(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Supremes to pope: you lose
Jun 26th, 2015 8:26 am | By Ophelia BensonIn a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Courtruled on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. He was joined by the court’s four more liberal justices.
As Eddie Tabash likes to say, it’s Justice Kennedy’s world and we all live in it. This time it worked out.
Scalia of course had to poop on the party.
In a second dissent, Justice Scalia mocked Justice Kennedy’s soaring language.
“The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,” Justice Scalia wrote of his colleague’s work. “Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent.”
He’s just jealous.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The pope explains about marriage
Jun 25th, 2015 5:57 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe pope talked a bunch of awful shit on Sunday the 14th, the day after Rome’s gay pride march.
Addressing around 25,000 followers from the Diocese of Rome, the pope said the differences between men and women are fundamental and “an integral part of being human.”
Bullshit. People have all sorts of differences, of personality and temperament and kinds of talents and all sorts. The ones between women and men are not the only or the most special ones, and it’s certainly not the pope’s job to hype them. What does he know about it?!
The pontiff likened a long-lasting marriage to a good wine, in which a husband and wife make the most of their gender differences.
“They’re not scared of the differences!” the pope said. “What great richness this diversity is, a diversity which becomes complementary, but also reciprocal. It binds them, one to the other.”
What would he know about it? Why is he literally pontificating about it? He’s officially a non-expert on this subject so why is he bloviating about it? He’s not married and his church loathes women, so he’s one of the last people who should be laying down the law on what marriage is like and how wonderful differences and diversity are.
Heterosexual marriages not only ensured couples’ happiness, the pontiff said, but were deemed essential for good parenting.
“Children mature seeing their father and mother like this; their identity matures being confronted with the love their father and mother have, confronted with this difference,” Francis said.
Who says? Children can just as well mature seeing their two fathers or their two mothers being a couple. He’s just making it up, and it’s all bullshit, and nasty excluding hateful bullshit at that. He’s serving an evil church and an evil god and he should just shut up.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Push-up bras encouraged
Jun 25th, 2015 4:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell at least we know that if we do see sexism anywhere we can point it out without repercussions.
Hahahahaha just kidding, no we don’t. Look what happened to Rose McGowan for instance.
Pushback against Hollywood sexism seems to have gotten Rose McGowan dropped from the talent agency Innovative Artists.
Late Wednesday, the actress and director wrote on Twitter that her agent fired her because she “spoke up” about Hollywood casting practices, adding the hashtag #BRINGIT. Last week, the actress had tweeted the casting notes from a movie whose star, she wrote, has a name that “rhymes with Madam Panhandler.”
That is, Adam Sandler. Behold those casting notes:
Notes: –Please make sure to read the attached script before coming in so you understand the context of the scenes.
-Wardrobe note: Black (or dark) form fitting tank that shows off cleavage (push up bras encouraged). And form fitting leggings or jeans. Nothing white.
In short, we’re auditioning your tits and your bum.
A few days later, Ms. McGowan told Entertainment Weekly that while she was not trying to vilify Adam Sandler in the tweet, it was “the stupidity more than anything” that set her off. “I was offended by the fact that went through so many people’s hands and nobody red flagged it,” Ms. McGowan said. “This is normal to so many people.”
Yes, it is, and that’s why we keep trying to make it better, to shouts of “witch hunt” and “lynch mob.” (Will there be witch hunt-lynch mob shouts about reactions to Adam Sandler’s casting notes? Any bets? No, that would be a terrible bet to make. Of course there will.)
I wonder if Richard Dawkins will be rushing to protest the lynch mob at McGowan’s agency that fired her as a client. No I don’t; of course he won’t. Rose McGowan isn’t a top male scientist, so he’s not going to give a rat’s ass about her.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The ultimate in liberation
Jun 25th, 2015 1:25 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore choicey-choice choice: a woman in a hijab explains that it’s all about rejecting consumerism. It’s a choice to reject consumerism by (as she puts it) covering up.
The liberation lies in the choice.
