Hyperbolic whining when criticized is the male analog to the trope of women crying when criticized. So it’s ironic to see Richard Dawkings “crying” (over and over again) about a male peer being criticized for saying maybe women should be segregated from men in labs because they cry too much when criticized. Sure, Dawkins thinks Sir Tim Hunt saying that was deplorable. But he thinks nothing should come of it. We should just laugh off a Muslim scientist saying it would be better if labs were gender segregated (and not meaning it sarcastically). Because of sexist false generalizations about women, and how “women” can’t handle criticism and relationships.
Sexism should never have negative consequences in Dawkins’ world. Which is why sexism will never end in Dawkins’ world. Which is why we should not help him make this world into that one. Hunt’s colleague Michael Eisen has the best essay on this point of any I’ve read. [See now also this and this.]
Dawkins cries watery tears whines hyperbolically almost every time he is criticized. (Just google around. The number of examples documented on the Internet is so bewildering it’s become a well known trope.) It’s always the same thing: someone exercising their free speech rights to express their negative opinion of him or things he said, becomes a “witch hunt” and an “inquisition” by a wild “angry mob.”
In fact it is never any of those things, but basically a lot of serious, thoughtful, often well-argued criticism. Mere free speech. And often well done and spot on at that. Not email bombs sent to his in-box to harass him. Not sea lioning. Not pornographic cartoons of him being shot in the head posted in public. No actual torches and pitchforks, prison time, or setting him on fire. No actual mob. Just a citizenry peaceably assembling and expressing their grievances to those with power.
No one even asked any organization to fire Hunt. He was only fired from a few honorary positions whose role was to promote the values of those organizations, entirely on those organizations’ own initiative. Because epically failing at your job, and embarrassing your employer on precisely a mission point of what they are actively fighting against, means you suck at your job. People who suck at their job can get fired. That’s how life works. Stop crying whining about it.
I’m sorry, but this behavior makes Dawkins look like a child. He can’t handle criticism.
Either A:
He shivers in terror, hiding in his closet (or as he calls it, the “muzzle” his critics have apparently sent thugs to attach to his face and hands), deathly afraid of being criticized, and blames the criticism for chasing him into that closet (muzzle). It’s all their fault, for criticizing him. Not his childish fear of criticism. Or his inability to deal with it. Or just stand up for his criticized views and laugh the critics off (like he would creationists and theologians). Or recognize his mistakes and value them as learning experiences. And then try harder to help us combat sexism, for example, instead of acting like a clueless twit hyperbolically attacking us for being against sexism.
Or B:
He wildly overreacts to criticism with a massive display of a shocking sense of entitlement. And learns nothing. And doesn’t even notice he has this flaw. He certainly doesn’t notice how sexist and insulting it is for him to use the witch hunt trope when defending his or others’ sexism or their right to be immune to the consequences from it. A lot of Big Atheism dudebros do the same (like Peter Boghossian). They also constantly cry watery tears whine hyperbolically when criticized, lashing out in an irrational state of intemperate anger and indignance, using the same inapplicable and inappropriate tropes.
Men are just too emotional.
Oh wait, see how that’s a false generalization? Yeah. Imagine if I said that men acting like Dawkins shows “men” are too emotional to work in science, because they can’t handle criticism, they always bawl like a baby whine like a baby and get all uncontrollably angry and indignant instead of learning anything. You’d say what an absurd false generalization and what a horrible conclusion to draw even from the fact that some men are like this. You’d criticize me. The whole population would criticize me. Organizations who hired or inducted me as a representative or spokesperson for their values exactly the contrary would dismiss me as an embarrassment who failed at his one basic mission for them. They’d replace me with someone who can do the job I clearly can’t. And you’d agree that’s how the sequence of events should go.
But as soon as it’s women and not men we are saying this sexist thing about, now it’s all witch hunts and inquisitions and mob mania and How Dare Ye.
Science
The fact of the matter is, studies show (like Grossman & Wood 1993 and Kring & Gordon 1998 and Simon & Nath 2004 etc.) that men and women do not substantially differ in emotionality. In terms of how often and how many emotions they feel in a day, they are the same. In terms of the average intensity of those felt emotions over time, the tops of their bell curves are separated by barely ten percentiles.
That’s not a huge difference. A lot of men are more intensely emotional than the average woman. A lot of women are less intensely emotional than the average man. And the variances are so small, they would barely be visible without a statistical study. Walk into a room of a hundred men and women, and their difference in emotionality would barely be visible. As long as by emotionality you mean all emotions. That are actually felt (and not just the emotions that are expressed).
