Damn, yet another one. Howard Jacobson has a nasty, inaccurate, reactionary column in the Independent about Tim Hunt. Defend to the death the right of important men to talk sexist shit to groups of women scientists at conferences!! The world will fall out of orbit if you don’t!!!
Tim Hunt has the air of a man who doesn’t put his appearance first, a man who, whether calculatedly or otherwise, inhabits that sphere of extraterrestrial idiosyncrasy whose uniform is a cream linen jacket bought from one of those shops in Piccadilly where they come pre-battered, a fisherman’s smock (probably picked up in Cornwall), stained owlish spectacles, a cord that goes around the neck to hang them from (else they’d fall into a laboratory bath) and, yes, figurative tufts of nostril hair.
Among the reasons universities exist is that such men should have a habitat. They are a dying species. When I went to university, there was almost no other way for a don to look. A few military men and dandies were the exception, but even their moustaches and cravats were mildewed and wouldn’t have passed muster anywhere but in the Fens. Otherwise, the Scarecrow look from The Wizard of Oz prevailed. Bicycle clips, one trouser leg still in the sock, ties unevenly knotted, hair growing out of their ears and from their noses, sometimes in odd fringes above their shirt collars, occasionally in tussocks on their cheeks.
And on and on he goes. It’s all about men, you see – men as endearing disheveled nerds at universities, men with bicycle clips and sloppy ties, men men men. That’s their world; women are intruders. Women are this weird off eccentric little species that you hardly ever see, and they have no place at universities or much of anywhere else except kitchens and beds. Therefore, Tim Hunt wuz lynched.
His next step is to say they all have terrible opinions, of course they do, what do you expect.
There have to be places where people let nostril hair run wild, think differently from the rest of us, implicitly call into question and even deride everything we have made up our minds about, find wisdom through unconventionality, and say a lot of foolish things along the way. Universities are such places. Correction: universities should be such places.
Show me a university which is a hotbed of thin-skinned offence-taking, where every unacceptable idea is policed and every person who happens to hold one is hounded out of a job, and I will show you a university that isn’t a university but an ideological prison camp and indoctrination centre.
And there it is – that big lie, yet again. Tim Hunt was not hounded out of a job.
Reaffirming the college’s pusillanimous decision to show Tim Hunt the door, the Provost of University College London said: “Our commitment to gender equality and our support for women in science was and is the ultimate concern.” Wrong, Mr Provost. The right of women to enjoy equal opportunities, receive equal pay and enjoy equal respect to men in science, or anywhere else come to that, is without doubt a matter of high importance. But it is not as high, if we are to talk of “ultimate concerns”, as the freedom to think freely and independently – a freedom which matters as much to women as to men, and without which equality must lose its savour.
Tim Hunt wasn’t shown the door. He wasn’t inside to be shown the door. There was no door to show him. He wasn’t fired, he wasn’t sacked, he wasn’t hounded out of a job, he wasn’t shown the door. His honorary professorship, which is not like a real one, was withdrawn. That’s all.
Universities are reeducation camps! And not the good kind, either. Gone are the days when one could sweat out one’s time, sign a confession at a show trial, and be repatriated to society after a character building experience.
Nowadays, the FemiStasi are bold enough to break down the gates of an endangered nerd refuge, snatch the Great Men of Science in broad daylight, and force-feed their own words back to them, until their will to resist is broken and they are forced to treat the help with dignity. If they can torture a man into abject embarassment for the “crime” of being socially inept, who else is safe from the thought-police?
First they came for the sexist jerks, and I did not speak out…
oh for christ’s sake, why can’t they just stop being so intentionally ignorant? Sexism is unacceptable and so generates unacceptable ideas. These ideas need to be confronted and pointed out and repaired. If the holder of the idea is not reparable, then he should be busted back to 6th grade or so. Jacobson is in no danger and neither are universities.
Why won’t they just go away? Are they too enmeshed in their bad dishonest thinking?