She does admit, impatiently, that yes women in some places are forced to wear it, but then brushes that off to return to her main point, that the veil is not a symbol of oppression.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Ethel Lee Lance and Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
Jun 25th, 2015 12:15 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe first two funerals for the victims of the racist shootings in Charleston are being held today.
The services for Ethel Lee Lance and Sharonda Coleman-Singleton will both take place after viewings at Baptist churches in North Charleston.
Ms Lance, 70, worked for the church for 30 years and was a mother of five.
Abigail Darlington at the Charleston Post and Courier wrote a profile of Lance last week.
Ethel Lance loved to dress up and take her family to see performances at the Gaillard Municipal Auditorium when she wasn’t on duty there as a custodian.
She started working at the venue in 1968 when it first opened, and she stayed until retirement in 2002, according to Cam Patterson, director of special facilities for the city of Charleston, who worked with Lance at the Gaillard for many years.
Patterson said Lance was not only a co-worker, but a friend.
“She was funny and a pleasure to be around. And she was a wonderful mother and grandmother,” Patterson said. “She would have her children and grandchildren come to the Gaillard from time to time. She was like me, a no-nonsense grandmother and I know they are going to miss her terribly.”
She wasn’t someone who needed to be shot dead inside her church by a murderous racist.
“A strong woman,” was the first phrase that came to Esther Lance’s mind to describe her mother.
Her voice cracked as she fought back tears, explaining that this isn’t the first time her family has dealt with loss.
Lance’s husband and the father of her children, Nathaniel Lance, died in 1988. In October 2013, her daughter Terrie Washington died of cancer at age 53.
And Ethel Lance was the matriarch, the “strong woman who just tried to keep her family together,” Esther Lance said.
She was dedicated to Emanuel AME Church, where she was a lifelong member, Esther Lance said. As its custodian, she took pride in looking after the historic church.
“If she saw a scuff on the floor she’d say, ‘Oh no, don’t y’all mess up my floor’,” Esther Lance said, adding that’s just the way her mother was.
“If she saw something wrong, she’ll tell you,” Esther Lance said. “When you right, you’re right. But if you’re wrong, she will let you know. She’s not going to sugar-coat anything.”
But her mother was happy, full of joy, she added. She always found time to spoil her seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, by buying them gifts and taking them to the movies.
She should be still doing that.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
To clean up the mess
Jun 25th, 2015 11:58 am | By Ophelia BensonBest headline of the day:
Man arrested for pouring syrup on sidewalk
Police were called around 10 a.m. Thursday, and found a strange “unknown, sticky liquid” covering a four-foot area on the corner of Summers Lane downtown, police say.
A city road crew had to be called in to clean up the liquid. “They think it might’ve been a syrup — maybe maple syrup,” said city spokesperson Kelly Anderson. “But they don’t know for sure what it was.”
Well why didn’t they taste it?
Witnesses pointed out the man they said was responsible, and police arrested the 56-year-old for mischief. “He caused resources to have to be deployed to clean this stuff up,” said Const. Steve Welton.
City crews had to lay down “absorbent material” to clean up the mess, Anderson said.
I bet it was honey. I bet I know where the honey came from, too.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Ethics in journalism
Jun 25th, 2015 11:42 am | By Ophelia BensonCharles Seife @cgseife 6 hours ago
I asked EU official @marcinmonko if he was the source of #timhunt Times “transcript,” and if he was recording/taking notes. (1/2)His full response: “The document that the Times refers to is an internal report, not a verbatim transcript.” (2/2) #timhunt
Not a verbatim transcipt.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Guest post: Signaling ethical distance
Jun 25th, 2015 10:29 am | By Ophelia BensonGuest post by Josh Spokes
Reflexively voicing your “support for their right to choose this choice” actually serves a regressive, right-wing political project.
Have you ever noticed that the idea of “choice” and “agency” is only ever invoked to defend the right to enact stereotyped roles that have not only been culturally favored, but culturally enforced?
