# Tim Hunt and the "trouble with girls"



## Toby Frost (Jun 15, 2015)

Of course, one should feel no pity for a former comrade who becomes... "problematic". However, much as I would hate for anyone to mistake me for a bourgeois sentimentalist, I can't help feeling rather sorry for this man. He seems to have paid very highly for his foolishness.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/...o-dry-interview-mary-collins?CMP=share_btn_fb


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 15, 2015)

I am a pretty upfront and radical feminist however I feel very sorry for the guy and unapologetically so.

He's a 72 year old man who makes a better scientist than he does comedian.  If hoards of women come forward saying what an awful sexist misogynistic pig he his and he has treated them badly then I will reassess my opinion.  However, so far any who have come forward have said the exact opposite which leads me to suspect he was just being a pillock.

I had several lecturers that could have so easily made the same gaffe but they supported me in my goals and when I became too ill to continue fought to try and keep me.  I'd have hated to watch them go through this.  

It feels like one man is being held out to dry for the failings of society.   It was like one female scientist moaned about how she couldn't go to the pub to talk about grants because she had to go home to feed her family.   Well I actually think that is not the science field's fault it's her husband's -- he could sometimes have gone home and fed his children so she could go to the pub.  It was a society issue.  

I just think about my gran her language was sexist, racist, homophobic etc because she was born in 1907 she wasn't actually any of those things and was remarkably tolerant for the time and place in which she was born.


----------



## Toby Frost (Jun 15, 2015)

I agree. What disturbs me isn't so much the sexism angle - he was wrong and that's that - but how quickly people rush to denounce someone as soon as they become a "baddie" (hence the Communist jargon!). Surely the correct reply is just to think "idiot", accept his apology and expect him not to do it again.

It's as if as soon as someone steps out of line - whatever "line" you take, because I don't think this is a right or left thing - you can do whatever you want to them with impunity. People just seem to want to gang up on somebody, and if they can bully someone and feel righteous at the same time, so much the better.


----------



## Ursa major (Jun 15, 2015)

I'd feel a lot less sympathy for him if others hadn't been actively allowing/enabling (rather than simply talking about) the segregation of men and women at, for example, their universities (albeit at events** staged there, not ones part of the curriculum***); as far as I can tell, none of these people have paid any penalty whatsoever for their disgraceful behaviour. (The same goes for those****, at the organisation "Universities UK" (UUK), whose guidance supported such segregation.) And I can't help feeling that they -- as administrators, not Nobel laureates -- would be eminently more replaceable if they were to be encouraged to resign (as they should have been).


** - Specifically academic meetings or in lectures open to the public. (Note that UK Equality law permits gender segregation in premises that are permanently or temporarily being used for the purposes of an organised religion where its doctrines require it, but these were not the subject of the scandal.)

*** - As far as I know, that is.

**** - The chief executive of UUK, Nicola Dandridge, is still in place. UUK had to change its guidance after EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) chief executive Mark Hammond said it was not permissible under the law for universities to segregate by gender in academic meetings. (Perhaps UUK should have waited for a ruling before putting out its original guidance.) I note that Nicola Dandridge was, before taking up her role at UUK, Chief Executive of Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) who promote the equality and diversity for staff and students in higher education across all four nations of the UK, and in colleges in Scotland. (As they say: "You couldn't make this up.")


----------



## willwallace (Jun 15, 2015)

Being forced to resign seems to me to be a knee jerk over-reaction to what he said.  The man has had a long career with no previous hints of sexist activities before this.  Clearly he made a poor joke.  At least some women are coming to his defense-

“Tim taught me as an undergraduate, and I have known him for years,” plant biologist Professor Ottoline Leysertold the Observer. “It is quite clear to me that he is not a sexist in any way. I don’t know why he said those silly things, but the way his remarks have been taken up implies that women in science are having a horrible time. That is not the case. I, for one, am having a wonderful time.”

“During the time I worked with him he was always immensely supportive of the ERC’s(European Research Council) work around gender equality,” added another female former co-worker, Dame Athene Donald, a physics professor at Cambridge. “His off-the-cuff remarks in Korea are clearly inappropriate and indefensible, but … he has worked tirelessly in support of young scientists of both genders.”

Zero tolerance for one mistake seems pretty harsh to me, stacked up against a long career with no other hints of impropriety.


----------



## purple_kathryn (Jun 16, 2015)

I would've thought it was pretty obvious that you can't really joke about a group you aren't a part of without coming across as being sexist or racist or sectarian.  "The trouble with black scientists...." for example.
Besides his apology wasn't much in the way of apology since he said he believed it.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Jun 16, 2015)

purple_kathryn said:


> I would've thought it was pretty obvious that you can't really joke about a group you aren't a part of without coming across as being sexist or racist or sectarian.  "The trouble with black scientists...." for example.
> Besides his apology wasn't much in the way of apology since he said he believed it.



I agree. If you're speaking in public and make crass comments, you need to stand behind them, or accept a public backlash. 

In the meantime, here are some of the more light-hearted responses from Twitter on the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-33099289


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 16, 2015)

purple_kathryn said:


> I would've thought it was pretty obvious that you can't really joke about a group you aren't a part of without coming across as being sexist or racist or sectarian.  "The trouble with black scientists...." for example.
> Besides his apology wasn't much in the way of apology since he said he believed it.



It doesn't mean he should have been hounded or forced to resign.  Nobody is supporting the words not even his wife who is who he appears to have been referring to mostly with the joke.   