I’ve visited an Oxbridge and a couple of redbrick universities in the 1970s. Most of the male teaching staff were reasonably well turned out, ties properly knotted, trouser legs out of socks, no bicycle clips. Looking at Jacobson’s picture, I can believe he was unkempt when he was an academic. It’s likely he’s remembering himself as a faculty member rather than describing reality. But having read Jacobson’s screed about Hunt, reality is not something he seems to care about.
Why won’t they go away – I guess because they’re having too much fun. (I should start squawking about witch hunts and lynch mobs.)
Tim Hunt has the air of a man who doesn’t put his appearance first
A fairly consistent symbol of privilege in 20th century US/UK/Europe. The look of not caring says I don’t have to care.
Looking around at the world I actually live in, it seems that this place is “everywhere”…
FFS.
Do they take the same attitude with flat earthers and creationists?
“Our commitment to accurate and reality-based science was and is the ultimate concern.” Wrong, Mr Provost. The right of science to not be a laughing stock is without doubt a matter of high importance. But it is not as high, if we are to talk of “ultimate concerns”, as the freedom to think freely and independently – a freedom which matters as much to the scientifically literate as to creationists and flat earthers, and without which equality must lose is savour.
Creationism, flat earth theorising, climate change denial, anti-vaccinism, etc. are wrong factually wrong, but they only damage science insofar as they convince people of their legitimacy – they’re not actually keeping people out of the sciences. Sexism is factually wrong too, but the expression of it also keeps women out of fields where we need the best minds. A scientific community which has putting up with sexist bullshit as a primary condition for access ahead of actual scientific ability is one which is weaker than it would otherwise be. Surely we want the best of the best in academia? Why is it that we’re perfectly happy to have “extraterrestrially idiosyncratic” men in the sciences? Because requiring a neatly pressed shirt and well-knotted tie ahead of scientific ability is absurd. So why should we require that women with scientific ability should be subject to the requirement of putting up with archaic and absurd notions of the value of women before they can be welcomed into the scientific community? How is that seen by anyone as anything but an anti-scientific position to hold?
Tell that to Mary Beard.
Can’t agree with this:
He had an honorary position that he was told he had to resign from. I think that is fairly described as being shown the door.I don’t see why a salary makes any difference. He was in, then he was out.
And the uncomfortable idea this fearless maverick explored? Women are emotional messes who get in the way of important work. (And something about how they are good for making stuff in the kitchen.)
He didn’t say the last part of that at all but, yes, the jokey comments were about women being teary and having them around making lab life difficult for men like him. To be fair, he did say a great deal more about women in science, all of it about the huge and growing contribution they make and the importance of that continuing and people like him encouraging it.
@10, Bluntnose Oh yes, he was very supportive. “You are all crybabies who are too emotional for labwork, but hey, don’t let obstacles like me stand in your way to making a contribution in science” is not really what you’d call “supportive”. Exhorting women to stay despite obstacles instead of helping to change the culture that creates these obstacles is not really supportive at all, especially when coming from someone who never had to face a single obstacle due to his gender in his life.
Well, that is one way of looking at it. Another is that he made a long well-received speech about the value of women in science informed by his own excellent record of practical assistance and support for women scientists over a long and illustrious career but put his foot in it attempting to improvise a self-deprecating joke when unexpectedly asked to make a toast.
If his joke had been something along the lines of ‘and black people just can’t handle working in a lab that requires cleanness’, would we even be having this conversation?
Yes, it was so well received his hosts had to demand an apology. His self-deprecating jokes were actually sexist “jokes” that he actually “was being honest” about.
I swear, it feels like groundhog day on the Tim Hunt saga. The same bad arguments, over and over again, despite being rebutted.
The speech and the toast were different things. The speech was uncontroversial and well received. The toast was, by all accounts well received too, although obviously more controversial. The joke was a joke. Not a very good one, the sort of sexist thing that men of his age often struggle to understand as offensive, probably because he spent too much time peering down a microscope when he could have been reading The Female Eunuch. What a waste.
This analogy has come up a lot but seems strange to me because race and sex are not alike. They are not the same kind of thing. That’s why it would be uncontroversial for a woman to remark ‘sometimes I hate working in an office full of men’ but not ‘sometimes I hate working in an office full of black people’.