I’m serious—that’s really important and worth talking about. One only ever gets pushback about “defending their right to X” when the X is taking on a stereotyped role.
When was the last time you saw someone—-in our context of politically liberal, “freethinker” types who are talking among themselves—make a point of “defending” the right to make these choices?
- A woman with a butch affect
- A gay man with a queeny demeanor
- A black woman who eschews religious talk and doesn’t want to be your mammy
You DON’T. You only ever get people saying you’re “taking away her agenciesss!!!” when you are questioning what it means to enact:
- “Femininity” as defined by high heels, lipstick, and “girl stuff”
- “Straight acting” gay bros
- Black women who inhabit the role of “soulful church-goer.”
Please consider what you’re doing when you enact the “It’s their choice and I defend it!” Ask yourself if it seems strange that the choices you’re defending are the very ones that are not in danger, and that are still actually culturally mandatory for a lot of people.
Ask yourself if it seems out of place that you’re signaling ethical distance from friends who question these things, and whether you really want to say that they—not the enforcers of convention—are the illiberal threat.
Because it is very strange.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Guest post: Our choices are not made in a cultural vacuum
Jun 25th, 2015 9:44 am | By Ophelia BensonWhile I was writing that last post, Elsa Roberts was writing this one which she posted on Facebook. She gave me permission to republish it here.
Somewhere, somehow, responses in any community start to short circuit and we begin to rely too heavily on coded phrases as stand-ins for conversation and complexity, and reason and evidence. For example, because feminism is about enabling equity and with that comes the ability to choose sometimes that gets boiled down to “any choice a woman makes is feminist and can’t be criticized (or theoretically it could be but just try it and see how that works out in some circles).
That is fundamentally flawed and thoughtless way of examining something. When we boil things down to catch phrases and jargon we lose the ability to analyze thoughtfully and to consider all the evidence and context on the table.
One of the most pernicious and irritating examples of this for me is the one alluded to above, that if a woman chooses something that is “her choice” and critiquing it or judging it or thinking critically about it is almost automatically shaming or un-feminist. That is a really misguided supposition because our choices are influenced by many things and many of our choices are not going to be feminist or they will just have very little to do with feminism.
Our choices are not made in a cultural vacuum, how I choose to dress, what I watch on TV, etc. is all influenced by the company I keep and the culture I live in. If we want to make this world more equitable and question and change our practices, we must be able to evaluate them critically and admit when a given practice or choice isn’t feminist or when it is simply irrelevant as to whether it is or not.
Feminists fight endlessly about whether, for example, lipstick is feminist or heels are feminist. This, to me, misses the point. Those objects are not fundamentally feminist or not feminist, but as objects they do serve as signifiers in our culture and they fit into broader social norms and regulations and expectations. That is why if a man wears lipstick or heels he is at risk of violence – because those are symbolic of femininity that is supposed to be pleasing to men. Men wearing such things threatens those norms and confuses what those objects “mean” in our world.
Boiling these topics down to “choice” is to ignore the complexity of our world and social dynamics and to deny the reality of how choice functions.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Choosy moms choose Jif
Jun 25th, 2015 9:08 am | By Ophelia BensonFeminism is not just about “choice” or “free choice.”
Thanks for the random observation, you’re thinking – but I keep hearing from people who seem to think it is…or rather, they seem to think it is when it comes to some issues but not others. They think it absolutely is when it comes to women doing videos for Playboy, but not so much when it comes to having 19 children and raising them to be warriors for god. There are some contentious areas where it’s trendy to say IT’S HER FREE CHOICE, END OF, and there are other contentious areas where it’s not trendy to say that.
Me, I avoid this troubling inconsistency by not claiming that CHOICE is a conversation-stopper, a judge’s gavel, a guaranteed winning argument.
But I actually have more substantive reasons for not claiming that, like the fact that choices are complicated and it’s not reasonable to assume that they’re all “free” in any meaningful way. Choices come from somewhere, and while there are degrees of constraint and influence and coercion, it’s pretty hard to figure out how any choice could be entirely free. (Cue free will debate here. Cue 500 thousand words of wrangling. There, that’s done.) If you have that in mind, it becomes a little absurd to try to claim that something like doing a Playboy video is a wholly free choice. If it’s really free, why would you want to do it at all? It’s not directly rewarding like food or sex, so why do it?