However, nobody is coming forward to say he is sexist or misogynistic.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 16, 2015)

Trial by FaceTwits, not his peers or employer.  Perhaps he has a case for constructive dismissal by the University. Even when you resign, you can prove it was an unfair sacking.


----------



## Jo Zebedee (Jun 16, 2015)

It does seem a little OTT. But, on the other hand, we should be careful what we say, especially when we're in very public positions.


----------



## willwallace (Jun 16, 2015)

Brian Turner said:


> I agree. If you're speaking in public and make crass comments, you need to stand behind them, or accept a public backlash.



Accepting a backlash is one thing.  Being forced to resign is a totally ridiculous response in my opinion.  I'm sure this guy has spoken thousands of times over his career in public, and doesn't seem to have created any controversies before.  Of course we can't know what he said in those instances, but the defense by former female students and associates seems to point to his being overall a decent person.

If everyone has to be perfect in what they say, all the time, then we would be holding people to an unrealistic standard.  Humans are human, after all, and we make mistakes, say stupid things sometimes, all the while striving to be as good as we can.  But we're not infallible, and it shouldn't be an automatic dropping of the hammer when a person says what he did.  Body of work should count for something, I believe.  

Now if you have a history of misogyny, then this comment could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.  Doesn't appear to be the case here, though.


----------



## thaddeus6th (Jun 16, 2015)

I agree with the consensus. Daft comments, but forced resignation is ridiculous.


----------



## mosaix (Jun 16, 2015)

I would have thought a public, embarrassing, apology would be enough to make him think twice about what he said and his future conduct. Forcing him to resign is not only OTT but a loss to science.


----------



## Toby Frost (Jun 16, 2015)

Tim Hunt and The Problem With Girls is a great name for a band.

I bet he wishes he'd been talking rubbish about cars on the BBC, instead of all that Nobel prize winning science nonsense. Then he could have got away with virtually anything he liked!


----------



## thaddeus6th (Jun 16, 2015)

Or been a diversity officer who reportedly tweeted #Killallwhitemen. 

The Philae revival reminds me that one of the scientists involved was set upon by Twits because he wore a shirt with some scantily clad ladies on it [made specially for him by a female friend]. Reactionary disgust does seem to be a default setting for some people.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 16, 2015)

EDIT:
Actually this is totally irrelevant to Tim Hunt, except for the Trial by Social Media.

Or a totally White girl pretending to be an Afro-American. How ever much she identifies with "Black" it's fraud to apply for a Job claiming to be African American.


----------



## Gramm838 (Jun 16, 2015)

Jo Zebedee said:


> It does seem a little OTT. But, on the other hand, we should be careful what we say, especially when we're in very public positions.



So we don't need censorship nowadays because we all censor ourselves then? 

I must have missed the memo about the death of free speech...


----------



## Jo Zebedee (Jun 16, 2015)

Gramm838 said:


> So we don't need censorship nowadays because we all censor ourselves then?
> 
> I must have missed the memo about the death of free speech...



Sorry? We didn't always censor ourselves? I certainly do when in the professional arena.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 16, 2015)

Jo Zebedee said:


> I certainly do when in the professional arena.


You obviously are not an N.I. Politician.

There are degrees of self censorship. Free speech NEVER meant anyone could say anything they liked.
Family, Work, Clubs, Society would become unbearable if we all just said what ever we felt like.

It's true there is insidious self censorship, there are things that people ought to be able to have opinion on or belief about or debate and that has been stifled.

But @Jo Zebedee is 100% correct.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 16, 2015)

What gets me is he makes one stupid comment and loses admittedly an honorary position but then we have David Starkey...


----------



## mosaix (Jun 16, 2015)

AnyaKimlin said:


> What gets me is he makes one stupid comment and loses admittedly an honorary position but then we have David Starkey...



Probably the rudest man to broadcast on British media. What did we do to deserve such a lout?


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 17, 2015)

Or that guy that just got taps on his wrist every time he made a vile comment, and only had to go when he punched the producer.


----------



## Stephen Palmer (Jun 17, 2015)

I have no sympathy for Tim Hunt. Not only did he say something really stupid, which affects tens of thousands of women scientists, he tried to "explain" what he meant afterwards. FFS! And suppose he'd made these comments about, say, Indian laboratory technicians? Would that be any different? I'm pretty gobsmacked too by what Brian Cox - a man I respect enormously - has said this morning. Disappointing.

If you want to avoid Twitter storms, the way forward is not to say crass things like "women fall in love in laboratories and cry over the smallest thing."


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 17, 2015)

Stephen Palmer said:


> I I'm pretty gobsmacked too by what Brian Cox - a man I respect enormously - has said this morning. Disappointing.
> "



I'm not I entirely agree with him.  He didn't condone the words but he did also mention that Tim Hunt seems to be a really nice, decent human being.  The things Tim Hunt said afterwards were why I felt sorry for him actually - he was like a deer in the headlights.


----------



## Stephen Palmer (Jun 17, 2015)

I guess I just think that Hunt's comments were not merely "ill-advised," they were crass and stupid. Also, I, my colleagues in education, and many others are trying to do everything we can to get more women into science. Tim Hunt is not helping.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 17, 2015)

Stephen Palmer said:


> Tim Hunt is not helping.



In words or the actions over the years?  I've heard stories from women he has  helped.  What I have yet to see _any_ of is stories of women he has obstructed?  He actually began his talk with the female scientists he admired.  Given the time elapsed I would have expected at least one dubious story about his poor behaviour towards women and not one has been dug out.