This is sexist culture. Men are enculturated to hold back their tears and displace the emotion of embarrassment, for example, with anger and outrage and indignance. Which are emotions. Felt just as intensely. Thereby disproving the myth that women are substantially more emotional than men. Men just channel and express emotions differently, because they have been taught to, often abusively, throughout childhood. Women, meanwhile, aren’t pipelined that way as kids, but allowed, even expected, to express emotions with tears. We know this because in some cultures, like Ancient Greece, men would cry almost as often, because tears were coded in those cultures as manly.
Consequences
Tim Hunt’s joke demonstrates he actually believes women are too emotional and immature about workplace relationships to do science. So, haha, maybe they have to wear a burqa work in separate labs than men, so as not to be so lusciously tempting and distracting to men, and so men can live in peace and not feel sad when someone tells you your criticism of them made them feel bad. The exact same emotion, incidentally, that Dawkins expresses, only in the form of anger and indignance and hyperbole, every time he is criticized, proving he responds to criticism just as emotionally as Hunt joked women do, as if women had the problem and not men.
Notably, unlike Dawkins, Hunt himself did not whine like a baby. He apologized and expressed understanding of why what he did was wrong and deserved censure. Or maybe not. Certainly the dudebros like Brendan O’Neill definitely don’t get it. They see they don’t control the world anymore, because now everyone has a voice and can exercise their free speech rights and be heard, so now there are consequences to being a sexist, and promoting sexist jokes at conferences aimed at ending sexism while representing organizations combating sexism. And they do not like this. They are no longer as privileged as they use to be. They have been reduced to equals. And like children they angrily howl and pout and whine about it. Like children, they think it’s everyone else’s fault. They don’t understand, and clearly fear, a world that doesn’t put up with their shit anymore.
Sexism is no longer funny. Unless you are making fun of it. Which the dudebros then describe as a witch hunt.
The world is more fair now. And they don’t like that because it means they have to admit they’ve been unfairly prejudiced and backing a prejudiced system and that would be awful (right?) but they can’t be an awful person therefore all the evidence for climate change evolution vaccines their prejudice and support of prejudice must be false (just like witches don’t really exist and this therefore has to be a witch hunt, minus the actual hunting part, you know, the torture and kidnapping and killing). So it’s just deny deny deny whine whine whine.
Suck it up and get over it. Stop acting like a baby. Stop being so emotional. And start living in the 21st century and not the 19th. Women are your equals now. Sexism is to be removed from mind and society, not endorsed or left untouched as harmless. Because dudebros like Dawkins are so self-centered and inured to the plight of others less advantaged, they don’t realize that the fate of Tim Hunt indicates we live in a better world now.
Tim Hunt was not silenced. He was not cast into penury. He was not imprisoned. He was not burned at the stake. He just can’t represent organizations anymore that don’t share his beliefs. And he has to cope with the fact that the world now gets to talk about all this. And at worst, poke fun at his dinosaur views. If he wanted, he could start a blog or a Twitter account or self-publish a book and say any damn thing he wants. He can even run a kickstarter for his research (if he actually has any). He is a free man.
So no thought is being policed here. It’s being criticized. And criticizing something is not outlawing it. Choosing of your own free will not to support it is not outlawing it either. It’s liberty.
Questions
To Dawkins, PZ Myers asks a very pertinent question:
If you’re one of those people who called this a “witch hunt”, an “Inquisition”, a “lynching” — what would you have people do differently when an esteemed senior scientist gets up to a lectern and says something sexist, or racist, or simply idiotic?
You are, apparently, unhappy that people commented on it on Twitter, or wrote blog posts about it, or wrote op-eds decrying it. You seem to be distressed that others are even talking about it negatively. Be specific: what do you propose that a person hearing a Nobelist announcing that women should be segregated from men in the lab should do?
Bonus points if you manage to find a rationalization for that, and you’re also on record deploring the habit of Muslims demanding segregated seating for men and women at public lectures.
Of course, what Dawkins would say is, he doesn’t think Hunt should have been dismissed from his honorary positions. Even though those positions come with the expectation that you will represent, and not publicly shit on, the values being promoted by those organizations. But notice, no witch hunting mob dismissed Hunt. They didn’t even ask for his dismissal. All the people did was say in public what was fucked up about what he said. All they did was exercise their right to free speech, and publish their thoughts. That’s all they did. The organizations on their own dismissed him, because they can’t combat sexism by keeping a sexist as their spokesperson or representative.