Note for the obtuse: I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with doing a Playboy video. I’m saying “it’s her choice” is neither a slam dunk argument nor a feminist argument.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Seeing the unseen
Jun 24th, 2015 5:39 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore from Hilda Bastian’s post on “just joking” and sexist talk in science.
Sexist humor’s impact may also reduce people’s willingness to take action against discrimination. Take for example this randomized controlled trial of men recruited via Mechanical Turk, published by Ford and colleagues in 2013 [PDF]. Men who were already high in hostile sexism were less likely to express support for actions that would improve gender equality after hearing sexist rather than neutral jokes. Even if that only meant they were more willing “to show their hand”, it’s not reassuring.
No, it’s not. We see that playing out all the time on Twitter – all those sexist bullies reducing each other’s willingness to take action against discrimination, day in and day out. Twitter is to sexism as manure is to tomato plants.
When Hunt spoke/joked of the benefit of all-male labs, he was not hypothesizing some comic universe. There are all-male labs – and most are headed by men (including the ones at the Crick where Hunt wound up a lab in 2010).
Speaking of the Crick brings us to the issue of what role eminence plays. Should it mean you get more of a pass than someone else?
The opposite! Because eminence leads to visibility and influence. If you use your visibility and influence to shit on feminism, the way Dawkins does, you’re doing a bad thing.
According to work by Jason Sheltzer and Joan Smith, elite male scientists may be even less likely than other men to employ women in biology labs. Anything that reinforces the message from their peers that this is in any way desirable isn’t going to help.
Sexist remarks and jokes form one of the constellation of factors that make up workplace gender harassment, mapped out by Emily Leskinen and Lilia Cortina with a group of experts in 2014. A 2010 systematic review and meta-analysis by Sandy Hershcovis and Julian Barling found that the higher the status of a person who is harassing, the worse the damage. That seems to me to be relevant to the public sphere as well.
And then there’s the whole “you have no sense of humor!” routine. It’s in the box with “you’re ugly” and “you’re a prude” and “you’re a witch.”
Julia Becker and colleagues point to the need for “seeing the unseen” – understanding what everyday sexism really is. That’s not enough, though, to change sexist behavior – that requires empathy, as well. Gender bias awareness training has had some success in academic environments, including the WAGES program (studies summarized by Becker) and a cluster randomized trial reported recently by Molly Carnes and colleagues.
We need to make it safe to confront sexist behavior, though, especially when it’s coming from powerful and influential people: it hasn’t looked all that safe during the Hunt incident.
That’s one way bloggers can be useful, I guess – we don’t have to be afraid of bosses or angry colleagues. (Unless of course we’re the kind of blogger who has a job as well as a blog, but who is that rash and foolhardy?)
Yes, there’s a lot we can do to dismantle everyday sexism as individuals. But we can’t just expect people to take potentially serious risks with their careers, one by vulnerable one. We need better support for when they do. We need collective action, too, to enable social change. The internet and digital communication are unleashing torrents of sexist and misogynist ugliness on a scale we’ve never seen before. It’s also enabling anew wave of feminism though, writes Rebecca Solnit:
…building arguments comment by comment, challenging, testing, reinforcing and circulating the longer arguments in blogs, essays and reports. It’s like a barn-building for ideas: innumerable people bring their experiences, insights, analysis, new terms and frameworks.
We need to strengthen “feminists on Twitter”, not revile them. Gender equality is inherently disruptive to those comfortable with the status quo: anything other than almost imperceptible change will be discomfiting to many. We can’t know for sure, of course, what will bring us deep and lasting progress.
But it won’t come from being ladylike.
