What an incredibly petty thing to do.
Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
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Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 (im…
>"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
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.
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#23>“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…
The essential reason his original comment was sexist was that the only way it makes sense is if one assumes the default state of a lab is men only.
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
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#24I'm tired of this stupid culture war. I'm tired of the attention seeking and the moralizing. It's an endless, pointless distraction.
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.
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#25FTA: 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.
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#26FTA: 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…
> 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]
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#27FTA: 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…
> 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…
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.
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
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 w…
> 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.
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
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 w…
Offense is rarely given - only taken. It doesn't matter how you meant to say something or what context you said it in. If someone wants to be offended by it, they will. [0]
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/01/30/...
Re: Female scientists mock Nobel laureate with photos
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
> 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.
> 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."