That poor wee man!


It’s bad enough that Tim Hunt has a baying mob of witches howling for his blood, now they’re unlimbering the heavy artillery: they are using satire. Exactly like a witch would do.

Frankly, I don’t even know how I managed to become a scientist. I can only name a handful of important women in science, and they are all dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I remember wanting to become a scientist when I was young, but I knew this must be a mistake; as a woman, I was better suited to a career in something more traditionally feminine, like becoming a prostitute or dying in childbirth. I likely only made it to my current position in a well-established lab by using reverse sexism, which is rampant in science.

As if that weren’t enough, these are witchy women scientists. They are hurling data. Brutal.

stem-science1

As a man, I’m getting worried. We are two different species, natural selection, and all that, and it looks like my sex isn’t making the cut.

Comments

  1. petrander says

    First of all: I would like to say I am ashamed of the state of affairs of my country of birth (and nationality): the Netherlands. Living in Denmark the past 15 years has made me realize how surprisingly further ahead they are here, even though the countries are often compared as both being progressive and liberal. For some reason: Not quite on this point.

  2. lamaria says

    O dear. Here I am, dutch-born and all, just considering going back to university and changing into a STEM field but doubting if I could be good enough for all that stuff. I hate coincidences.

  3. Saganite, a haunter of demons says

    I’m honestly surprised, albeit in a positive way, that Germany is ranked so well. I guess the lab I work in is a good indication of that, although – and perhaps that perception is off – it seems to me that biology in general is one of the STEM fields where women are generally better represented.

  4. Dunc says

    Next you know, they’ll be using all the tricks: dramatic irony, metaphor, pathos, puns, parody, litotes… Terrifying!

  5. Anna Elizabeth says

    The scientist you’ve quoted isn’t thinking big enough – she forgot “pornstar”.

    I’ve decided to be Awesome when *I* grow up. And also, a Pony.

    The disparity between scores and employment seems ironic when it’s concerning a field led by so many men that *so* value thinking, data points, and objectivity.

    Oh, I also want to be one of those satirical Witches. XD

  6. JoeBuddha says

    “Doug?
    Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) I was terrified of him. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I’ve seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
    Interviewer: What did he do?
    Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.”

    – Monty Python, on Doug Piranha

  7. says

    Three things happens when you have girls in the lab…nope actually 4 things happens and the 4th is: when you mess up with them, you are fucked.

  8. clevehicks says

    This piece isn’t actually as funny as it seems, because as Christopher Hitchens told us, women aren’t ever funny

  9. says

    Saganite
    I guess it would look very different when you break down the numbers by field.
    AFAIK Women dominate in biology and medicine. And they’re gaining in chemistry. But there’s also pushback.
    My husband works for chemical company. A big one. A big trend in recent years was that more and more young women would do vocational training in the labs and since they’d apprentice more people than they hire, the young women would often end up at the top of the list for hireing.
    Mr. was wondering what was up with the young men who simply didn’t show the same amount of dedication and ambition the young women did. Well, talk about stereotypes. The young women who made it that far had been running uphill for quite a while, but the young men had been told that they were naturally good at it for quite a while. If you need to demonstrate you’re good at it, you’ll work harder, if you’re told you already are, why bother.
    As a result, many men at the top are saying, behind closed doors, that they need to stop hireing so many young women (not that they’re anywhere near parity because 30 years ago hardly a woman trained there).

  10. clevehicks says

    Now if the Internet will please stop bothering me with all of these womanly Facebook-post-worthy satirical distractions, I can get back to my important male scientific work splitting atoms and such.

  11. yazikus says

    This piece isn’t actually as funny as it seems, because as Christopher Hitchens told us, women aren’t ever funny

    Ding, ding, ding! Nope, not funny at all. Nothing to snort at here. Not even dinosaur jokes. Sweet, sweet dinosaur jokes.

    Joking aside, the idea that some of Hunt’s defenders are so oblivious to the ridiculousness of their complaints when they are willing to chide western women left and right because women somewhere else have it worse. Dude said a stupid, hetero-sexist thing. Dude gets criticized. Dude loses (or resigns from) some honorary positions. Dude is still a Nobel laureate with plenty of prestige. Still no blazing fires or witch hunts to be seen. Just criticism, deserved criticism.

  12. Usernames! (ᵔᴥᵔ) says

    ~ they are willing to chide western women left and right because women somewhere else have it worse ~
    — yazikus (#15)

    Yes, that’d be the “Dear Muslima” defense, as made popular by some privileged douchebag originally.