Good; I’m doing it right then.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Disparagement humor
Jun 24th, 2015 4:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonDrop everything and read this: “Just” Joking? Sexist Talk in Science by Hilda Bastian. She’s a scientist and a cartoonist. She has a cartoon at the top of three guys indulging in a spot of sexist “banter” – it’s amusing that all three of them could be Richard Dawkins.
I want to talk about research and sexist jokes, and where that leads. It’s a response to a narrative about the Tim Hunt situation that goes something like this:
It was just a joke. An unfortunate turn of phrase. It’s not that big a deal. He’s a nice guy who’s nice to many women – he didn’t mean to belittle anybody. It’s not demeaning if you don’t intend it to be. He’s eminent as well as nice, so give him a break. Lighten up. What has the world come to? Over the top social media firestorms are a worse threat than thoughtless remarks. Academic freedom/democracy is at stake.
We’ve been seeing that narrative for two weeks, intensifying all the time, and it’s gone into high gear today thanks to the Times and the Daily Mail and their publication of breathless pieces saying “it turns out that Tim Hunt was joking and that changes everything!!!” We already knew he claimed he was joking (along with also saying he was serious about at least some of what he said), and it changes fucking nothing.
I did a much shorter – about 12 words, I think – version of that narrative for the column I wrote for the Freethinker yesterday.
“Sacked over a joke!” they cried. “No one is safe!”
Only ten.
Back to Bastian.
In a 2004 review of empirical research, Thomas Ford and Mark Ferguson[PDF] point out:
Disparagement humor (e.g., racist or sexist humor) is humor that denigrates, belittles, or maligns an individual or social group…[P]eople have become less willing to allow joke tellers “moral amnesty” for their derision of social out-groups through humor.
Sexist and other discriminatory disparaging humor takes a code for granted: its funniness relies on people recognizing the stereotypes that are the basis for the joke. It asks us to not take discriminatory stereotyping seriously. That’s not going to take the sting out of it.
In the right circumstances, among people who know and trust each other, parodic sexist disparaging humor can take the sting out of it, but that’s the only way it can. Hunt’s version met none of those criteria. (I’ve been seeing lots of the parodic kind on my Facebook wall, and indeed in comments here – but guess what, that’s not the same kind of thing as what Hunt did. At all.)
Ford and Ferguson concluded that jokes don’t create hostility to the outgroup where it doesn’t already exist. But the evidence, they said, showed that joking reinforces existing prejudice. If you joke about women and get away with it, those who are hostile to women will see this as social sanction for their views and behavior. The joke tellers don’t themselves have to be actively misogynist to end up encouraging others to be.
And haven’t we been seeing that as a result of Hunt’s “joke.”
There’s a lot to Bastian’s piece; I don’t want to crowd it all into one piece. More later.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
In SAME SPEECH
Jun 24th, 2015 11:33 am | By Ophelia BensonDamn, I thought I was going to be able to drop it now but nooooooo, there’s too much new nonsense flying around – all in aid of the important cause of Doing Nothing when a celebrity scientist says sexist things at a science conference because hey he was only joking. Sexist jokes are never in any way any kind of problem at all whatsoever, just as racist jokes are not, just as anti-Semitic jokes are not, just as homophobic jokes are not. Jokes cannot ever be a problem because they are meant to be funny? Can’t you crazy social-justice warrior prude witches get that through your crazy lynch-mob heads?
The Daily Mail does its more unbuttoned version of the Times story, with all caps and exclamation points.
Revealed: ‘Sexist’ Nobel winner went on to praise women scientists in SAME SPEECH, continuing after criticised comments by saying ‘Now seriously…’
The SAME SPEECH I tell you.
And he said “now seriously” which PROVES that he was joking before and if you are joking THAT MEANS YOU’RE NOT BEING SEXIST BECAUSE IT’S A JOKE.
A leaked report on the controversial speech that forced the resignation of Sir Tim Hunt suggests he also praised women scientists.
The Nobel prize-winning scientist was castigated after he said women in laboratories either fell in love with their male colleagues or cried when criticised.