But if you did accept the analogy, it would be closer to imagine him saying that he had always had a problem working with black people because their cheerful pearly smiles and natural rhythm distracted him from his duties. And we all know old people who have been bewildered to learn that something like that is considered racist. But if they come out with it off the cuff when surprised by the need to extemporise a toast, we generally roll our eyes, ask them to be more considerate in future, and take into account their lifetime of practical support for ethnic minority students and the long speech they have just delivered extolling the valuable contribution of ethnic minorities to science before monstering them on social media. We do down our way anyhow.
Oh, now I get it. He’s too important to know what sexism is.
If he didn’t realise it was offensive, why did he preface it by referring to himself as a “chauvinist pig”? That’s a very clear indication that he was perfectly well aware that it was offensive. It’s exactly equivalent to saying “this is going to sound really offensive, but…” before going on to say something offensive. It’s an explicit acknowledgement that it’s offensive, and that he knew it was offensive at the time he said it.
Too old to grasp some of the nuances, but not too important ortoo old to have made an actual practical contribution to combating sexism over a long career, one that has had a profound effect on the actual lives of countless actual women, unlike the effect of, say, complaining about sexism on blogs.
Wow. It’s massively ageist to imply that his age means he didn’t really realise that it was offensive. Jeez louise. Did I mention it was Groundhog Day?
Because he was making a joke. The sort of joke that used to be commonplace. The ref to chauvinism signalled that. He obviously thought he was satirising himself. Like an old rockstar who describes himself as a ‘terrible old dinosaur’ before explaining why modern music is so rubbish. And he followed it with ‘but seriously’ which usually indicated that the preceding wasn’t serious.
But we can tuen the question on its head. If he thinks he is such a chauvinist pig, why did he make that speech extolling the importance of women in science and spend so much of his career nurturing and supporting women scientists?
I think it’s worth pointing out that there have always been some women in the unkempt/unconventional academic niche that he describes. Being more preoccupied with their interests than with marriage was the ultimate “social idiosyncrasy”.
I don’t know to what extent Hunt’s intentions were misinterpreted but the ugliness of his defenders is very telling.
bluntnose @ 8
Ordinarily, it wouldn’t make much (or any) difference. In this case, where there has been the pervasive and persistent misrepresentation that Hunt was sacked from his job, it makes a big difference – being shown the door does sound like “he lost his job.” Since a great many of the Outraged are convinced that he did lose his job, in this case it’s important to make it clear that no such thing happened.
Or to put it another way, you want sloppy metaphors that work to benefit your team to keep being used, and I don’t.
It is not ageist to think someone’s age may be relevant to their cultural understanding or prejudices. You may be too young top realise that.
Everyone knows he intended his remarks as a joke. That’s not at issue.
No, I just think that we owe a writer as careful as Jacobson a careful reading. To criticise him for your own misreading or because other people have said something else that you don’t like is pointless. And we are not on a team. I don’t even know him.
And of course “it was a joke, har har” excuses it all, eh bluntnose? I mean, it’s not as if that’s every bully’s excuse ever. And then, he went on to “apologise” by saying he actually only meant to be honest. So no, not really a joke, and even if it was a joke, a joke that contributed to the marginalization of women. Damn man, we’ve been having this conversation for weeks, are you just now tuning in? Here are some posts to relieve your ignorance:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/07/comparative-honorary-professorship/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/07/whats-next-donating-the-proceeds-from-sale-of-his-unicorn/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/07/quite-the-rabbit-hole/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/06/if-a-highly-respected-and-liked-nobel-laureate-can-say-it/
That’s just on the first few pages of the blog.
I wonder, if we were all being honest, if anyone here would claim that they personally had made as practical a contribution to women’s equality in their lives as Prof. Hunt. I mean changing for the better the lives of women who are not you or your kin that you could put names to? And I wonder if anyone except me thinks that is important.