Quite frankly the Social Media campaign has made his comments far more well known and I think have dealt a far worse blow to women in science.  Stephen Hawking (roughly the same age as Tim Hunt) on a BBC interview has just said he finds women a mystery and asked an actress for a kiss but his team of people who help him get around seems diverse.  Not seeing the massive outcry over those remarks.


----------



## Toby Frost (Jun 17, 2015)

_I _find women a complete mystery. I think that makes be about average for a man.


----------



## Coolhand (Jun 17, 2015)

AnyaKimlin said:


> I am a pretty upfront and radical feminist however I feel very sorry for the guy and unapologetically so.
> 
> He's a 72 year old man who makes a better scientist than he does comedian.  If hoards of women come forward saying what an awful sexist misogynistic pig he his and he has treated them badly then I will reassess my opinion.  However, so far any who have come forward have said the exact opposite which leads me to suspect he was just being a pillock.
> 
> ...



I tend to agree with this. 

One the one hand we have an old man, raised in another age who attempts some poorly judged, out of touch, light humour and it backfires. Cringe worthy, wince inducing and a reminder of how quickly social progress can leave the older, less flexible generations behind. That will, no doubt, be us someday.

On the other hand we have the social media outrage machine demanding that he be, in a professional sense,  flogged and flayed and led naked though the streets like the hateful, despicable man they judge him to be on the basis of one isolated gaff.

One of these things is indeed deeply problematic and says something very unpleasant about our society, and it ain't the out of touch old man.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Jun 17, 2015)

Coolhand said:


> a reminder of how quickly social progress can leave the older, less flexible generations behind. That will, no doubt, be us someday.



Absolutely true. Watch your step!


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 17, 2015)

Coolhand said:


> a reminder of how quickly social progress can leave the older, less flexible generations behind


or how thoughtless and stupid the "whipper-snappers" on "so-called" social media can be.

Are they Free Content Advertising networks or Content Free Advertising Networks?

*Everyone makes mistakes, not just older white males. *I think "older, less flexible generations" make fewer mistakes due to the wisdom age brings, but "social networks" often populated by a bunch of hyenas anxious to bring down any old stag or doe that falters and magnify them while glossing over their own.

Plenty of young people are inflexible, bigoted and thoughtless. Lots of old people are flexible.


----------



## Coolhand (Jun 17, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Plenty of young people are inflexible, bigoted and thoughtless. Lots of old people are flexible.



Fair point. No disagreement here.


----------



## Gramm838 (Jun 17, 2015)

Stephen Palmer said:


> I guess I just think that Hunt's comments were not merely "ill-advised," they were crass and stupid. Also, I, my colleagues in education, and many others are trying to do everything we can to get more women into science. Tim Hunt is not helping.



I bet before this broke few women, other than those in the same field as Tim Hunt, had ever heard of him or saw him as a reason to get into science. I really don't think that your argument this time is valid at all. 

I could be controversial and say that academia is part of the problem, not part of the solution...the lack of male input, and therefore balance, into today's education system, especially at primary school age, is a real problem. None of my kids had a male teacher until they got to secondary school.


----------



## MWagner (Jun 17, 2015)

Coolhand said:


> One the one hand we have an old man, raised in another age who attempts some poorly judged, out of touch, light humour and it backfires. Cringe worthy, wince inducing and a reminder of how quickly social progress can leave the older, less flexible generations behind. That will, no doubt, be us someday.
> 
> On the other hand we have the social media outrage machine demanding that he be, in a professional sense,  flogged and flayed and led naked though the streets like the hateful, despicable man they judge him to be on the basis of one isolated gaff.
> 
> One of these things is indeed deeply problematic and says something very unpleasant about our society, and it ain't the out of touch old man.



The public savaging and humiliation of people who step out of line on the hot-button issues of the day has become akin to the shaming imposed by the religiously orthodox on sinners and apostates. There's something tremendously ugly at its root. Given the ubiquity of social media and the instant dissemination of both the sin and the outrage, I expect we'll either see this phenomenon crest and recede to a more tolerant and reasoned response, or we're entering an age of fear and denunciation that we haven't seen in the West since the War of Religion in the 16th and 17th century.

And anyone who is observing these scandals secure in their own righteousness shouldn't get too comfortable. When vilification and denunciation of speech and belief become a habit embraced by the mob, there's no predicting the subjects of these attacks. People crave villains. Someone to hate. And when you give them social license to publicly shame others for their words, they will seize on that opportunity indiscriminately and with ferocious joy.

Many people tutting over Hunt today will themselves be the targets of similar campaigns. Maybe not tomorrow. Or in five years. But eventually even the most tolerant and progressive person finds themselves out of step with the ideological tenor of the times. Forty years from now, who's to say keeping pets won't be regarded as a monstrous tyranny fuelled by arrogant paternalism and selfish emotional cravings?



Gramm838 said:


> I could be controversial and say that academia is part of the problem, not part of the solution...the lack of male input, and therefore balance, into today's education system, especially at primary school age, is a real problem. None of my kids had a male teacher until they got to secondary school.



I'm puzzled by the amount of attention given in the last couple years to the lack of female representation the STEM fields, when almost all other fields of education are seeing men fall further and further behind women. In Canada, medical school graduates are 60 per cent female. Law school graduates 55 per cent. Even that old bastion of men - accounting - is graduating more women than men.

