
The Peacock Problem - ColinWright
http://www.jamiebgall.co.uk/the-peacock-problem/4581216632
======
quesera
This isn't so black and white.

Nigella Lawson exists as a sexualized foodie. That's a significant part of her
shtick.

Bond girls are predominantly sexualized. That _is_ their shtick.

By the time Marie Curie rolls around, after being berated by the speaker for
crassly acknowledging the first two, it probably seemed funny to "acknowledge"
the third.

Yes it's crass. Yes it's inappropriate. Yes it makes people (male and female)
uncomfortable.

But I really feel like the speaker played a part too. With his tiresome "we'll
talk about this later" condescension in response to the unacceptable-but-
provoked whistle, he's challenging the audience from his position of perceived
power. He's on stage, but has forgotten the asymmetry of heckling.

The Bond girl is an extra, more overt challenge, and his righteousness about
it elevates the volley even higher.

It's all despicable, but shouldn't be surprising. I'm glad the smarter portion
of the audience felt accommodated enough to applaud the speaker's indignance,
but part of me thinks he's like the "hero" that saves kids from a house fire
that he started himself.

~~~
quesera
Edit: on re-read.. This presentation was given at an all-boys adolescent
school. So, OK, the condescension comes from a place of teacherdom. And I
guess the pop sex icon imagery thrown in was to relate to the audience.

A pox on all that.

This guy didn't even save the kids from the metaphorical fire. He lit a match
in a dry field and wrote a blog post about how he railed earnestly against the
coming of the conflagration.

~~~
ColinWright

      > This presentation was given at
      > an all-boys adolescent school.
    

No, it wasn't. It was a mixed audience at a large, central (non-school)
location. Schools had brought students to the event, and some of those schools
were single-sex schools.

Can you point at the part of the submission where you deduced the presentation
was at a single-sex school? It needs editing if it's giving that impression,
and I'll pass your comments on.

~~~
quesera
> the appearance of Nigella had an interesting and unexpected effect: a rowdy
> all-boys school started wolf whistling.

You're right, I misinterpreted that quote to mean that the audience was an
all-boys school. My apologies.

My criticism stands, though. Poorly-considered reactions all around, including
the folks who applauded the speaker's indignance -- for rushing blindly into
the arms of the less offensive.

------
Zikes
There is no way a room full of teenage boys wolf whistled that photo of Marie
Curie in earnest. It was obviously a rowdy bunch of teenagers looking for any
excuse and means to be disruptive.

But hey, let's not let that stop the author from drawing a connection with men
everywhere. Obviously as a licensed penis carrier I'm completely driven by
testosterone and hormones, and most easily understood if compared to cavemen
or lower life forms.

~~~
coldpie
Not quite sure how you read a remonstration of all men out of that article
which was, by the way, written by a man.

> There is no way a room full of teenage boys wolf whistled that photo of
> Marie Curie in earnest. It was obviously a rowdy bunch of teenagers looking
> for any excuse and means to be disruptive.

At some point young people have to be taught that certain behavior is
unacceptable. Seemed like a good opportunity to smack that shit down
relatively early in those boys' lives.

~~~
Zikes
> The Peacock Problem

> This teenage silliness was based on men feeling the need to overtly display
> their heterosexuality by the reduction of any female to that of a potential
> conquest.

> Beware cavemen your days are numbered the decent among us are standing up
> and by goodness our cheering will drown out anything you try and throw at
> us.

I'm well aware it was written by a man, but that still doesn't make him right.

------
scrrr
"What you are doing is reducing to a SEXUAL OBJECT one of the GREATEST
SCIENTIFIC MIND THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN." \- blah that is just his opinion.
She's still a great scientist, even if some guys whistle. I think the author
doesn't understand even half of whats going on. He thinks he's making the
world a better place, but I think the opposite is true.

Furthermore, I fear creating a world where such a behaviour, even if
appropriate (but some might say, typically male), is completely outlawed, we
will lose more than we gain. - I suspect that a world in which everyone is
always politically correct and polite, would also be a world of hypocrites and
liars. Not a desirable outcome.

Let guys be guys, even if they behave like idiots sometimes.