Crucially, it now appears Sir Tim followed his jocular comments with the words ‘Now seriously…’ before heaping praise on women.
“Crucially”? Please. “Jocular” comments can be just as sexist as serious comments. I could tell you about a “jocular” racist remark I heard someone make a few weeks ago, but it would make me want to heave.
Following widespread criticism of his ‘sexist’ comments, he resigned from his honorary position at UCL and positions at the Royal Society and the European Research Council.
But last night a report emerged that added crucial context to his remarks to the conference of female science journalists Seoul, South Korea.
According to The Times, a report of the event by a European Commission official who was at the lunch was suppressed by the commission.
He wrote: ‘This is the transcript of Sir Tim Hunt’s speech, or rather a toast, as precise as I can recall it: ‘It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls?’
According to the official, Sir Tim immediately said after: ‘Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.’
Note that the “transcript” isn’t really a transcript, because the mystery official said it was “as precise as I can recall it.” That applies to the account given by Blum and St Louis and Oransky too, as far as I know, but they at least were pooling three memories and not relying on just one. It’s not self-evident that the “suppressed” transcript trumps the first one.
But that’s a quibble, because in any case the new version doesn’t make the huge difference that people are claiming. That’s especially true since he said afterwards that he was serious about some of it.
The Daily Mail is hopeful about a rebellion:
There are now over 2,000 signatures on an online petition to reinstate him to his post at UCL.
Meanwhile, members of the university’s governing council are mounting a potential rebellion over the university’s handling of the affair – with it now being claimed that talks next month could lead to Sir Tim being reinstated.
Many are said to feel that it over-reacted to the social media furore over his remarks in South Korea more than a fortnight ago.
Claimed by whom? Who are the many? Said by whom?
Who knows. Meanwhile BishopBlog has more details on how the media got a lot of the facts wrong.
My concern is about the number of signatories of Ballentyne’s petition who have got themselves worked up into a state of indignation on the basis of wrong information. There are three themes that run through the comments that many people have posted:
- a) They think that Tim Hunt has been sacked from his job
- b) They think he is ‘lost to science’
- c) They think University College London (UCL) fired him in response to a ‘Twitter mob’.
None of these things is true. (a) Hunt is a retired scientist who was asked to resign from an honorary position. That’s shaming and unpleasant, but an order of magnitude different from being sacked and losing your source of income. (b) Hunt continues to have an affiliation to the Crick Institute – a flagship research centre that recently opened in Central London. (c) UCL are explicit that their acceptance of his resignation from an honorary position had nothing to do with the reaction on social media.
There are people who insist that UCL is spinning – but I don’t see why they’re so sure that UCL is spinning while Tim Hunt is not. How do they know Tim Hunt is not spinning?
So why do people think these things? Quite simply, this is the interpretation that has been put about in many of the mainstream media. The BBC has been particularly culpable. The Today programme on Radio 4 ran a piece which started by saying Hunt had ‘lost his job’. This was a couple of days after the UCL resignation, when any self-respecting journalist would have known this to be false. Many newspapers fuelled the flames. An interview with Boris Johnson on the BBC website added the fictitious detail that Hunt had been sacked by the Royal Society. He is in fact still a Fellow – he has simply been asked to step down from a Royal Society committee. It is interesting to ask why the media are so keen to promote the notion of Hunt as victim, cruelly dismissed by a politically correct university.
It is interesting, isn’t it. I think it’s basically because so many people just don’t want to have to go to the trouble of ceasing to make contemptuous jokes about women. I think for a lot of people it’s a cherished part of their Traditional Culture.
Some day this story will end. Some day.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Oh wait, it turns out he was joking!
Jun 24th, 2015 9:08 am | By Ophelia BensonYou think it can’t get any more ridiculous, but it keeps doing exactly that.
This time? A “leaked” transcript of what Tim Hunt said at that conference in Korea supports his account that it was a joke, so it’s all good and he should be given all his honorary positions back. This is according to the Times, so I haven’t read the whole article because paywall. But even the first paragraph is absurd.
