throwaway34017

I recently gave a test lecture about a topic in statistics, where I showed a meme that a statistics professor I follow shared on her Twitter feed [1]. I thought it would be safe to include as it didn't get any negative reactions on Twitter and was already being used by a professor in her university class in the US. After the talk I immediately got called out by the women's representative on the hiring commission, who asked me how I would think students would react to such a meme. I then explained how it makes fun of the statistical property of the mean being easily "attracted" by outlier data points, as opposed to the median which is usually not as sensitive.

She did not explain what she saw as problematic. Maybe that a couple in a relationship situation was shown or that an attractive woman was in the foreground, or that the man openly expressed his attraction towards the other woman. I apologized profusley and tried to explain that I'm not an insensitive or sexist person, which she seemed to imply with her remark though.

I have been thinking about this incident for several days now, as I really can't make up my mind if I did something wrong or not by including the meme. If anyone want to add his/her opinion I'd be grateful therefore. The lecture was directed at B.Sc. students at a university in Europe BTW.

Personally I can say it feels quite bad being called out like that, especially as someone who has never (consciously) done anything discriminatory against women or minorities. And as someone who's quite sensitive I can say that it definitely has a chilling effect on me.

[1] https://twitter.com/annaegalite/status/1166446645204213760