~~~
tomp
I agree. Even as an opinion, it was probably wrong for the majority of men.
Whistling doesn't "reduce" the woman to _just_ a sexual object, it just points
out that she is _also_ a sexual object. I think a woman can be both beautiful
and smart (and I think most men-loving persons would say the same for men),
claiming otherwise seems plain ridiculous to me.

~~~
antimagic
And do you think that an intelligent woman is going to appreciate being wolf-
whistled? (hint: she doesn't).

~~~
brazzy
How many have you asked? This one disagrees with you:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3636135/Why-
women-l...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3636135/Why-women-like-
being-wolf-whistled-at.html)

~~~
antimagic
Oh, I bow before the philosophical might of a Telegraph article :/

As a female engineer, with lots of female friends that are lawyers, doctors,
architects etc, I don't know a single one that appreciates being wolf-whistled
in a professional context.

Actually, we don't even appreciate it in a non-professional context. It
usually generates a certain unease about physical safety, but at least in a
non-professional context you can roll your eyes and attribute it to the fact
that you're dealing with a neanderthal.

~~~
brazzy
> Oh, I bow before the philosophical might of a Telegraph article :/

I'd love to read a randomized survey, but in principle, a single
counterexample invalidates a general claim.

> I don't know a single one that appreciates being wolf-whistled in a
> professional context.

Have you actually discussed this with all of them?

> It usually generates a certain unease about physical safety

Why? Because of the stereotypes that go with it? Would a stranger walking up
to you and telling you that you're sexy be more acceptable or less? What if
they said beautiful instead? Or is it that you (your friends? all women?)
generally don't want men to show their interest in you unless you first have
given your premission in some subtle way?

It seems to me that all of this is stuff is way too individually different to
make such broad, sweeping statements. Heck, it probably is different for the
same person depending on what mood they're in.

~~~
marquis
>Have you actually discussed this with all of them?

Also a woman here, with many friends in STEM: none of us like it. All power to
those who do - but give us some space to work, and when we want to blur those
boundaries we'll do it outside of the office or in our private relationships
(office or not).

------
nawitus
>Where could we be now if we hadn’t repressed half of our society throughout
our entire history?

And where could we be now if we hand't repressed all of our society throughout
our entire history? Men were repressed too, and in many cases more than women
(hard labour, conscription etc). Men and women have gender roles which limit
their lives.

~~~
marquis
>Men were repressed too

Ah, this old argument. Yes, and modern feminism would not disagree with you.
What this argument does is try to shift the responsibility away from the
oppressor (in this case, patriarchy), akin to the slave owner saying to the
slave that he's also had a hard life.

~~~
rjknight
Nonsense. It's equivalent to a Victorian child tin miner saying to the slave
that he's also had a hard life. The set of people who actually owned slaves
was always a tiny minority who were only able to own slaves because they were
wealthier and more powerful than the vast majority of people alive in their
own time.

This is not to say that the child tin miner had a _worse_ life than the slave,
but they clearly both have more interests in common than either of them do
with the slave owner.

------
return0
That was a weird way to respond. The problem is not the sexualization of the
picture, but the fact that they felt the need to externalize it much more
intensely than a pack of apes would ever do (seriously, have u ever seen a
group of apes whistling because they saw a female?) in a context that is
totally inappropriate. Maybe the picture of the sexually starving guy has
become de riguer, and it's expected of guys to act accordingly.

------
cafard
Wolf-whistling at a dead woman? If they laughed at (say) "Kind Hearts and
Coronets" would he tell them that they were laughing at serial murder?

I'd be curious to see the presentation, which from what he says of it sounds
like a crock.