A leaked EU report has increased the pressure for Sir Tim Hunt to be reinstated to his academic positions after it revealed a markedly different account of his speech about the “trouble with girls” in science.
Has increased “the pressure”? What pressure? There are some aggrieved assholes complaining, but so what? Journalists do love those vague agent-free statements about bodiless “pressure” from no one in particular.
Even more bizarrely, the Independent reports that Dawkins demands an apology from everyone in sight.
Professor Richard Dawkins is demanding an apology from those who criticised Sir Tim Hunt over a leaked EU report he claims gives vital context to comments the Nobel laureate scientist made about his “trouble with girls” in laboratories.
Oh yeah? Well I demand that Richard Dawkins apologize for a whole long list of things. Fat lot of good that will do me.
Sir Tim left his position at the Royal Society and University College London (UCL) after telling an audience of female science journalists at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea he found it difficult to work with girls.
He also reportedly said: “Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry.”
His remarks were condemned as sexist and unhelpful and he resigned shortly after the backlash. He also apologised publicly for his comments.
Well, he apologized and then unapologized and complained and blamed and generally pitched a huge fit.
Now, an account by a European Commission official printed in The Times expands on the comments he made during the conference.
The official quotes Sir Tim as saying: “It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls?
“Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.”
Yes – so? How does that change anything? How is that a version that dramatically reveals that Tim Hunt didn’t act like a sexist jerk at that lunch?
I don’t think anyone ever denied that he thought he was being facetious. Maybe this is news to Dawkins, but it’s not news to us: a hell of a lot of sexism is in the form of tedious, labored, unfunny “jokes.” Who hasn’t sat stony-faced through a million of them? Come on. Nobody thought Hunt was giving a serious scientific lecture on gender differences. We all knew he was “bantering.” That doesn’t change a thing.
The official also claimed that Sir Tim did not “thank women for making lunch”, as was previously reported.
Previously reported where? I don’t remember seeing that.
Dawkins tweeted about this putative exoneration of Hunt.
He told The Times: “This phrase […] is the final confirmation that Tim Hunt’s remark was light-hearted banter against himself.
“Without wishing to join a reverse witch-hunt to root out the individuals responsible, I can’t help hoping Sir Tim will receive an apology.”
An apology for what? For saying that a senior scientist should not be swanning around the world making contemptuous jokes about women scientists? I’m not going to apologize for that.
UCL and the RS are also not impressed.
A spokesperson for UCL declined to comment any further when contacted by The Independent. The Royal Society said it would not be commenting further on the matter at this stage.
There’s nothing there.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Historians and librarians
Jun 23rd, 2015 5:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere’s a good thing to come out of the horror in Charleston: the #CharlestonSyllabus.
Last Friday, like the rest of us, historian Keisha Blain was scrolling through her social feeds, watching the renewed “national conversation” on race and hate crimes play out in real time, following the tragic shooting of nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
There was one post out of all of them that caught her eye. Chad Williams, associate professor and chair of the African and Afro-American Studies Department at Brandeis University, tweeted the following:
Chad Williams @Dr_ChadWilliams
Lots of ignorance running rampant. Folks need a #CharlestonSyllabus. #twitterstorians @KidadaEWilliams @DrMChatelain @historianspeaks
“I liked it, and I quickly responded and said, ‘Great idea, we really should do this,’” Blain told Fusion about Williams’ tweet in an interview. The two exchanged emails a few minutes after the tweet was posted, and they quickly decided that even though he was just venting, compiling a list of resources for people to read to properly contextualize the Charleston shooting would indeed be a great idea. By then, others had already started responding to the original tweet, using the hashtag to make reading suggestions.
So Blain started making a list, and she looked at Twitter again an hour later, and the hashtag had eaten Manhattan.
Over 10,000 tweets have been posted under the hashtag over the last week, according to Topsy, a social media analytics website.
Twitter is not just a playpen for abusers and harassers and assholes. It can be a lot more than that.