No matter a person’s age, they can keep up with things like equality. Hell, I know people who are older than me who know far more than I do about social justice! Age is not an excuse. And nice further agesism there, thanks a lot. My age has nothing to do with any of this.
Yes, and the whole point of that sort of joke is that it’s deliberately offensive. If he wasn’t aware that it was offensive, it wouldn’t work as a joke.
You can’t have it both ways. Either he knew what he was doing (making a sexist joke) or he didn’t. The joke doesn’t exist in some weird quantum state where he is both aware and unaware of it’s offensive nature depending on which is most convenient to you at any given moment.
If he did do that, that’s because it was his damn job do do that, and no, he doesn’t deserve extra cookies and freedom from criticisim, even if it’s true that he “changed for the better the lives of women who are not [his] kin”. It’s interesting that you think it’s this huge extra deal, that is was going to SO MUCH TROUBLE to just treat women as equals to men, that it exonerates him completely, though.
But unless this is their specialism, they are unlikely to. Which is why I don’t get on a high horse when my wife’s 88 year old grandmother talks about ‘coloured people’ . I don’t make excuses, I just know she is to some extent a product of an earlier time and since she is not racists in any practical way, where’s the harm?
No it wasn’t, and many, many men of his generation did nothing of the kind as you probably know. I take it that you would not claim that you had made a practical contribution to women’s equality on a par with the prof though. And also that you don’t care: what he does and has done matters less than a single stupid remark.
No it’s not, that sort of joke isn’t supposed to be offensive, just worldly and self deprecating. He was obviously completely taken aback by the offence he caused and I don’t think even his worst enemies on Twitter thought he was deliberately trying to insult anyone.
“Hey, that really offended a bunch of people.”
“Did it? I meant it.”
Holy non-sequitur, Batman! There’s a huge difference between telling a self-consciously risqué joke (and lampshading it as such) and deliberately trying to insult someone.
Well, if you prefer: I don’t think even his worst enemies on Twitter thought he was deliberately trying to offend anyone.
bluntnose @ 26
FFS – what do you mean “as careful as Jacobson”? Farther up the page he said Hunt was hounded out of a job – which is the opposite of careful, and how do I owe it to him to think his next reference wasn’t to the same mistake?
What I’d dearly like to ask Dawkins and the rest of the “I see witch hunts!” folk:
What if Tim Hunt has been invited to a luncheon at the NAACP and had made a “joke” about how black scientists should have to work in segregated labs because they distract the white scientists and are too emotional – and then later on said he meant it? Would that deserve some small measure of social disapproval, such as taking away an honorary position?
@8 People have told that to Mary Beard. Many men have made it clear that she doesn’t have enough privilege to not care about her appearance. Did you ever see that GIF of her face superimposed over a photo of a cunt?
moarscienceplz @ 39:
bluntnose @ 16 already explained it: It’s, um, different. So.
@Bluntnose 16
I’m not following your logic, could you expand it for me maybe?
Why? It has to do with the tendency of privileged powerful people who feel safe telling jokes or making observations that reinforce stereotypes keeping systemic problems in place. While the content of the jokes and observations changes, I’m not seeing why the differences matter.
Those seem like positive characteristics (and positive racism/sexism is also an issue) where Hunt’s, and the example you responded to were negative characteristics.
As for the rest, are you basically saying that shaming is not an appropriate strategy for anyone? Or just old people?
Brony SJC @ 42:
Old important people.
Right. And if he’d said that at a gathering of black scientists, hosted by an organization of black scientists dedicated to supporting black scientists, you (and Howard Jacobson) would find it deeply unfair if he were criticized, and then lost an honorary position with a university concerned with equality and diversity.
Sorry, no. He showed his ass and was properly criticized for it, and UCL let him go. That’s not a tragedy. That’s, “yeah, this demeaning shit just won’t fly anymore.”
@footface 43
I had that in mind already, but thought that factor could wait until Bluntnose expanded on what they wrote. It’s definitely a “must be brought up” item, but if they don’t like shaming that’s a more fundamental disagreement 😉
Seriously?
Whose freedom to think freely and independently has been threatened?