~~~
ColinWright

      > I'd be curious to see the presentation, which
      > from what he says of it sounds like a crock.
    

I've not seen this particular presentation, but I have seen several of his
other presentations. The author is a gifted and enthusiastic presenter, and I
seriously doubt that this presentation is a crock. Not least, he has given it
before, and is invited to give it again.

You are basing your conclusions only on the very small parts that provoked
this particular incident.

~~~
cafard
He sounds like an enthusiastic presenter, but he does not write particularly
well:

"An enthusiastic audience is the best kind; to get people excited about
science is a sight to behold. When it came to talking about gold and in
particular the human obsession with it I showed a picture of the iconic scene
in Goldfinger where Bond discovers Jill Masterson dead and gilded."

He seems from his account to be longer on enthusiasm than on content, which is
well enough, I think, if one is lecturing to students in the primary grades.
But--I don't know the English system--aren't these students in the secondary
grades, and shouldn't we beyond the "science can be cool stuff"?

I'm pretty sure that while still in the primary grades I knew about gold's
ductility, malleability, resistance to most solvents, etc., all of which
tidbits, if not science do have something more to do with it than a gilded
actress. Or maybe this is just sour grapes because my parents wouldn't let me
see the Bond films the first time around?

~~~
ColinWright
As mentioned elsewhere, I give about 150 talks a year, and have been doing
presentations for over 25 years. Jamie is exactly the sort of presenter that
gets otherwise jaded, bored, and disengaged kids back into enjoying science.
Yes, this was to secondary school aged students, probably about 15 years of
age, and I've seen him excite and engage similar audiences, and get them
buzzing about how science can be interesting.

Maybe he doesn't write well, but his account was of this incident, and not
intended to be of the science content.

Maybe you're right, maybe we should be beyond the "science can be cool" stuff,
but my personal experience tells me we're not. Not by a long chalk.

------
jsvaughan
last week as in the week in which Nigella Lawson was headline news because of
her alleged drug taking?

(Not that I remotely care, but if the author was unaware then you can imagine
why the video had a strong reaction)

------
ColinWright
The original (as linked above):

[http://www.jamiebgall.co.uk/the-peacock-
problem/4581216632](http://www.jamiebgall.co.uk/the-peacock-
problem/4581216632)

A response from someone on Twitter:

[http://therationaliser.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-peacock-
pr...](http://therationaliser.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-peacock-problem-
response.html)

A follow-up from the original author:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6835021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6835021)

------
theorique
It seems perfectly normal that an auditorium of teenaged boys would react in
an noisy, approving manner to sexy Nigella Lawson or sexy Bond girls. The
writer's "shocked, shocked!" manner is rather disingenuous.

I find it surprising that they would have done likewise for Madame Curie (the
photo in the blog post is not the slightest bit "sexy").

Maybe they were just trolling the speaker, since he had revealed himself to be
somewhat humorless and scolding in his earlier comments on their responses?

------
static_typed
The other day, my colleague received a wolf whistle, and turned around to
remonstrate with the guy behind her.

He then pointed out, it was actually the woman next to him who had actually
whistled. She smiled and replied it was her, and she didn't mean any harm, she
just thought my colleague was 'cute'.

It's not really a problem about peacocks, or feminists, it is simply a problem
about respect, in each we treat others and how in turn we would expect others
to treat us.

~~~
rmc
Women can do misogynistic things too.

------
icecreampain
Maybe I'm just slightly retarded, but I can't see what peacocks have to do
with anything in the article. The word itself occurs only once, in the title.

About the article itself: this "Jamie" person seems to enjoy lecturing others
about how to be politically correct. Yeah, because being told what to do and
how to act isn't exactly the same thing the women in his lecture were forced
to endure, eh?

Hypocrite, just like all others that reckon they've figured out a better way
of being human and must now convert the rest of mankind to the New Wave of
Behavin'.