And of course, the education field continues to be overwhelmingly female. And there isn't much doubt any more that this is contributing to the continuing decline in the performance of boys in elementary and secondary eduction. Education, learning, and reading are becoming regarded as 'girl' things, and schools are having tremendous difficulty engaging boys. They're far more likely to be diagnosed with learning disorders and prescribed drugs than girls. Far more likely to get in trouble at school. Far more likely to drop out of school. Their grades are lower than girls at every stage of education up to university. And young men have substantially lower participation then women in post-secondary education (in Canada today, over 60 per cent of post-secondary students are women). And yet there is far, far more attention given to the shortfall of females in one particular field of study. I guess the troubles of boys don't fit the popular narrative.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

Gramm838 said:


> I could be controversial and say that academia is part of the problem, not part of the solution...the lack of male input, and therefore balance, into today's education system, especially at primary school age, is a real problem. None of my kids had a male teacher until they got to secondary school.



It's a good part of the reason my boys are home educated they get a lot of male input into their education.  One friend helped a son with his poetry, another takes them on nature hikes, their dad is building a plane with them, a kid from the home ed is teaching them photography etc

I actually chose their nursery based on the fact it had a lovely man as their administrator.  I took them out when they replaced him with a woman.


----------



## Hex (Jun 18, 2015)

I don't think his being 72 has anything to do with anything, and if we're witch-hunting, we need to be careful about making sweeping statements about older people. He has an unfortunate sense of humour and he was a senior (and nervous) academic making a very stupid comment.

But it was _such _a stupid joke. I am a woman who works in STEM, and I know it's not remotely true -- it's taking 1950s cliches and messing about with them. It's like saying all women can talk about is kittens. It made me roll my eyes and move on.

It was indefensible, and no one really tried to defend it. The Twitter vigilantes got hold of it and enjoyed a session of bullying because someone stepped out of line. I mean, there's Gamer Gate and there's this.

The villains in this are his university and the scientific community who abandoned someone who had contributed so much and worked so hard to help other people, and just because social media told them to. It's disgraceful and cowardly.


----------



## Jo Zebedee (Jun 18, 2015)

Amen to that, Hex.


----------



## Droflet (Jun 18, 2015)

Trial by Twit (er). Let the punishment fit the crime. This is another in a long series of ridiculous, politically correct, knee jerk (emphasis on jerk) reactions fueled by the intolerant, read by the ill-informed, and acted upon by the frightened. Oh, I'm sorry, did I offend someone? Well, too bad. This is offensive in the extreme, and I am offended. Rant ends ... here.


----------



## Toby Frost (Jun 18, 2015)

Random thoughts in no real order:

1)  It’s interesting that some of the most vocal people who consider themselves “left-wing” spend most of their time attacking other people who are also “left-wing” (I use quotes because I don’t think they’re anything of the sort). It’s not just petty but amazingly stupid, like a soldier shooting at his allies because he doesn’t like their accents when the enemy are advancing. One gets the strong impression that such people don’t actually want to change the status quo at all – they just enjoy the sense of superiority that comes from accusing other people of being “problematic”.

2)  It’s disturbing how quickly proportionality is abandoned when “issues of diversity” are involved (to use M Wagner’s comparison, “blasphemy” would be the old equivalent). Had Tim Hunt stolen a car, it would be expected that he would be punished as the law requires, and he might or might not keep his job. And that would be that. Here, because his crime is a crime against diversity, almost any form of retribution is justified. While nobody has called for his death, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was just a general shrugging if he jumped off a cliff because of all this. I’m reminded of those right-wing tabloids that think that anyone is fair game for ridicule once they’ve had a sex change.

3)  However, on the internet, it’s easy to join in to a mass movement in a small way, especially, as here, if it has an absurd, comedy angle. It’s like repeating a joke in bad taste, with added righteousness. The snowball builds very quickly, and with many small actions. Perhaps this is linked to the angry righteousness of the young, who use social media a lot.


----------



## thaddeus6th (Jun 18, 2015)

Your first point reminds me of the People's Front of Judea (mind you, the white woman claiming she's black reminds me of Loretta).


----------



## Hex (Jun 18, 2015)

I don't completely understand the issue with the woman who "self-identifies as black" when we're so positive (as we should be) about people born with male bits who "self-identify as women".


----------



## Jo Zebedee (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> I don't completely understand the issue with the woman who "self-identifies as black" when we're so positive (as we should be) about people born with male bits who "self-identify as women".


Ah, I heard this discussed on the radio yesterday and it seems to be the 'Common People' (as in the song) argument. She can choose. A black person can't. Therefore, she'll never be black. Just leave it all to Jarvis... 

(Edit - just to be clear, this was the argument on the radio, not mine. I haven't enough facts to decide about it yet.)


----------



## Coolhand (Jun 18, 2015)

MWagner said:


> The public savaging and humiliation of people who step out of line on the hot-button issues of the day has become akin to the shaming imposed by the religiously orthodox on sinners and apostates. There's something tremendously ugly at its root. Given the ubiquity of social media and the instant dissemination of both the sin and the outrage, I expect we'll either see this phenomenon crest and recede to a more tolerant and reasoned response, or we're entering an age of fear and denunciation that we haven't seen in the West since the War of Religion in the 16th and 17th century.



My general sense (and my hope) is that we are indeed starting to see more pushback against this kind of mob shaming. I'm seeing more and more articles and think pieces pop up online and in papers over the last six months commenting on how this social media outrage is a pretty worrying and destructive trend, usually inflicting damage and "punishment" on the target far in excess of anything warranted by the original "crime", imagined or real. I will try and dig up the links and post. 



Toby Frost said:


> 3)  However, on the internet, it’s easy to join in to a mass movement in a small way, especially, as here, if it has an absurd, comedy angle. It’s like repeating a joke in bad taste, with added righteousness. The snowball builds very quickly, and with many small actions. Perhaps this is linked to the angry righteousness of the young, who use social media a lot.