Dawkins needs to explain why they were wrong to do that, not why “the people” were wrong to publish their grievances (the “witch hunt” and “mob” he whines like a baby about). But that’s precisely what Dawkins is attacking: the right of the people to express and publish their thoughts about things. We are not talking about lying or harassment. We are talking about calmly or humorously honest statements of what happened and how people felt about it and why it was bad. Dawkins wants that to stop. Poor soul.
And of course Hunt did not actually argue for segregation. He just joked that it might work. Hence his joke intentionally reveals that he actually did think that would improve things. And (and as we know from what he later said) he really did think it would improve things because women are too emotional and immature about relationships. Oh, and also, because he wants to have sex with them all the time (or love them? or accidentally cause them to fall in love with him?), and how dare they be so pretty and interesting dating prospects (?) for a monogamously married man. He just Can’t Do Science with such cool hot chicks around? Poor soul.
No organization wants to be represented by someone who thinks like that. Indeed it’s amazing that people like him even still exist, in such a field and at his level of education. Too many people are better qualified for the honorary roles he was dismissed from. Because most people actually share the beliefs and values against sexism that those organizations want to be known for.
But Dawkins wants there to be no consequences for being that way. And thus no prospect of ever changing people not to be. Dawkins is fine with sexism in official science promotion. It’s no big deal. And what he wants is for Hunt to be completely unaffected. And for The People to shut up [or to even take steps to shut them up]. Because he is sick of the ruling mobs (= citizens of democracies) going on witch hunts (= expressing their negative opinions about him and his peers in public).
Conclusions
Dawkins is evidently not aware that what he is actually advocating is for the suppression of free speech. Not by the state or anything, of course. But by some sort of self-enforced or brow-beaten social norm that keeps “the people” quiet. Can’t everyone just shut up already? (= stop using your free speech rights and publishing your thoughts to larger audiences than me).
The final irony is that Dawkins is actually the very witch hunter and member of the very mob he is attacking. Because he expressed his negative opinion about Hunt’s words. Exactly all that the witch hunters and mobs did. They didn’t do anything he didn’t do. Yet when they do it, it’s a witch hunt and a mob. When he does it, it’s a brief CYA aside. In other words…
“OH yes, I agree with this mob of witch hunters on everything they are saying, I’m just saying there should never be any consequences for being a sexist, and the only way for there to never be any consequences for expressing sexist beliefs is if no one ever talks about it or says they don’t like it or makes fun of it. Then sexists can go on representing organizations that want to be known for fighting sexism in their field while openly expressing sexism at events those organizations send them to. See? Everyone’s happy.”
WTF.
Dawkins must think sexism is like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. If you close your eyes and refuse to see it, it can’t harm you. And then nothing has to be done about it. So if we don’t talk about it and it never has any negative consequences (to the sexists), it will just go away. And thus never have any negative consequences to women. Like magic.
“And of course Hunt did not actually argue for segregation. He just joked that it might work.”
So that’s why UCL should have done this (from http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/13/tim-hunt-hung-out-to-dry-interview-mary-collins ):-
“I was told by a senior that Tim had to resign immediately or be sacked – though I was told it would be treated as a low-key affair. Tim duly emailed his resignation when he got home. The university promptly announced his resignation on its website and started tweeting that they had got rid of him. Essentially, they had hung both of us out to dry. They certainly did not treat it as a low-key affair. I got no warning about the announcement and no offer of help, even though I have worked there for nearly 20 years. It has done me lasting damage. What they did was unacceptable.”
??
Re. “witch hunt” – obviously the reference is to “witch-hunt” in the McCarthy sense. But maybe young people don’t use that trope these days – however, you’re not a young person.
If they thought his dismissal would not become public, they were being quite foolish. And for them to think that merely dismissing him would do such damage that he should be immune to dismissal is reflective of an elitist arrogance of high status people who just don’t understand that they don’t get to decide what’s right based on their selfish notions of preserving their own dignity at the expense of thousands of people negatively affected by views like his.
There simply isn’t any valid complaint here. He can’t hold a position representing values and beliefs he just said he doesn’t share. And he can’t live in a world where he steps down from it and no one knows that happened. Least of all when the reputation of the organization depends on it being known that they don’t support representatives who reject their beliefs and values.
P.S. McCarthyism: “McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means “the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism” (Wikipedia). Not even remotely a valid analog to this case. Right?
McCarthyism in fact was about imprisoning or compulsory banning from employment anyone exercising their constitutional rights of political association (or being gay), on the grounds of thus being a traitor, wholly invalid reasons to sanction anyone. And with real sanctions. Not voluntary dismissal from a few honorary positions in conflict with the dismissed expressed beliefs.
