Shifting


Janet Stemwedel did a Storify. Several of the sequences in it are ones that I RTd two or three days ago, wishing I could collect them all without having to go to the trouble of figuring out Storify.

While predictable, it is still frustrating that what started as a discussion of Tim Hunt, his comments to a luncheon of women scientists in Seoul, and what kind of impact those comments (whether intended as a joke or not) have on the climate for women in science, shifted into a discussion of whether those who pointed out the problem with his comments are claiming that he is a terrible human being who ought to be purged from the scientific community, whether the science journalists who reported the comments are lying liars who are just jealous and/or joyless harpies who delight in taking good men down.

In other words the subject got thoroughly changed. It would be nice if we could just talk about the way derogatory “humor” aka hostile jokes about subordinates contribute to a climate that is alienating to the subordinates who are the objects of the jokes, without having the subject changed, but we never seem to be able to. Noticing derogatory jokes is considered a high crime worthy of having the subject changed and changed and changed until all the parts fall off.

So, read that Storify.

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