I suspect there is truth to this. That's not to board brushstroke the young, as people of any age are capable of this type of angry righteousness, and I'm sure many young people are just as uneasy about this trend as I am. But I remember how everything was black and white to me when I was in my teens and early twenties, and it took life experience and maturity to make me understand shades of grey and nuance. I can quite see how the younger, enthusiastic me, with crusading sense of right and wrong, would have been one of the people surging forth to shame and flog the sinner in the name of justice and righteousness.


----------



## Stephen Palmer (Jun 18, 2015)

Well, I think Tim Hunt _hasn't _helped the good work that I, my colleagues in education, and lots more people are doing to encourage more women into science. I think his grotesque comments perpetuate the stereotype that there are places only men should be and places only women should be. I think that old-fashioned idea is not only bollocks, it's dangerous bollocks. The "men in science" stereotype, I can tell you from long personal experience, is alive and well, and I, and many others, will do everything we can to get rid of it.

As for the Twitter storm: if you don't want a Twitter storm, think about what you say if you are a famous public figure.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> when we're so positive (as we should be) about people born with male bits who "self-identify as women".


So do these males suffer periods, anxiety about biological clock vs first child, worrying about pregnancy (wanting it or not wanting it), have sex as a woman with a man without telling him that born as man, be anxious about sterility ...

Certainly there are some similarities, but a white person wanting to identify as black isn't on the same level of complexity as transgender issues. Some people are born with ambiguous sex and some have been surgically assigned as women at birth and later have huge issues.
Also there is a huge spectrum of personality and emotion such that people really believe they are the opposite gender to what their physical body portrays. There is a huge spectrum of transgender issues. People born with male bits who "self-identify as women" is one aspect and being "positive" isn't any solution to their problems. As early as 1930s womb transplant was tried for such a man.

Race really is artificial. Someone who isn't an African-American pretending to be one doesn't help remove racism.  Gender unlike Race, is real and Genetic. The solution to Gender issues of equality isn't to pretend Gender is a social construct. People who internally are convinced they are the other Gender to their body do not want  to erase Gender. They want to be the other Gender. They certainly need understanding and support and IN NO WAY should be likened to a person "identifying" with another race or vice versa.

A white person claiming they identify with "black" re-inforces racism. There is no genetic basis for Race or Racism.
Race unlike Gender doesn't exist.
Race is a social construct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_classification)
Gender has gathered social baggage, but it's real. Modern society is trying to redefine gender independently to sex or abolish it. This can only lead to increased confusion, frustration and unhappiness. If Gender was as imaginary and purely a social construct, then by definition "transgender" people wouldn't exist. They exist because unlike race, gender is real, sex dimorphism is real too.
A lot of confusion around Gender:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sex_and_gender_distinction


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> I don't think his being 72 has anything to do with anything, and if we're witch-hunting, we need to be careful about making sweeping statements about older people. He has an unfortunate sense of humour and he was a senior (and nervous) academic making a very stupid comment.



I agree with everything you've said except I do think him being 72 has everything to with it.  Not all older people are set in their ways but a lot are and it is a reason.  And it's a good reason for him being a bit stuck in his ways and not really understanding what would happen to him.  If we expect respect as women surely we should be extending that to all groups including the elderly?  Just like not every woman has experienced disadvantage due to their gender, not every older person struggles to keep up but I am coming up for 40 and there are decisions and choices I make that my daughter and sons roll their eyes at.  And no doubt in another 32 years time whilst I intend to keep up, I will be making periodically stupid stuck in the mud and very dated statements.

I do place most of the blame on those that abandoned him and didn't back him up.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

Stephen Palmer said:


> Well, I think Tim Hunt _hasn't _helped the good work that I, my colleagues in education, and lots more people are doing to encourage more women into science.



Actually my daughter would not have heard his words without the Twitter storm.  She's a switched on girl and actually she laughed at his comments and said they were ridiculous.  Part of me thinks you are undermining the strength of the generations of girls coming up by saying they would pay attention to it.

And at 72 you are allowed not to follow social media and grasp it.  Some 72 year olds and older do - the likes of Patrick Stewart come to mind and then you have my dad who couldn't grasp Facebook


----------



## Ursa major (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> I don't completely understand the issue with the woman who "self-identifies as black" when we're so positive (as we should be) about people born with male bits who "self-identify as women".


But generally those people claiming that the gender with which they've been assigned is incorrect don't go around claiming that a black person that they happen to know is their biological father and that the child adopted (or fostered) by their parents is their biological child. (Besides, gender is a very complex issue, and one's 'bits' are not the only determining factor.)

Frankly, I think the woman has serious mental issues. At any rate, she seems to be, to some extent at least, divorced from reality.


----------



## Hex (Jun 18, 2015)

I get a bit twitchy when we blame things on people's age. I've worked with a lot of older adults and in the same way as we shouldn't attribute characteristics to women (like weeping in labs), I think it's belittling to assume older adults tend to be any one way, any more than I would be happy with someone who generalised my feelings about technology or labs because I'm a woman, or in my 40s.

I agree that the woman herself seemed to be struggling with her own personal history, it just seemed a little strange that the generosity given to people whose genders are not the way they feel themselves to be shouldn't be extended to people who feel the same way about their race. Surely most pieces of our identity are socially constructed and if she got constructed differently, why should anyone really care? (I'm guessing it's a political issue and one that is probably more highly politicized in the US than in my area of Edinburgh -- I'm asking a genuine question because I really don't get it)


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

I'm not assuming they are any one way but I do think it's unfair to assume someone of his age has to keep up with social media, cultural trends etc  I'm only 40 and I'm not up with everything my daughter is.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> people whose genders are not the way they feel themselves to be shouldn't be extended to people who feel the same way about their race.


