
Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos - SalGnt
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/06/11/trouble-with-girls-female-scientists-mock-nobel-laureate-with-distractinglysexy-photos/
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Nadya
>“Three things happen when they are in the lab. … You fall in love with them,
they fall in love with you and when you criticize them, they cry.”

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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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.

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".

~~~
Nadya
>men fall in love with men, and women fall in love with women.

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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If people were mocking him - more men would be mocking him for the second
> statement that they are "irresistible" to women

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

~~~
Nadya
>"problem with girls...when they are in the lab".

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

~~~
dragonwriter
Your reading of "the problem with girls...when they are in the lab" requires
the sexist assumption that the default state of labs is to include males, such
that that a "problem with coed labs" is a "problem with girls...when they are
in the lab", because, obviously, there's always going to be men in a lab.

So, either reading is sexist, though it is true that there are different ways
in which it can be sexist.

------
ntumlin
I hope this isn't taken the wrong way, but I'm glad he's not taking it all
back and saying he didn't mean it. Not that I support his position, but I do
appreciate him not pretending that a bunch of people making fun of him on
twitter suddenly changed his mind he's spent 72 years making up.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I do appreciate him not pretending that a bunch of people making fun of him
> on twitter suddenly changed his mind he's spent 72 years making up.

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".

~~~
JoeAltmaier
He's British?

------
jack-r-abbit
FTA: Hunt reportedly said: "Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three
things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall
in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry."

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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Has anyone stopped to consider that he may have been talking about trouble
> he has actually experienced?

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]

[0] [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33077107](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33077107)

~~~
jack-r-abbit
See? I guess I wasn't clear enough. I meant to say: He didn't clarify if
making a woman cry was a generalization or something that had actually
happened to him (like the falling in love part). But yes, he did speak to it
further in the context of "you need to be able to criticize people without
them crying."

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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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.

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.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
> you can be specific or generic

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."

------
Canada
I'm tired of this stupid culture war. I'm tired of the attention seeking and
the moralizing. It's an endless, pointless distraction.

~~~
snowwrestler
It's not a pointless distraction to women who want to pursue a career in
scientific research, but will be limited to excluded just because they are
women.

------
rewqfdsa
How exactly is this effort supposed to demonstrate that Hunt is wrong?

~~~
Nadya
It's the opposite. They're proving him right.

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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Most of the offense seems to be taken on his first statement: "Men fall in
> love with women."

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.

~~~
Nadya
Fully grown women also refer to their female coworkers largely as "girls".
Guys do not refer to men as "boys". They don't use "men "either. They use
"guys".

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?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Fully grown women also refer to their female coworkers largely as "girls".

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".

------
Toast_
What an incredibly _petty_ thing to do.