Hunt has not been banned from employment. He has not been thrown in prison. The FBI isn’t tailing him. He isn’t being hauled into court to answer impertinent questions about whether he is a communist or homosexual by a congressional committee. So the analogy fails at every turn.
It’s insulting to the victims of McCarthyism even suggest it’s similar…
“The number imprisoned is in the hundreds, and some ten or twelve thousand lost their jobs. In many cases simply being subpoenaed by HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired. Many of those who were imprisoned, lost their jobs or were questioned by committees did in fact have a past or present connection of some kind with the Communist Party. But for the vast majority, both the potential for them to do harm to the nation and the nature of their communist affiliation were tenuous. After the extremely damaging “Cambridge Five” spy scandal (Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt, et al.), suspected homosexuality was also a common cause for being targeted by McCarthyism. The hunt for “sexual perverts“, who were presumed to be subversive by nature, resulted in thousands being harassed and denied employment.”
No parallel.
And yes, it was almost as wrong to call that a witch hunt as anything else that actually doesn’t involve killing people (McCarthyism at least had the similarity that the thing being hunted, treason, didn’t exist), but it’s even worse to use witch hunt to describe people combating sexism against women, because the irony of doing that is insulting to the max. Follow the links I provided where that point is made. Twice.
Actually UCL didn’t request Hunt resign his honorary professorship. According to their updated statement:
That isn’t what Hunt and his wife said to the news media (see my link). So someone isn’t accurately describing what happened.
Revision: Because his words could be construed in different ways. Maybe he meant only Platonic love distracts him. Platonic love evidently he never feels for men for some unexplained reason (Tim Hunt: “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 criticise them, they cry.”).
So I have reworded a sentence to be more open to charitable interpretations:
Oh, and also, because he wants to have sex with them all the time (or love them? or accidentally cause them to fall in love with him?), and how dare they be so pretty and interesting dating prospects (?) for a monogamously married man. He just Can’t Do Science with such cool hot chicks around? Poor soul.
I appreciate your recognition of how words can be construed in different ways. I often say that context is critical. And I like how you reword the sentence (it sounds more humorous this way which is pleasing, albeit not the point).
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I admit several times I have made arguments that seem to favor suppression of free speech. Given the way some YECs and apologists argue it almost becomes inevitable that this is where the conversation will turn at some point. That does not seem to be where Dawkins is coming from though. Even if suppression of Free Speech worked, I still would not approve of it and don’t think that others should either. The same with separation of women in the sciences (I am a Chemist by trade BTW). It might work but I still would not approve of it. In my lab it has happened inadvertently, but I have worked with women before and likely will have to again (actually I do work with them, just less then 1/5 of my work day requires that).
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With regards to the Ravenous Blugbatter Beast of Tral, I have said on these boards that many Xtians seem to think that life is like a J.M. Barrie novel, if they believe hard enough (or don’t believe) they can make it happen (I don’t believe in fairies, I don’t believe in fairies, I don’t I don’t I don’t!). I can imagine others applying that principle of believe it and you can make it happen (or don’t believe it and it will go away) to concepts other than religion.
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Might I ask something though, and this is not to challenge you in a place where I think you cannot respond appropriately. As I often say if one is going to maintain convictions with any sort of security and confidence they are going to be challenged and if one continues to hold such convictions with any sort of security one should be able to respond to said challenges.
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Here goes, when you (Richard Carrier) have been criticized on your interpretation of an issue that sparked an emotional response in you (which I am sure has happened) can you give an example of a time when this occurred and you responded in a way that you consider to be appropriate? Can you give an example of your responding in a way that you would consider (possibly later) inappropriate? I ask in order to make comparisons (call it a “quality control” question).
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I would guess that you would have a good answer given your comment on the Bart Ehrman blog about being “too mean,” though I can understand if it takes you a little while to come up with a response. Perhaps a string of text from a debate you have had that would demonstrate this?
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Thank you if you can answer.
I wrote a whole article about that. Technically, if you expand the abstraction, two.
Please watch this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNJyDyCocGQ
You need a date with [name redacted–RC]. Lol.
That doesn’t work as an excuse. See comment.
It was a jest. A inept jest but a jest all the same. When the world goes off on one over a joke the world is in trouble.
A sexist joke is still a sexist joke.
And in fact, he confirmed on multiple occasions that he wasn’t joking about the sexist part but actually believed what he said about women. Follow the links.
That’s why he thought the joke was funny. Not because it was sarcastically ridiculous that anyone would think such a thing. But that he actually thought such a thing was true. And gee isn’t that funny.