Unless Mr. Jacobson thinks disapprobation threatens free thinking. If he does–or if he means something closer to the free expression of all that free thought–he ought to at least admit that casual scorn, along with not receiving equal opportunities and equal respect, also has a chilling effect on all that freedom.
Very good point.
Honestly I think he’s so entrenched in his mental man-cave that he just can’t grasp ideas like that. He’s far from dim, but he’s very entrenched. That’s probably Tim Hunt’s problem too.
M’sieur Hunt was completely free to express his opinion and make ‘jokes’ about lesser social beings working in his vicinity. But not to expect his public speech be considered unreproachable because of his position, gender, skin colour, advanced age or any other social uplift.
Framing something cruel and degrading to the status of others as a ‘joke’ is a passive aggressive way to escape the disapprobation the speaker KNOWS would come back at them if judgement was flatly declared. He led with a ha-hah acknowledgement trap that it was transgressive and insulting.
His audience didn’t expect their guest to spit in their collective faces in what was supposed to be a safe space to discuss the constant barrage of like insults, but that has become far less harmful to his defenders than society telling an authority figure “FFS, grow up and stop expecting OTHER people to behave politely while you have a giggle making them bleed from yet another unkind cut…because you can”.
Hunt hails from the same country where citizens publically castigate Prince Consort Phillip as a racist twit for his eruptions and attitudes. An academic in the wrong is no more immune.
Again, there’s a big difference between telling a a self-consciously risqué joke and deliberately trying to offend someone. There are different categories of offence – there’s the “ha ha, I know this is generally considered offensive, but I expect everybody here to get the joke” kind of offence, there’s the “I’m deliberately trying to wind you up” kind of offence, and there’s the “fuck off and die, you shithead” kind of offence. He was obviously aiming for the first kind, but misjudged it very badly and ended up just being offensive. This is another example of the general principle that “the failure mode of ‘clever’ is ‘asshole’“.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant, because his intent is not the issue here. His actions are. Harmful actions remain harmful (and subject to censure) even if done without harmful intent. “I didn’t mean to upset anybody” is not a get-out-of-being-an-asshole-free card.
No, I don’t ever like shaming, I am surprised at how many approve of it when we have seen how it has been used. Criticise, yes, shame? No thanks.
I wish that were the case because, of course, we have zero evidence that Prof Hunt’s remarks have caused any actual harm and massive evidence that his actions have benefited many, many women and advanced the cause of women’s equality in science.
Bluntnose @51, the person you quoted and to whom you responded was referring to the causative actions of the events at hand.
Also, it was not because he caused any particular harm that he tendered his resignation, but because his expressed opinion was sufficiently inappropriate for someone acting in that honorary position under those circumstances that it was warranted. He had that much dignity left.
(Why else do you imagine he essayed an apology?)
And the harm is pretty clear – unless you don’t think a chilling effect on women in STEM careers is “harm”. I mean, the disparity in STEM is pretty well documented. What’s also well documented is that this disparity exists because of discrimination and not “choices” or “family responsibilities”. Hunt’s comments contributed to that. Many people actually DO think like that, and are emboldened by a Nobel Laureate affirming their biases as true.
It’s not as if the good he did makes the harm he did non-existent, or cancels it out in some way. I mean, how would that equation even look?
Gen,
His actions under that metric, sure — but given the actual outcome, I doubt the net result of this particular episode upon STEM women is negative.
It matters when the powers-that-be endorse some standard, and the ostensible bewilderment of people such as Bluntnose about what that standard entails is suggestive.
PS “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.”
Prof Hunt works in a STEM (absurd acronym that!) field that is dominated by women. If you think his joke could possibly have a chilling effect on women, I suspect you know very few women in the field. The only thing we know for sure is that the Prof has actively improved life for many individual women in science and improved the environment for women in general. Unlike, say, you..
He resigned because he was told (via his wife incidentally, and to her great distress) that if he did not he would be sacked. That seems to have had a chilling effect on at least one woman who actually works in science.
I just noticed this comment from Ophelia responding to something by me which brings us back to the original point a bit.
