A Tim Hunt retrospective


Just when you thought it was safe to get back on the internet, Dan Waddell reminds us of the explosion of nastiness in the Tim Hunt sexism affair. The short summary:

The first part of an in-depth account of how the Tim Hunt saga developed into a furious online backlash against his critics, and escalated from casual sexism into a dangerous mix of racism, misogyny and political and cultural warfare.

The interesting part of this review is that while some are quick to blame a PC culture, what started as a civil rebuke of a sexist remark was enflamed into a conflagration of viciousness by the introduction of alt-right bigots like Yiannopoulos, Mensch, and gamergaters into the mix, and when they refocused the complaints about a safe, secure Nobel prizewinner onto a black woman journalist, all the racism and misogyny by others than Hunt was allowed to flower.

Comments

  1. qwints says

    I’m disappointed at the erasure of the Korean participants at the conference. The Korea Federation of Women’s Science & Technology Association – the sponsors of the lunch – sent out a statement in Korean and English which summed up the issues very well.

  2. kellym says

    Also another case where Thunderf00t was in full agreement with Richard Dawkins. I still don’t understand why Phil Mason and other anti-feminists had a problem with the Reason Rally. Richard Dawkins is one of their own, and he’s like the pope of atheism.

  3. Hoosier X says

    “PC Culture” seems to mean any environment where everyone feels comfortable commenting on racist, misogynistic, homophobic, crass, boorish, obnoxious behavior.
    And, for some reason, many people feel we just can’t have that!

  4. throwaway, butcher of tongues, mauler of metaphor says

    Looks like the shithead contingent has descended upon that post already. Clueless and lying. As ever.

  5. zenlike says

    Yep, didn’t take long for the slymepit to have found the article. I guess they have google alerts on Tim Hunt and similar search terms, to bravely barge in anywhere to set the record wrong.