I expressed my self badly and too long winded.
1) Gender how ever you define it, is something real. Race really doesn't exist.
2) Pretending to be some other ethnic background to what you really have isn't identification, it's lying. It doesn't help fight racism. 
3) Transgender is HUGELY more complex than racism.
4) It's an insult to people with Gender issues to compare this woman's "identification" with being "black".

How would it help Travellers in Ireland if I pretended to be one? I can "identify" with all sorts of people. To pretend I'm something I'm not and lie about my background doesn't help anyone.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 18, 2015)

AnyaKimlin said:


> cultural trends etc I'm only 40 and I'm not up with everything my daughter is.


My sister inhabits Facebook.
My youngest son despises it.

Endorsing some cultural trends is more about personality and lifestyle choices than age or considered judgement. It's not actually peer pressure, but lots of people drift into stuff because friends / family  / workmates do it. Other people practically shy away from what ever happens to be the "in thing" in mainstream pop culture. There are different incompatible cultural trends at the same time in every generation.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> It was indefensible, and no one really tried to defend it.



The problem was, during his apology on Radio 4, Tim Hunt did try to justify his comments as true. Quoting from the Guardian:



> Hunt apologised for any offence, saying he meant the remarks to be humorous – but added he “did mean the part about having trouble with girls”.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

A lot of men do have trouble with girls.   Stephen Hawking has been quoted as saying something similar.  At the same time he has a diverse team.

I'm just surprised there hasn't been one single "kiss and tell" style story about Tim Hunt - I haven't seen one.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Jun 18, 2015)

I just mean that when you're asked to apologise in pubic for something unfair you've said, "sorry, I was joking, but it's all true anyway" is probably an ill-advised response.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Endorsing some cultural trends is more about personality and lifestyle choices than age or considered judgement. It's not actually peer pressure, but lots of people drift into stuff because friends / family  / workmates do it. Other people practically shy away from what ever happens to be the "in thing" in mainstream pop culture. There are different incompatible cultural trends at the same time in every generation.



I agree.  And if someone has never been inclined to follow something they get further and further away.  Which is why I think it is unfair to expect_ every _72 year old to keep up.  I'm not generalising - those who expect him to be a certain way and to keep are are the ones demanding a one size fits all policy to the elderly.  If women want respect they have to give it and what they did to Tim Hunt was not something that engenders me to women scientists at all.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

Brian Turner said:


> I just mean that when you're asked to apologise in pubic for something unfair you've said, "sorry, I was joking, but it's all true anyway" is probably an ill-advised response.



The more I read about this story the more I think Tim Hunt has the least apologising to do of anyone involved.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 18, 2015)

AnyaKimlin said:


> A lot of men do have trouble with girls.


I have trouble with women.
I also have trouble with men.

I have diverse difficulties with everyone really. I wondered when I was child if I was a Changeling.
Some days I feel an alien would cope better. I have difficulty with me even. I feel I'm some how running a beta version of the Human Operating system. It's obviously my fault.


----------



## thaddeus6th (Jun 18, 2015)

Ray, you're an equal opportunities problem-haver.


----------



## Cat's Cradle (Jun 18, 2015)

I think you're fine, Ray.


----------



## Hex (Jun 18, 2015)

I don't completely understand how someone can be in trouble for pretending to be something different (in this case a woman of African-American extraction) if there is no such thing as race and so no difference anyway...

I wonder if what Tim Hunt meant on the radio (was that the recorded message he left on his way to the airport?) was that _he_ had problems with girls ("I did mean the part about having trouble with girls"). It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with girls, or that he is saying there is. It's humour directed at himself.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> I wonder if what Tim Hunt meant on the radio (was that the recorded message he left on his way to the airport?) was that _he_ had problems with girls ("I did mean the part about having trouble with girls"). It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with girls, or that he is saying there is. It's humour directed at himself.



That's how I read it and I think his original joke was actually intended to be humour directed at himself as well.  That is how it began - Let tell you about _my _trouble with girls.  And his wife has said it reflects how they met.  It wasn't just his age I was taking into account but his entire background.

Everything I've read suggest he's a great scientist, all round decent human being but a lousy comedian.  As he was hired for his science ability I do think sacking him for his comedy skills is a bit out of order.  And I think it's unfair because a lot of people commenting under news articles I think have more to argue with their husband than Tim Hunt who actually appears to have done his fair share to allow _his _wife to progress as a scientist.


----------



## Hex (Jun 18, 2015)

It's just horrifically depressing that a university as well-respected at UCL would tell him to resign. And the Royal Society. They're meant to be bastions of academic excellence not weasels running scared of Twitter mobs.

[bitter rant starts] And whether or not we should have more women in STEM (and more men in Psychology etc), the way to get them and keep them is to change the expectation of working 18 hour days to write papers and grant proposals on top of doing the research and/or the teaching. Otherwise, you're faced with a choice between a proper job and kids (most of the female professors I know are childless), or (nowadays) you spend pretty much all the money you earn on childcare and once they're 4 months old or so, you never see your children during the day because whatever statutory rights are, you can't realistically take a year off without crippling your career. You need to stop women being sacked/ not having their contracts renewed when they have kids. I know it's not supposed to happen, but it does, with depressing regularity.  I don't think Tim Hunt's silly jokes have anything at all to do with it, but they're a much easier target and UCL etc can look like they care about equality without, in fact, doing anything difficult about it. [/bitter rant ends]


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> I don't completely understand how someone can be in trouble for pretending to be something different (in this case a woman of African-American extraction) if there is no such thing as race and so no difference anyway...