It’s annoying because Jacobson did not say that, and that is why I was saying she should try to read more carefully when she is talking about a writer as careful as he is. If you have to misrepresent someone to make our point, that ought to give you pause, especially when you are accusing someone as humane, progressive and liberal as Jacobson of writing something that is ‘nasty,inaccurate, and reactionary’.
And thanks, Chris61! I didn’t expect to make any friends on this thread!
Again, that is not the issue. We do not need to demonstrate actual harm arising from an action to censure that action, merely that the action is liable to cause harm. For example, dangerous driving remains an offence even if no actual harm results from a particular instance.
In this case, there are two principle categories of potential harm we need to consider: firstly, the potential chilling effect referred to by Gen, Uppity Ingrate and Ilk at #53, and secondly, the potential damage to the reputation of UCL arising from their association with Prof. Hunt. UCL clearly felt that they did not wish to continue to be associated with Prof. Hunt in the light of his remarks, and they are entirely within their rights to make that decision.
@Bluntnose, 59
Ok, he did not write the exact words, “Hunt was hounded out of a job,” but it requires an awful lot of “well technically…” to argue that he wasn’t saying it.
No, he didn’t, although Ophelia claimed that he did. He did, however, directly refer to Hunt losing his position twice and on both occasions he was very precise about how he described it. The ‘hounded’ phrase was only used in a section where he was broadening his view to warn about what he sees as dangerous trends in academe involving other people and other situations. It does not take a very close reading to see that, but closer perhaps than people who have a hammer and are looking everywhere for nails are willing to give.
Ah, so you have the quote where she writes, “he wrote that, “Hunt was hounded out of a job””? Because, working by your tortured logic, if she didn’t write those exact words, then it wasn’t said at all. There is no room here for such liberal filth as interpretation!
There is always room for interpretation, but Jacobson refers twice to Hunt losing his position and in neither case makes the claim that he was ‘hounded from a job’. When he uses those words he is imagining people who may be sexist, racist or have criminal sexual predilections. If you are not claiming that he intended those comments to refer to Hunt, you have to explain why you think just that one phrase in that context did.
But here is the bit from Ophelia that says what I said she says:
And we can go back and forth forever or just agree to take Jacobson to task for what he actually wrote.
The word “hounded” does not appear amongst talk of “sexists, racists, pederasts, colonialists, anti-Semites” only when talking of thin-skinned offence-taking over unacceptable ideas. Surely it has nothing to do with them either, then? Talk about looking everywhere for nails!
He’s talking about a situation where a man lost precisely zero jobs and an honorary position because of what’s being presented as merely an unacceptable idea, and you think that going on to talk about being hounded out of a job because of unacceptable ideas isn’t speaking directly to that?
Honestly, if it walks like a nail, and it quacks like a nail… well you probably have a poor definition of nail, but it’s still probably a nail by that definition.
It may or may not be, depending on what that legalish sounding phrase means. But what he definitely did not say, anywhere in the article, was that Prof Hunt was ”hounded from a job’. In fact on the two occasions when he mentioned the Prof’s situation he carefully said that he had lost an honorary position. So it is a bit rich to complain about his ‘inaccuracy’.
This crap is so dishonest, Bluntnose…It’s as if you have no clue about the way people actually use and manipulate language, such as by using sly implication to create impressions while retaining deniability in case anyone notices. Let me spell it out for you: Jacobson was creating the impression that Hunt was hounded out of his “job” by using that belligerently dishonest phrasing.
You’re doing the same kind of thing, with all this greasy flattery of Hunt along with making up your own facts about him.
Lots of greasy flattery of Jacobson, too, repeating your absurd claim about what a “careful” writer he is and your “someone as humane, progressive and liberal as Jacobson” as if you knew that for a fact. Had you ever read a word he’d written before this piece?
No he wasn’t. He is a precise and careful writer who demonstrably did not to say nor imply that Hunt was driven from a ‘job’. The only unarguable inaccuracy is yours. You said that Jacobson said something that he didn’t. If you meant that you took a certain implication from the article you should have written that, especially when you are attacking the article’s writer for inaccuracy. I don’t know if your inaccuracy was dishonest or just lazy, only you can tell us that.
