long way.
I knew a cardiology fellow who did caths and CTs throughout her pregnancy. She double-leaded. Can you imagine how uncomfortable that must have been? That’s determination and dedication right there.
I’m glad you wrote this, as this was exactly what I was thinking as I read the story this morning. *snickering*
Love this! It’s so true! I always got hit on in my science classes and wished I could just be left alone to do my work! I think it’s so telling his default is to kick out the females when he’s probably the issue!! Is it really so hard to just leave them alone??
OT (sorry so early in the thread) but saw this in my email this morning. I hope states will follow suit:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/news/2015/2015-06-08-tighter-limitations-immunization-opt-outs.page
That is fantastic.
Oh God, even though this is off your usual beat, this may be my favorite thing you’ve ever written.
Well known fact. Guys *never* fall in love with other guys. >sarcasm
What a prat.
That’s a good point. If the “separate but equal labs” plan that he mentioned was actually implemented then what happens with gays and lebsians, not to mention genderqueer people? I suppose that’s why so many men in particular are afraid of gays: they fear that a man might think about them the way they think about women. Which gives you an idea of just how much of a “compliment” their admiration is.
The biggest homophobe I know is also the guy most likely to hit on any woman he runs across.