Racism is real. It's evil and wrong partly because Race is an illusion partly because even if race was real it would still be wrong.
People do have ethnic, cultural, national and religious backgrounds and differences and are  persecuted, killed, discriminated against for them. I've experienced it. Though oddly the persecutors got my background wrong.  
Pretending and lying about your parents, ethnicity, and even falsely filling in job application is simply wrong and hinders rather than helps people that are discriminated against simply because they seem different.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> you can't realistically take a year off without crippling your career.


You can't take a month off, extra. Even when you are "owed it" as above certain level you only get time off in lieu, no overtime payments. Even when HR agrees.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

Hex said:


> It's just horrifically depressing that a university as well-respected at UCL would tell him to resign. And the Royal Society. They're meant to be bastions of academic excellence not weasels running scared of Twitter mobs.


To be honest it smacks of them trying to get rid of him for other reasons and this is the first one he actually gave them.



> [bitter rant starts] And whether or not we should have more women in STEM (and more men in Psychology etc), the way to get them and keep them is to change the expectation of working 18 hour days to write papers and grant proposals on top of doing the research and/or the teaching. Otherwise, you're faced with a choice between a proper job and kids (most of the female professors I know are childless), or (nowadays) you spend pretty much all the money you earn on childcare and once they're 4 months old or so, you never see your children during the day because whatever statutory rights are, you can't realistically take a year off without crippling your career. You need to stop women being sacked/ not having their contracts renewed when they have kids. I know it's not supposed to happen, but it does, with depressing regularity.  I don't think Tim Hunt's silly jokes have anything at all to do with it, but they're a much easier target and UCL etc can look like they care about equality without, in fact, doing anything difficult about it. [/bitter rant ends]



This --- I didn't make it because of illness but many fall by the wayside because of having children and actually wanting to spend time with them. I've met a lot of former lecturers and professors home educating to make up for lost time it almost feels like. And this was why I thought it was particularly ill aimed at Tim Hunt because his wife couldn't be where she is if she hadn't had an awful lot of support for him.

Also I think to assume a woman smart enough to be an academic would be swayed by a silly little joke is doing them a disservice and playing rather more to the idea that women do cry over sill little things than anything Tim Hunt said.

What actually disturbs me the most is that not one of those women was able to speak to him and tell him he'd been an idiot and they even applauded him.


----------



## MWagner (Jun 18, 2015)

Toby Frost said:


> Random thoughts in no real order:
> 
> 1)  It’s interesting that some of the most vocal people who consider themselves “left-wing” spend most of their time attacking other people who are also “left-wing” (I use quotes because I don’t think they’re anything of the sort). It’s not just petty but amazingly stupid, like a soldier shooting at his allies because he doesn’t like their accents when the enemy are advancing. One gets the strong impression that such people don’t actually want to change the status quo at all – they just enjoy the sense of superiority that comes from accusing other people of being “problematic”.



Absolutely. It really helps if you regard it as a kind of secular religion of a particularly zealous outlook. The point isn't to effect change so much as establish your own bonafides as a true believer. And what better way to do that than to pounce on any transgression with the fiercest denunciations imaginable? It's why the most pious and self-righteous matron in a church congregation reserves her implacable judgement for a rival matron of the church who wears too much makeup on Sundays, or who lets her children get a little out hand on occasion. Gotta burnish that halo by proving your own superior sense of propriety.



Toby Frost said:


> 2)  It’s disturbing how quickly proportionality is abandoned when “issues of diversity” are involved (to use M Wagner’s comparison, “blasphemy” would be the old equivalent). Had Tim Hunt stolen a car, it would be expected that he would be punished as the law requires, and he might or might not keep his job. And that would be that. Here, because his crime is a crime against diversity, almost any form of retribution is justified. While nobody has called for his death, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was just a general shrugging if he jumped off a cliff because of all this. I’m reminded of those right-wing tabloids that think that anyone is fair game for ridicule once they’ve had a sex change.



Wrongspeak is a far worse crime than simply stealing someone's property. It has to be stamped out as a lesson to others, else apostasy spread like a plague.



Toby Frost said:


> 3)  However, on the internet, it’s easy to join in to a mass movement in a small way, especially, as here, if it has an absurd, comedy angle. It’s like repeating a joke in bad taste, with added righteousness. The snowball builds very quickly, and with many small actions. Perhaps this is linked to the angry righteousness of the young, who use social media a lot.



There's a reason why the most enthusiastic agents of Mao's Cultural Revolution were the young. Their zeal, energy, and absolute faith in absolutes are indispensable if you want to truly cleanse a society of old ideas.

It is ironic that a generation so concerned about bullying at school should prove such enthusiastic bullyers of public figures. I suppose many don't think it's possible to bully a middle-aged white male. Father figure resentment and all that.



Hex said:


> I don't completely understand the issue with the woman who "self-identifies as black" when we're so positive (as we should be) about people born with male bits who "self-identify as women".



What we're seeing is a cleavage between the 'we are whatever who choose to be' ideal, and identity politics. Since those two ideals tend to both fall under the umbrella of the modern left, but are fundamentally incompatible with one another, it will be interesting to see how they're reconciled. We could very well see the incompatibility studiously ignored, the way the doctrine that 'the West is bad the developing world is good' manages to endure alongside the reality that non-Western cultures like the Islamic Middle East are far more hostile to liberal values like gender equity and sexual liberalism than the West is.



