Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
washingtonpost.com
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Nowhere did he say they were "distractingly sexy". He said men fall in love with women. That happens. He also said women fall in love with men. That also happens. If it didn't, the human population would be declining and not increasing.
His only sexist statement is that they cry (with the caveat that you criticized them). It's very ironic they are crying on Twitter - no less about something he never actually said.
Also, men fall in love with men, and women fall in love with women.
> It's very ironic they are crying on Twitter
Uh, "mocking" is very different from "crying".
He didn't say that.
>Uh, "mocking" is very different from "crying".
With the above correction you've shown your political standing. Of course you see it as mockery. Most people are going to see it as them crying about his "sexism" over something he didn't actually say (that they were distractingly sexy).
If people were mocking him - more men would be mocking him for the second statement that they are "irresistible" to women and their bravado gets them all the ladies and they are having troubles working because of all the sex they are getting. But they aren't crying on Twitter because he said that women fall in love with them.
The offensive part that is being mocked was not the description that women fall in love with men or vice versa.
The offensive part was that both of those were described by Hunt as parts of his "problem with girls...when they are in the lab".
That is, Hunt says:
1. Women fall in love with men (implicitly, to the detriment of the function of the lab) => problem with women
2. Men fall in love with women (implicitly, to the detriment of the function of the lab) => problem with women
This can be read two ways depending how you parse it.
That is, Hunt says:
1. Women fall in love with men (implicitly, to the detriment of the function of the lab) => problem with coed labs
2. Men fall in love with women (implicitly, to the detriment of the function of the lab) => problem with coed labs
So, either reading is sexist, though it is true that there are different ways in which it can be sexist.
At a significantly lower rate. If relationships (and the desires for relationships, the fallouts from breakups, etc.) cause a significant impact in some work environment, it will be heterosexual relationships that are of greatest concern due to the percentage of total relationships they make up.
For example, where I went to college, coed dorm rooms were not allowed because most coed dorm rooms had historically been couples and relationships breakups became really messy. There was no such rule preventing homosexual couples from having a dorm room because the number of incidents was much smaller and the challenge to keep them apart was greater.
Basically, if your thought process is that women are an optional addition to a fairly normal human activity (scientific research in this case), you're going to be accused of bias. I mean, people said almost exactly the same things about women in offices, women in factories, women in the military, gays in the military, gays in the NFL, etc.
edit: clarity
Well, I guess I appreciate him not pretending to have reconsidered after the public response, OTOH, I don't know why one would appreciate someone not actually reconsidering such a position.
I fail to understand how, as often seems to be the case with issues like this, people respond with an attitude of "well, sure, he's got a horrible position, but at least he stubbornly refuses to reconsider it even when large numbers of people point out how horrible it is".
Has anyone stopped to consider that he may have been talking about trouble he has actually experienced? He does say "my trouble..." not "the trouble...". Later, he went on to clarify that he has fallen in love with someone and someone has fallen in love with him. If those actually happened and they were trouble for him, then his statement is accurate. He didn't comment any more on the crying part but it doesn't sound implausible that he, at one point, criticized a woman and she cried.
If one assumes (and I don't think that his subsequent clarifications are consistent with this interpretation) that his intent was to merely relate personal experience without generalizing further from it, then the whole affair provides a valuable lesson about why one should be precise in one's use of language and avoid using the second person ("you"), especially in a context where it might be readily be viewed as intended in its generic sense (in which it is equivalent in definition, though less formal in tone, to "one"), when one intends the first person ("I").
OTOH, I don't think it works.
> Later, he went on to clarify that he has fallen in love with someone and someone has fallen in love with him.
"People" (plural) in both cases, but what he did not say when he did so as part of his mixed apology/defense of the statement was that anything indicating that he did not intend to generalize beyond his personal experience.
> He didn't comment any more on the crying part
He did, in fact, in the same apology/defense. [0]
An equally valuable lesson is if something can be taken different ways, make sure you are taking it the same way the other person meant it. He didn't say it was or was not a generalization. He didn't say it was or was not only personal experience. Everyone just made their own assumptions.
In English, you can be specific or generic, but it can't mean "I and only I".
Your suggested "interpretation" is a radical rewriting that even Hunt's own apology/defense doesn't offer, it just offers experience as the basis for the generalizations.