As to Hunt, I haven’t flattered him at all. He really is brilliant and he really has helped many many women in their careers. I doubt you can say the same. Yes, there is a certain greasiness around here, but it isn”t coming from me.
I have read three novels and countless articles. So, yes, I know for a fact what a brilliant writer he is, humane, intelligent and funny.Although I know that last quality won’t cut much ice around here.
@ 68 – It’s not the case that Jacobson “demonstrably did not to say nor imply that Hunt was driven from a ‘job’.” He did imply it; of course he did. You’re right that he didn’t say it in those words, but it’s absurd to pretend he didn’t imply it.
I’m not denying Hunt’s intelligence, ffs; you claimed “we” have “massive evidence that his actions have benefited many, many women” and I say that’s hyperbolic flattery.
And @ 69 – I’m not disputing Jacobson’s intelligence either, but “brilliant” isn’t in the bit I quoted – you said he’s “humane, progressive and liberal” but I doubt that he even self-identifies as progressive-liberal now.
We have the evidence of the many women he has mentored in along career none of whom as far as I can see have a bad word to say about him. I can’t see where the hyperbole is in that although we might disagree on the rhetoric, but it certainlyy isn’t flattery if its true.
I hope the fact you didn’t quibble with ‘humane’ means you will at least concede that. I don’t know why you would think he no longer considers himself liberal or progressive. He always has been booth both those things and he has written a lot in defence of liberalism directly and indirectly. Even the article you dislike is a defence of liberalism. In fact, as far as I can tell, your objection is that he is too liberal, too willing to tolerate behaviours and views he himself considers obnoxious..
So the evidence isn’t “massive” and it’s many but not “many, many” – in short you were over-egging, and that’s what I was saying.
The reason I think Jacobson no longer considers himself liberal or progressive is because I’ve read some columns of his in the Indy that surprised me by their reactionary tone. There’s no more to it than that.
I think it is massive, that is there is lots of it, but like I said we can fairly disagree about the rhetoric. At least we seem to agree that there is a plenty of evidence that Hunt has done plenty to advance women in science.
I am surprised you have found Jacobson’s columns sometimes reactionary, I can’t think of anything he has written that I wouldn’t describe as liberal f it is political at all.
Bluntnose, even if no one else is saying it, I am getting very, very tired of your implication that the other people in this thread have not helped women as much as Hunt. This is something YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT. You are merely making an ugly insinuation that encompasses a great many people. Since I have not previously commented in this thread, you may imply that your comments did not apply to me; however, I have been reading this thread, and therefore am part of this thread, albeit in a somewhat more passive way up to now.
I have mentored many women. I have helped many women. I have given many women the knowledge, the training, and the inspiration to try something they have never dreamed of before. These were women not me (and yes, I am a woman) and not related to me. In fact, considering the types of jobs I have had, it might be fair to say that I have assisted many more women than Tim Hunt in spite of the fact that I am nearly 20 years younger than he is. And I have helped women who were much more difficult to help than women in a graduate science program, who were already at a point where mentoring them is a matter of taking women who are reaching for the top already and helping them up a couple more rungs. In fact, it might be fair to say that I have saved the life of some women.
As for Tim Hunt’s age, that’s nonsense. My father is 10 years older than Tim Hunt, and he would know that comment is ridiculously sexist. My husband is 10 years younger than Tim Hunt, and he would know that comment is ridiculously sexist. And for anyone in an academic job, they are going to have been trained and trained and trained and trained in appropriate behavior. Sexual harassment training is a common feature in academic jobs (I work in academics in the US, so if anyone knows that it is different in the UK, I apologize for being wrong). Age and the irrelevance of the field to his line of work are arguments that have no legs.
Second that – I was and am very annoyed by those assertions too, but bluntnose posted so many comments over the past few hours that I haven’t had time to address all the annoying assertions in them. Thank you for addressing that one. As if Bluntnose had any way at all of knowing what people commenting here have done for women! Bluntnose doesn’t even know who they are, for a start!