  13. ragdish says

    I’ve seen similar graphs that also included countries like Indonesia and Bangladesh. In fact, the gender distribution in STEM, particularly in engineering is close to equal in Indonesia. The question I have is what is a gender egalitarian society like Norway doing wrong and what is an Islamic society like Indonesia doing right? I believe someone coined the term the Norwegian equality paradox. There are even older data showing a higher percentage of women in engineering in the former Soviet Union compared to the USA. Again I ask, what did totalitarian Russia do right?

    I think this evidence also definitely excludes any biologic determinism. I by no means advocate that western societies adopt either a totalitarian or Islamic social model. Indeed, let’s not forget that in Iran I think 70% of STEM graduates were women (I may be wrong on this but I recall reading it somewhere). The mullahs quickly squashed that and sent the women packing home. Authoritarian models are absolutely not the answer. But can we not perhaps see that those societies may have been doing something positive for women either intentionally or not? Can anyone shed light on this that the “benevolent and egalitarian” West can learn from? Is it economic need? Is it a culture that values science above all else (maybe in communist Russia but I’m doubtful for Islamic socieities)?

  14. anbheal says

    @17 ragdish — Claro que la solucion es Kirchnerismo!! Tell the IMF and Bundesbank and Credit Suisse and Barclay’s and Citibank to go fuck themselves, and you’ll find yourselves living in a better society. If a bit squeezed for credit. So, if Syriza opts for Grexit, I presume we will see more Greek women in STEM.

    Or is extrapolation from one data point not science-y?

  15. AlexanderZ says

    Giliell #11

    AFAIK Women dominate in biology and medicine.

    That’s true, but sadly even in these fields the percentage of women drops like a rock when it comes to senior or tenure positions. Go visit your local hospital and you’ll see that every head of a department is a bearded old man.
    _________________________

    ragdish #17

    There are even older data showing a higher percentage of women in engineering in the former Soviet Union compared to the USA. Again I ask, what did totalitarian Russia do right?

    Nothing. And I’m saying this as a product of the USSR.
    Russia’s laws, due to some egalitarian ideas that were present in the communist movement (and that were a product of Western thinking that received a severe push-back during Stalin’s reign), allow for gender equality in most fields (the military is a notable exception) and Russia’s (and USSR’s) economic difficulties meant that the country needed all the workers it could get.
    So why isn’t there an equal representation of both genders? Why do women “dominate” (see my reply to Giliell above – they dominate in numbers, but not in rank)? Because of Russia’s sexist, patriarchal and uber-masculine culture. Russian men die at a young age, are very prone to reckless, violent and unlawful behavior, as well as being likely to succumb to alcoholism. This makes them less than suitable workers, but it tells you nothing about actual gender equality:
    Feminism and affirmative action are used only as slurs (except by tiny fringe groups), people want to return to medieval patriarchy (several years ago there was a lengthy discussion about whether modern Russia should adopt a religious guide on family values written under Ivan the Terrible) and unless women make 100% of a given workplace the person in charge will almost always be a man. You can see it in pretty much every school (nearly all teachers are women, but the director is a man), in every hospital and so on.

    I suspect the same is true for Indonesia and in many other 3rd world countries – countries that retained colonial laws or had to make progressive laws to gather support for their independence movements, had/have economic difficulties and a masculine culture so toxic that it undermines itself. This hypothesis can be tested by comparing the percentage of women in science (or other fields) between rich and poor countries from the same region (like, say, Singapore vs Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, since they all were under British control) or countries that had a different colonial history (say, middle-eastern countries that were occupied by Western forces for only short periods to sub-Saharan countries that had to rebel against Western oppression). I couldn’t find the most relevant data at UNESCO (they lack data on most good cases, but I note that comparing Zambia to UAE supports my point) but if someone has better statistics I’d be happy to look at them.

    tl;dr – it’s not that the 3rd world is doing something right, it’s that the Western world’s sexism had time to adapt to legalized gender equality to maintain both a good economy and a patriarchal society, while the 3rd world’s sexism is still stuck in a primitive stage that cannot maintain both a good economical growth and the “old ways”.

  16. ragdish says

    AlexanderZ #19

    Interesting analysis, Alexander. But how do you explain the STEM gender gap in Scandinavian societies which pride themselves in gender equality? There is no legalized gender inequality in those nations. Indeed, the USA could learn a lot from the great strides that the Norwegians have accomplished towards gender equality.