Thanks to the input of historians, librarians and activists from across the country, the effort has pulled together definitive reads on pressing topics, ranging from “Readings on Slavery in the U.S. South” to historically significant poems, explainers on the racist history of the Confederate flag and “Readings on White Racial Identity.”
One of the nine people murdered in Emanuel AME church was a librarian, you may remember. Cynthia Hurd.
…manager of St. Andrews Regional Library branch at Charleston County Public Library (CCPL).
Hurd graduated from Clark Atlanta University and received her MLS from the University of South Carolina. She lived with her husband, Steve Hurd, on Charleston’s east side. She would have turned 55 on June 21.
…
Hurd worked with CCPL for 31 years. At the time of her death she served as manager of the St. Andrews Regional Library branch. From 1990–2011 she was manager of the John L. Dart branch, named after the founder of the Charleston Normal and Industrial School for local black children in 1894. Charleston’s first free public library for African Americans was established in 1927 by Dart’s daughter, Susan Dart Butler, and when the 75th anniversary of its founding was commemorated in 2012, Hurd worked on the planning committee. She was active in the community as well, serving on the Charleston City Housing Authority board of commissioners.
In addition to working full-time at CCPL, Hurd worked at the College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library as a part-time librarian since the 1990s—its longest-serving part-time librarian. A statement from the College said, “She was a protector and lover of books and a fountain of knowledge whose loss will be felt by our entire College community.”
#CharlestonSyllabus
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The attempts to obfuscate
Jun 23rd, 2015 4:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonDeborah Blum @deborahblum 4 hours ago
As @connie_stlouis says & says well: Stop defending Tim Hunt. Women in science need your support more. http://gu.com/p/4a3gh/stw @ivanoranskyCorey S. Powell @coreyspowell 1 hour ago
@deborahblum @NerdyChristie Nobody would defend “Let me tell you about my trouble with [blacks/gays/Jews].” Nobody should defend this either@deborahblum I’m amazed by the attempts to obfuscate what would be a crystal-clear issue in a non-gender context.
Well you see women and men are biologically different…
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
A sky full of moons
Jun 23rd, 2015 4:06 pm | By Ophelia BensonWo. Three crescent moons. Snapped from the Cassini spacecraft.
A single crescent moon is a familiar sight in Earth’s sky, but with Saturn’s many moons, you can see three or even more.
The three moons shown here — Titan (3,200 miles or 5,150 kilometers across), Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), and Rhea (949 miles or 1,527 kilometers across) — show marked contrasts.
Titan, the largest moon in this image, appears fuzzy because we only see its cloud layers. And because Titan’s atmosphere refracts light around the moon, its crescent “wraps” just a little further around the moon than it would on an airless body. Rhea (upper left) appears rough because its icy surface is heavily cratered. And a close inspection of Mimas (center bottom), though difficult to see at this scale, shows surface irregularities due to its own violent history.
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
By bullets to the head or by any other convenient method
Jun 23rd, 2015 3:57 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo, that’s good, I guess, except it should never have in the first place so it’s not so much good as…no, right, of course not, why would you even ask.
A judge has relieved California’s attorney general of the duty to process a proposed ballot initiative that advocated killing anyone who engages in gay sex.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei ruled late Monday that the so-called Sodomite Suppression Act was patently unconstitutional.
The what? Ok I should have looked at this in March. The Sodomite Suppression Act…
An Orange County, Calif., attorney has filed a proposed ballot measure with the California Attorney General’s office asking voters to criminalize homosexuality in the state and impose a death penalty sentence.
The filing, submitted along with the required fee of $200, will allow attorney Matthew G. McLaughlin to begin the process of collecting the approximately 365,000 signatures needed to put the measure before California voters on an upcoming ballot, reports Raw Story.
But now that’s not going to happen. Good. Can we get attorny Matthew G McLaughlin to leave the country and relocate to an uninhabited island in the Pacific?
Under McLaughlin’s proposal, “The abominable crime against nature known as buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha.”
“The People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.”
An island with a harsh climate and an active volcano?
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