Re. McCarthyism – take up your complaint with several generations of intellectuals who have used “witch hunt” and “McCarthism” in the same breath. It may be inaccurate, but it’s a common trope people have used, and obviously Dawkins was using it in that loose way.
You say:- “If they thought his dismissal would not become public, they were being quite foolish. And for them to think that merely dismissing him would do such damage that he should be immune to dismissal is reflective of an elitist arrogance of high status people who just don’t understand that they don’t get to decide what’s right based on their selfish notions of preserving their own dignity at the expense of thousands of people negatively affected by views like his.”
Can you without circularity demonstrate that Hunt and his wife are “arrogant elitists”?
You are a avowed Bayesian, but in this case you seem to be dropping the careful process of thought you show in your historical and philosophical work (which I love to bits, btw). Are you really, seriously, weighing the entire lifetime’s work of a man (who has been lauded by other notable female scientists, and by his wife, herself a feminist of the older kind, as having made worthwhile contributions to the cause of women in science, both personally and publicly) against a gaffe, and finding it wanting?
Are you saying that things people say have such a deterministic effect on social mores that the slightest verbal stupidity deserves instant dismissal, and the rest of the person’s life weighs as nothing in the balance?
It’s okay because other people did it is not a valid argument. Reference: slavery, wife beating, child labor, etc.
And it’s worse when it’s used in this context, as I explained, and linked to others explaining in more detail.
As far as what makes Hunt et al. arrogant elitists, just look at the nature of their complaint and what they are complaining about (I linked to it). My article is in fact a demonstration of what’s elitist and arrogant about their hyperbolic expressions of excessive entitlement, caring more about keeping the rather trivial consequences secret to protect their social status, and expressing far more horror at that, than the effect attitudes like his have on thousands of women.
What a man has done professionally has no bearing whatever on whether he is a sexist and holds sexist beliefs, or on whether those beliefs contradict the requirements of maintaining honorary positions that are not reserved for persons with such views. He was not fired from science. He was fired from honorary positions with the role of representing the values of those institutions. He sucked at that job. So he lost it. How good he is at other jobs is irrelevant.
Indeed, to think that past accomplishments in a field grant you the right to maintain an honorary position despite violating the requirements of that position is what arrogant elitism is all about.
If we were talking about his being dismissed from a paying professorship or actual research team you might have a point (discipline would precede dismissal in that case, and dismissal would only follow from repeated failures to maintain a non-hostile work environment for female colleagues).
But he wasn’t. So you don’t.
This whole thing pisses me off just because of the glaring unacknowledged entitlement of Dawkins and Hunt’s other defenders. People love to complain about how entitled other people are, but it’s obvious that only one’s social inferiors can actually be entitled. Poor people, minorities, and women are all WAAAY to entitled, but highly educated old rich white guys apparently have a right to honorary positions even when they fuck up at their jobs. A poor person misses work because their kid’s sick and gets fired because they need to take responsibility, but rich old white dudes need to be able create PR nightmares and continue to hold on to their purely PR positions. It’s fucking infuriating.
Dawkins isn’t proposing the suppression of free speech, he is merely exercising his own right to it. As are you and anyone else choosing to comment on this matter.
I’m not asking him to shut up. Although that would do himself a favor. I’m just pointing out that what he is saying is awful and shouldn’t represent the atheism movement. Which Dawkins claims is asking him to shut up (or rather “scaring” him into shutting up, because all this criticism is so scary). Yet he is the one who is effectively asking people to shut up! By complaining about nothing other than their voicing an opinion, and characterizing doing so as a witch hunt and an inquisition. I do not characterize what Dawkins is doing as a witch hunt. I just say what’s wrong with it.
Richard, I’m a long time lurker on your blog. Thank you for writing something so well thought out and beautifully expressed. Also, I loved the Bugblatter beast of Traal reference – that was cool.
As a woman in science, this whole affair has been both frustrating and uplifting. The defence of Tim Hunt has been very difficult to watch and the tone of the “ugh fun-hating feminists ruin everything by over-reacting” commentary has been truly depressing. But the #distractinglysexy hashtag has been a joy and exactly the kind of mockery that this man deserved for his horrible words. I’ve experienced and witnessed many kinds of prejudicial behavior in the lab and it always strikes me as extraordinary that so many scientists are so lacking in self-awareness when you would think our training and our work would cause us to examine our motives a little more.