Talk about not knowing what you don’t know…
What irks me about those comments is the implication that even if Tim Hunt did do his damn job at one time (treating women and men equally in the lab, for which he deserves unending cookies, adulation and freedom from criticism), he can never be criticized about the time he really, really fucked it up.
Sorry, could only skim through the article after that atrocious sub-hed; got the drift anyway.
Hopefully someone can dig up a quote where Hunt calls the Israelis “colonialist shitheads” or the like, Jacobson would recant in a flash. Jacobson seems hypersensitive on this topic.
Is anyone else having problems logging in through google or google+? I can’t long in at B&W but if I log in at Pharyngula I’m logged in here.
@Bluntnose 50
We disagree, but I respect a general sensitivity to shaming because many have been shamed wrongly. I’m going to say that shaming is “public criticism with the purpose of role-modeling the criticism in order to change social behavior” (feel free to let me know if you don’t like this). I have to be honest with you though, without an effective tool that can get us the required social change that is rooted in demonstrated social effectiveness I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.
How do you propose that we deal with people who take actions that support systemic bigotry for whom private criticism does not work? Shaming is a perfectly natural human social behavior and in my view it just needs some ethics and morals to be used properly. There are people (especially in positions of authority, and especially in socially dominant classes like rich/white/male) who will not change their behavior without that social component focused on them. If anything I’m willing to hear you out so that I can have another tool to add to my set for ways to create social change.
Well, I asked rather than asserted. Of course its possible that some people on here have made a practical contribution but it doesn’t seem that many are claiming to have and I think it is important to think about that when we are damning someone for something they have said. I suspect that some of the loudest and quickest to condemn do very little work to support actual women unlike Tim Hunt. That has often been my experience anyway. But if you have done a lot of work to support women I think that is great, I hope you never find yourself damned on the internet for misogyny because of a careless comment.
No, you asserted.
@ 56
@ 68
bluntnose has outstayed bluntnose’s welcome.
Bluntnose, I think you are now being disingenuous. You “asked” people about whether they had helped women as much in a way designed to imply they had not. You also did your version of a Gish Gallop, where you threw out so many assertions that people who were responding tended to respond to one claim, and leave others hanging because, as Ophelia says above, “bluntnose posted so many comments over the past few hours that I haven’t had time to address all the annoying assertions in them”. It is very easy for people to get lost in all those assertions; since the others had been so ably dealt with by other commenters, I waded in on the one still left hanging. I am unable to speak for the other commenters here, but I would be very surprised if there were very many of them who had NOT helped women at least as much as Tim Hunt. Tim Hunt did his job. He mentored graduate students who wanted to go further. That is great, that is good, but it is the basic job of an academic scientist. It does not alleviate any sexist work.
If I were to make a careless comment like the one made by Tim Hunt, I would hope that I would find myself criticized over it. It is very easy to make careless comments; the proper response when criticized is to say “I’m sorry, that was very stupid of me. I apologize for my unacceptable behavior”. The problem with this situation is that this did not happen. He issued a very famous notpology (though did much better to the Korean women), doubled down that he meant what he said, and tried to pass everything off as a joke even while asserting that he meant what he said.
Yes, I sometimes make careless comments. I get called out for them, and I apologize. We don’t always recognize our own privileges, and having someone point out to us when we have been insensitive should be a learning experience. And I do not hold with the idea that he is too old to learn. I know you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but we are not dogs, and humans have demonstrated the ability to learn new things even in our older years. As someone who has taught people in their 60s to use computers successfully, I don’t believe the “too old” jive.
That’s what I think too, so bluntnose is in moderation now. bluntnose can’t comment again unless bn does a much better job of it.
@16 –
“This analogy has come up a lot but seems strange to me because race and sex are not alike. They are not the same kind of thing. ”
I’d love to know your ‘reasoning’ behind this statement.
I was hoping for a few examples of the many, many women Tim Hunt massively helped.
Y’know,
[citation needed]