    I do agree with you that the “dissolution” of the gender gap in countries like Russia and developing countries may be the result of necessity in the presence of a failing patriarchal economic system. Women are probably used to fill in that economic void as a temporary measure until socioeconomic conditions improve and then the patriarchal machine sets things in reverse (ie. as you mentioned, Stalin reversed the gender progress initially accomplished in Bolshevik Russia). But could such energies that were/and are misused in such nations not be harnessed in a positive way. In the USA, we will be facing a huge shortage of engineers in the near future that will lead to economic collapse. The Soviet mass psychology in some ways did work. Rather than personality cult pictures of Stalin (or whatever dictator comes to mind) commanding obedience, why not posters of Uncle Sam and Samantha everywhere with open arms to everyone stating “I WANT YOU TO BE A SCIENTIST, TECHNOLOGIST, ENGINEER AND MATHEMATICIAN”. I dunno, is it worth trying in western societies? It certainly would be better than Victoria Secret model posters everywhere telling young girls “I want you to be thin and beautiful”.

  17. ragdish says

    Addendum:

    I meant to advocate STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) and not just STEM. My bad.

  18. Melinda Owens says

    While Communist rule over China did a lot of awful things (to put it mildly), Mao did promote women’s rights, saying things like “Women hold up half the sky” and “Whatever male comrades can do, female comrades can do, too.” Many, many doors opened up for women in education and the professions during that time. Did the Communists achieve, or even really advocate for, perfect equality? No, especially on things like domestic work and political representation. But it was a huge advance over women’s situation in late dynastic China.
    ***
    Of course, that progress is probably not solely due to the Communists. Women in Taiwan are also a lot better off than in late dynastic China. I’m finding it difficult to Google up cross-strait comparisons on the status of women and would appreciate it if any one could refer me to good statistics on that.

  19. says

    It’s so odd that it’s a “witch hunt” when a wealthy and famous scientist is criticized for saying something dumb, but apparently it’s “who gives a fuck it’s friday” when someone like Anita Sarkeesian gets actual death threats, stalking, and abuse.

    Imagine what Dawkins and Cox would call it if Hunt were getting comments like Amy Davis Roth’s art-room-full-of-abuse. “Armageddon”? “The war to end all wars”? “Global war on Hunt”? “Weapons of mass destruction”? “Matter/antimatter supernova”? I know I’m treading perilously close to “Dear Muslima”‘ing but the hyperbole is shockingly one-sided.

  20. rietpluim says

    Oh o! Satire! Another loaf on the fire on which Hunt is burned!

    About The Netherlands: as a life-long inhabitant of this pretty little country I do have the impression, not backed up by hard science though, that the Dutch prefer to think that things like racism and sexism simply do not exist and therefore do not need to be fought anymore.

  21. pentatomid says

    Rietpluim, @25

    Yeah. I live in Belgium, and I get pretty much the same impression here.

  22. AlexanderZ says

    ragdish #21

    But how do you explain the STEM gender gap in Scandinavian societies which pride themselves in gender equality?

    I think rietpluim #25 and pentatomid #26 have answered your question. Some European countries have made great progress in promoting gender equality, and then stopped since they were content that other countries at that time were not as equal. Years passed and that smug content is no longer justified, but it’s already part of the culture.

    I think a good example for something like this is same-sex marriage. In the 1980’s and 1990’s the gay community in the USA enjoyed more protection than those in almost any other country. In 1988 UK had law against “promoting homosexuality” which was nearly identical to the current Russian “anti-gay propaganda” laws. Since then many countries that were initially more oppressive than USA had legalized same-sex marriage, while the US lagged behind and is still divided on the issue.
    Sometimes initial success can make further advances more difficult.

    why not posters of Uncle Sam and Samantha everywhere with open arms to everyone stating “I WANT YOU TO BE A SCIENTIST, TECHNOLOGIST, ENGINEER AND MATHEMATICIAN”. I dunno, is it worth trying in western societies? It certainly would be better than Victoria Secret model posters everywhere telling young girls “I want you to be thin and beautiful”.

    I agree with you completely.

  23. shikko says

    @#25: rietplum said:

    About The Netherlands: as a life-long inhabitant of this pretty little country I do have the impression, not backed up by hard science though, that the Dutch prefer to think that things like racism and sexism simply do not exist and therefore do not need to be fought anymore.

    Interesting. From a few conversations I’ve had with Dutch people, and listening/reading some opinion pieces, I get the feeling that in some ways the Dutch “drank their own kool-aid” about being tolerant, accepting, worldly, etc., which has come back around to make them somewhat –provincial, for lack of a better term. Along the lines of “women should stay in the home; I’m Dutch, and the Dutch believe in equality, so it’s not sexist of me to say that.”