‘And of course Hunt did not actually argue for segregation. He just joked that it might work. Hence his joke intentionally reveals that he actually did think that would improve things. And he really did think it would improve things because women are too emotional and immature about relationships’
1] Yes, he really did think… & in all probability still thinking that it would improve things! But is it because women are too immature ? Look at the sequence; ” you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you”. Joke apart, does that say that women are immature ? OR, as he himself has explained, he is being honest on HIS ’emotional entanglement’?
2] Did he [within the joke] add that ‘I don’t want to stay in the way of them? Does that mean, he THINKS to keep his lab out of bounds to women or he THINKS to move out from their path?
N/B- Does ‘witch-hunt’ means [Re: Ophelia Benson]hunting OF the witch or hunting BY the witches?
(1) He said women fall in love with him, not just vice versa. And that this interferes with the workplace. Which amounts to saying women can’t handle relationships like adults (people who are married or dating, or have been married or dated, work together all the time without a problem; that’s called being an adult). And his falling in love with women he presented as a problem because then he didn’t want to criticize them because it made them cry. Which does indeed mean he is immature at relationships, too. Which is also a problem. Albeit not the one that led to his resignation.
(2) This question is unintelligible to me. I can’t fathom what you are asking.
N/B – Dawkins does not mean witches are on the hunt. That would make no sense of the analogy he intends. What makes witch hunts bad is that witches don’t exist. That’s the analogy he wants: Hunt is not at all bad, therefore hunting him is bad.
The claim for a witch-hunt might be said in frustration from within a greater context, one in which grievance culture and its members (you’re a card-carrying member, Richard) whine and pressure administrators to act on what would otherwise be a small matter of mea culpa. I worry that you and your ilk risk frustrating the masses with your oversensitive nonsense, and this might result in a callousness toward much more serious issues. In any case, Christina Hoff Sommers has recently spoke about grievance feminism, a recent stain on feminism. You should check her out.
Also: when I say that women are more emotional than men, and it is something I say (Boo! Hiss!), I do not mean that women experience more emotions than men, because I have no idea if that is true. I don’t think anyone means that. Instead, I mean that women express a certain set of emotions more openly and publicly than men. Your studies show nothing about that, and you grant that much. Hence, I don’t think that claim has been challenged by you.
You said this:
“This is sexist culture. Men are enculturated to hold back their tears and displace the emotion of embarrassment, for example, with anger and outrage and indignance”
Why is it sexist again? You didn’t say. I think you’re letting your presumptions take the background here. If the idea is that culture is sexist because men, and not women, are taught to hold back their tears and such, then you need to argue that.
Christina Hoff Sommers is a false flag and full of shit.
If you don’t know that, you have a serious problem.
Your remaining points miss the point. Crying does not make you incompetent. Nor do women always cry. It’s sexist to think so.
You have traded sexism for ageism. Not sure if you noticed but search every use of “child” and “baby” in this article and a pretty unflattering picture of young people emerges, because the way you’re landing the blows against Dawkins and Hunt is to compare them to young people. (The piece was otherwise totally spot on.)
Children and baby homo sapiens are pretty awesome little people. They learn faster than adults, empathize with the ill treated, and do a helluva lot more than whine all day. Not to mention unlike the privileged wimps this article criticizes, children actually are a routinely mistreated subgroup of humans who have traditionally lacked a voice to defend themselves, like women. Who this article defends. Which is why, though the theme of this article is clearly sexism not ageism, it’s appropriate to point out the inconsistency of poo pooing the one while perpetuating the other.
Comparing young people to pricks like Dawkins and Hunt in this article is especially inappropriate given how good they are at rapid self improvement, i.e. learning from their mistakes (cf. Alison Gopnik). Which is exactly what you’re criticizing the statu-quo-squad for not doing.
Obviously you’re looking for some analogy to belittle the real butts of the joke here. I sympathize because they deserve it, and it’s hard to find an analogy that doesn’t piss someone off. So call them fools, call them shitheads, whatever. But howsabout we don’t drag kids’ through the mud to get the job done.
I know, how dare I imply all children and babies are immature. That’s so ageist.
Or, uh, maybe in accordance with the law?
But you are right about one thing: children grow up.
It remains to be seen if Dawkins can emulate that virtue they have.
So, it is your position that “… Dawkins Is Proposing Is the Suppression of Free Speech and the Acceptance of Sexism in Science” by “saying that [Sir Tim Hunt’s statement] was deplorable”?
To these eyes, that is Kafka-esque rhetoric worthy of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Huh?
Um, no. Dawkins is proposing social suppression of speech by saying no one should be saying these things about Hunt.
That Dawkins also said the same things is called hypocrisy.