Stephen Palmer said:


> As for the Twitter storm: if you don't want a Twitter storm, think about what you say if you are a famous public figure.



Was he really famous before this firestorm? I'd hazard that 98 per cent of the people who have heard of Tim Hunt today had no idea who he was a week ago.

But yes, it's clear that we're in an age where it's foolish for anyone with any kind of authority to utter anything but the most anodyne and empty platitudes in public interviews (or in private correspondence that has any chance of being made public). Given the modern world's appetite for public shaming and vilification, there's nothing whatsoever to gain and everything to lose by expressing an opinion that differs in any way from the orthodox line on a host of hot-button issues.



AnyaKimlin said:


> A lot of men do have trouble with girls.   Stephen Hawking has been quoted as saying something similar.  At the same time he has a diverse team.



There's a clear double-standard around our attitudes about segregation by gender. We don't doubt that women sometimes need to be around only other women in order to feel comfortable and confident, but woe to any man who suggests there are times when he's more comfortable being around only other men. I'm not suggesting for a minute that labs be segregated. However, let's not presume dark motives when a man suggests he's less comfortable in mixed company than in a male-only environment. Some men do feel anxious, self-conscious, and inadequate around women, the same way some women do around men.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 18, 2015)

MWagner said:


> There's a clear double-standard around our attitudes about segregation by gender. We don't doubt that women sometimes need to be only with other women in order to feel comfortable and confident, but woe to man who suggests there are times when men are more comfortable being around other men. .



Actually, I have never in my life needed to be in female only company.   To have good friends around yes but for them to be entirely one gender or the other or something in between I have no desire for.

It's an attitude I think is wrong on both sides.  And something we should be moving away from but on an entirely equal basis.  Especially as one in every fifteen hundred babies is born with something physical, hormonal or chromosomal that means they are not entirely one gender or another.  That is before we get to transfolk etc

We've had unisex bathrooms in our swimming pools here for 20 years.  Should have heard the initial fuss and now nobody cares.  It's like with breastfeeding etc now it's more normal most people don't care.

I don't  actually believe Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus - a conversation and honesty seems to work well for both genders..


----------



## Mirannan (Jun 19, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Racism is real. It's evil and wrong partly because Race is an illusion partly because even if race was real it would still be wrong.
> People do have ethnic, cultural, national and religious backgrounds and differences and are  persecuted, killed, discriminated against for them. I've experienced it. Though oddly the persecutors got my background wrong.
> Pretending and lying about your parents, ethnicity, and even falsely filling in job application is simply wrong and hinders rather than helps people that are discriminated against simply because they seem different.



"Race is an illusion... even if race were real." Riiigghht. Now tell me that the rather obvious differences between a Zulu and an ethnic Swede are purely cultural.

I agree with you about religious persecution though. Thousands of Egyptian Coptic Christians would agree with me. Oops, sorry, forgot - Christians can't be the target of persecution, by definition. /s Incidentally, I'm sure the relatives of Lee Rigby think minorities are unfairly discriminated against - NOT.

Tell you what. The very minute someone successfully sets up a British White Police Officers' Association or organises a Straight Pride parade - or gets the benefit of due process when accused of rape - get back to me.


----------



## Nerds_feather (Jun 19, 2015)

Hex said:


> I don't completely understand how someone can be in trouble for pretending to be something different (in this case a woman of African-American extraction) if there is no such thing as race and so no difference anyway...



I think the story is a bit of a circus sideshow, tbh, but to your general question:

Race is a social construct--a set of categories invented on the basis of superficial differences which, through 19th century pseudoscience, were thought to be significant. However, over time it has been institutionalized as a way of categorizing people--and as a way or ordering people--and people in the different constructed categories have acted as if it were real over many generations. 

So race, while not objectively real, is very real in its effects, just like ethnicity or religion or tribe or nationality, etc. All these things are social constructs too.


----------



## TheDustyZebra (Jun 19, 2015)

I'm pretty sure that differences among people were categorized long before the 19th century. Ever since the first human being noticed that another one didn't look the same as others, people have been categorized as "us" and "them".

Yes, if you don't want a Twitter firestorm, you should watch what you say -- and Tim Hunt absolutely ought to have expected a Twitter firestorm, even if he didn't know what one was. But the point is, what he said, with no evidence of any misbehavior on his part, should not be enough to justify his losing his job. Nobody has come forward to say he has discriminated in any way against women -- quite the contrary, the women who know him are saying that he didn't. Never mind what Twitter has to say -- trashing a life and career over something so ridiculous is a travesty.

I don't really have any problem with Rachel Dolezal wanting to identify as black, though I think she's nuts. My problem with that is that she apparently took a full-ride scholarship to a historically black college on the basis of her being black. She's lied on any number of applications and legal documents, and gained benefits from that. And she's also sued for discrimination on the basis of being white. Whichever way benefits her the most, that's what she is at the moment.


----------



## Nerds_feather (Jun 19, 2015)

TDZ: differences were, including skin color and such. But "race," the concept of ordering humans into social categories based on observable phenotypical differences is from the 19th century.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Jun 19, 2015)

Mirannan said:


> Now tell me that the rather obvious differences between a Zulu and an ethnic Swede are purely cultural.


Tiny compared to genetic variation within Africa.
The differences that Racists claim don't exist.


----------



## AnyaKimlin (Jun 19, 2015)

However a transgendered person often goes through a phase of being a stereotype.

It is possible that this woman's behaviour came out of a need to be black so she does that in the way she most associates with being black.


----------