Well... there you go. I thought when you said "you" you were specifically referring to me. But then I reread it and it turns out you were saying "[the word] you." English is a pretty complicated language. No wonder we're always pissing each other off. (Edit: "we're" was not meant to refer to specifically you and I. It was a more general "we as a people."
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/01/30/...
Most of the offense seems to be taken on his first statement: "Men fall in love with women." Twitter 3rd-wave Feminists twisted that into "too sexy for the men".
You don't see any men going on Twitter complaining he called them irresistible and distractingly sexy (things he never actually said anyway). Where's all the offence taken that "Women fall in love with men" from the men?
Them crying on Twitter about something he never said (and he said about both genders, not just females) kind of proves his 3rd point: they cry.
I think you are confusing the which element of the whole sexist set of statements is the main inspiration of the mockery directed at the whole set with which is the main focus of offense.
Though, to be fair, both the "you fall in love with them" and the "they fall in love with you" statements are worthy of offense when both are offered as part of the explanation of his "trouble with girls...when they are in the lab". (Both presume that the "natural state" of a lab is to be full of men, so any complications that arise from a mixed-sex environment are a "problem with girls".)
Of course, unless his "problem" is pedophilia, compounding that by referring to women as "girls" when discussing the "problem" he has with them in the lab compounds this further.
Girls seem to dislike the feminine linguistic equivalent to "guys", which is "gals" seeing as they infrequently use it themselves to refer to themselves. However, they refer to themselves as girls quite frequently. I've been told several times in my life to stop using "gals" when referring to a female group because they disliked the word.
Guys have "guys night out", they don't call it "mens night out". Girls have "girls night out". They don't call it "gals night out". For all intents and purposes - "girl" does not always refer to a young female; context is important.
In Japanese おばあさん can refer to "aunt" or "middle-aged woman" and the context it is used in is important. Your aunt could really be a 6 year old girl. Why are you calling her a middle-aged woman? You aren't. You're calling her aunt.
Similarly, for English, "girls" has become the equivalent of both "guys" and "boys" and depends on context in which it is used.
Feel free to suggest an alternative to "gals" - but I'd consult with "the girls" first. They seem to have settled on "girls" themselves, but what do I know?
Sometimes, some of them do. Context matters, still, and one place where this is very rare -- for the same reason that it is very common for women to object when other people do this -- is in discussions of professional performance. And, in another sense in which context matters, what might be unoffensive -- or only mildly so -- on its own can be more offensive when it is compounding an already-sexist set of statements.
> Guys do not refer to men as "boys".
IME, sometimes they do. (It may not be particularly common in the dominant -- i.e., white middle-class -- subculture, but there certainly are subcultures in which, e.g., referring to an adult male's adult male associates as his "boys" is not uncommon. And it would still be compound the offense to use the same term for adult male members of that subculture when making an otherwise-racist set of statements.)
> Feel free to suggest an alternative to "gals"
In the context of the statement Hunt was making, the obvious choice that would not compound the already sexist nature of his remarks to refer to adult female humans would be "women".
Linguistically boys and girls, men and women, and guys and gals are not true opposites. One of the nuances is that it is common for women to be referred to in certain settings as girls. This can be used as an insult, but the mere use of the word isn't an insult.
But, being that the same word can both be an insult and not, it makes it quite impossible to tell if this was meant as an insult, and thus any group is likely to assume it was/wasn't an insult based on what fits their view best.
It is similar to the use of male/female, where often it is the best term (especially when describing a grouping of both adult women and young girls), but other groups will still latch onto it as a sign of disrespect.
Compare:
"Females of HN, what do you..."
vs.
"Females students..."
The former is more insulting, as the intended target is really women. The latter includes both students who are adult women and students who are girls, and is thus appropriate, but may still be attacked.
What really got me was in recent news about allowing teens and even preteens to get access to birth control, they were often referred to as 'young women' both in the news and by many people I saw speaking about the articles. Those opposed to such access did not use the term though (granted, I did not do a scientific study to show that each side tended to use different terminology to refer to the same group, this is merely my personal experience).
When I break down the nuances of English like this, it reminds me of why the few times I've tried to use Spanish has left my Hispanic friends rolling with laughter.