I agree that Dawkins is a whinger when it comes to public criticism, though not in the same league as Jerry Coyne. But if this is going to be about RD trying to suppress Free Speech, then pushing PZ Myers as a ‘good guy’ in this article was a serious error in judgement.
On Hunt himself, I would like to know if this is a one-off episode of stupidity or part of a long-term pattern. Is Hunt a sleazy, bum-grabbing pervert type? Does he have a history of mistreating women? Or has he encouraged female colleagues, esp. the younger ones?
Those questions would need answering in order to calibrate an appropriate level of outrage about this, and incidents like this in general.
Who said any of that? You are off the rails on this.
1] You overlooked the sequence once again. Prof Hunt first said, HE fall in love with them and [then] they fall in love with HIM. Its NOT the other way round. It is unfortunate that you want to make it vice-versa to suite your theory that Hunt thinks of women as immature. Even if the sequence is ignored, at the worst it implies that ‘both Prof Hunt and his women colleagues are EQUALLY immature’ to maintain work relationships. It needs a leap of faith to deduce that ONLY WOMEN are perceived as immature here.
2]Sorry for the poorly phrased question. Allow me to quote Rebecca Retcliffe’s report in The Guardian, June 10 th. ‘ Hunt said he was in favor of same sex labs adding that he “did’nt want to stand in the way of women”‘. I can’t understand, how the last statement is demeaning women and likely to hamper the proclaimed policies of UCL.
That Hunt called all women and himself immature does not improve his merits in any estimation. So I don’t know why you think you are doing him any favors in pushing that point.
That sexists don’t want to stand in the way of women while continuing to express sexist views of the inferiority and incapability of women does not make them not sexists anymore. If he believes in getting out of their way, then resigning is precisely what he should have done. So, you are basically supporting his dismissals.
1) I am not arguing about Hunt’s merits and don’t want to do him any favor either. I request you to point it out to me where you found the ‘discrimination’ between Hunt & the women. If he meant to demean , he meant to demean both himself & the ladies. If it was meant as a joke, that joke was aimed at both of them.
2) ‘ If he doesn’t want to stand in their way he should have resigned’. Agreed and nobody would have challenged it. But how can one justify dismissing some body with out serving a ‘show cause’, on the grounds that the person wants to resign by himself. Can homicide be justified in the same premises that the victim had plans to commit suicide?
(1) Demeaning is demeaning. He didn’t say some women. He said “girls” generically (already an insult in context). That he also thinks he is immature is irrelevant to the fact that thinking all women are immature is sexist. Adding that he also thinks he is immature is just worse. Who wants to hire an immature scientist or spokesperson or grant committee member?
(2) I don’t fathom why you think death can produce any analogy to being dismissed from a non-paying honorary position. We don’t execute people for sucking at their job. We fire them. Especially when they aren’t even being paid and aren’t actually doing anything except being a representative of our values, the one thing they just totally failed to do.
1] My specific question is, where is the gender bias here? Where is the implication that men and women are different, forget about their worthiness in science labs ? Where is the discrimination? His statement, right or wrong, is gender neutral to a ‘neutral reader’!
2] Just because a person is not getting a paycheck, can he be humiliated with out being lent an ear? I thought there are certain basic human rights common to the paid as well as unpaid! Yes the analogy holds. Only the gravity of punishment is different. A person who JOKED about his suicidal intentions is being murdered in cold blood!
1] He said the trouble with girls (as a general class of people) was that they fall in love, can’t work productively in result (and therefore would work better if segregated from men), and cry when criticized. That’s a false generalization corresponding to a sexist stereotype of women. That’s what sexism is. It doesn’t matter what else he said. That’s sexist. If all he said was “I can’t work with women because I keep falling in love with them” (implication: he isn’t mature enough to handle a workplace crush or romance) he wouldn’t be a sexist, he’d just be incompetent.
2] To think that being fired from a job you spectacularly fail to perform is so “humiliating” that incompetent workers should be immune from dismissal when they fail to perform their job is elitist bullshit.
1] In case the first question is unclear, here is a scenario. Suppose I say , ‘We human beings as a species are not smart enough to know the meaning of life’. Just because half of these human beings happen to be females, will the above statement becomes misogynistic?
No. Because you aren’t stating a sexist stereotype about women.
1) He said , ‘MY trouble….’ & ‘I fall in love….’ before those words you seem to ‘like’ so much! ( I hope you will leave out the ‘crying’ as he apologised and said he didn’t mean it)
So according to you, ‘Men and women are not smart enough to know the meaning of life’ is gender neutral. But ‘Men & women are not mature enough to work together in labs ‘ is sexist ! Sorry…. I am not convinced!
2) I am afraid you refuse to see the ‘dismissal’ beyond utilitarian terms of loss of salary & position. Is’nt it more of a matter of ‘human dignity’ rather than ‘elitist bullshit?
1] Sigh. “My trouble with girls…” If you are going to omit words so as to change history to fit your delusional narrative, we are done here. He said “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.” The latter two statements are sexist stereotypes he is generalizing to all women, whom he further demeans by calling them “girls” (which though acceptable in colloquial discourse, is not acceptable when the point you are making is that women are too immature to handle criticism or workplace crushes and relationships). Indeed, even if you take the first as a generalization about men falling in love, that is an example of benevolent sexism (the belief that men should not “make girls cry” and therefore criticizing them becomes “a problem,” because of girls, which is an example of sexist assumptions about gendered chivalry).
2] He lost no salary. I’ve repeated this several times. Get out of your delusional bubble and start accepting facts instead of your paranoid fantasy. He was not fired from any position that paid him anything. He wasn’t fired from any research position. He wasn’t fired from any teaching position. He was fired (or preemptively resigned depending on whose narrative is correct) from a position that had no function but to represent the honor and values of the institution (a single job which he spectacularly failed at) and he was fired (or resigned depending on whose narrative is correct) from a position in which he served on a committee for assigning awards to scientists (in which an expressed bias against women scientists as being in his mind immature disqualified him…a bias he reaffirmed several times upon subsequent interview; he wasn’t joking about it, he was “kidding on the square”, which even as a joke is just as bad), and he was fired (or resigned depending on whose narrative is correct) from another non-paying committee at the European Research Council (which made decisions about funding research proposals, where again a bias against women is disqualifying). All three jobs he failed to perform and has expressed beliefs that entail he cannot perform them as the jobs require. That’s grounds for firing. That’s how the world works.
“It’s okay because other people did it is not a valid argument. Reference: slavery, wife beating, child labor, etc.”
But we’re not talking about actions and social institutions, we’re talking about a common language usage that’s always been fuzzily used by everyone, liberals included. I think Dawkins ought to be allowed to use it fuzzily too.
“As far as what makes Hunt et al. arrogant elitists, just look at the nature of their complaint and what they are complaining about (I linked to it).”
Right, so you can’t demonstrate without circularity that Hunt and his wife are arrogant elitists. They’re arrogant elitists because they’re part of the group “Hunt et al.” Got it.
“But we’re not talking about actions and social institutions, we’re talking about a common language usage” — That has absolutely no bearing on the point. Reference: ret*rded, c*nt, Indian giver, sold down the river, etc. Language does not get a “tradition” pass any more than anything else does. Everything I and the linked parties said about the use of witch hunt remains correct and true and wholly unrebutted by you. All that is left is for you to learn, and no longer demean people and events by a casual misuses of language. Least of all when complaining about people complaining about prejudice against women by using the mother of all examples of prejudice against women. That is just galling. (It’s also not even remotely accurate. As my article and articles it links do demonstrate.)
“They’re arrogant elitists because they’re part of the group “Hunt et al.”” — Nope. Try reading what I said. Caring more about a trivial honor and keeping personal loss of status private, than about institutional sexism faced by thousands of women and what you’ve done to reinforce it (and are trying to do to keep reinforcing it by making it consequence free), is precisely what elitism means: elites care more about the trivia of their status, than on the actual effects their behavior and choices have on thousands of people of lower status. And to not even notice that, but to express indignance and outrage at your trivial loss of social status and none at the far more substantial effects their words have on the rest of the world, is the very definition of arrogance.
“Everything I and the linked parties said about the use of witch hunt remains correct and true and wholly unrebutted by you. ”
The salient point of the usage, both historically and metaphorically, is that an accusation is false. The metaphorical use would be that just as “Witch!” was false historically of women, (so it is proposed) accusation A is false of person x now. I don’t see how that’s in any way demeaning to feminists – unless you assume that anything someone who calls themselves a “feminist” says must be true.
“[…] elites care more about the trivia of their status, than on the actual effects their behavior and choices have on thousands of people of lower status. And to not even notice that, but to express indignance and outrage at your trivial loss of social status and none at the far more substantial effects their words have on the rest of the world, is the very definition of arrogance.”
It’s true that if Hunt and his wife were elitists, that’s how they’d behave. But you still haven’t demonstrated that Hunt and his wife are elitists,.
To me it looks like his wife was expressing indignation at the shabby way they were treated by people they’d thought they’d had a human relationship with.
On the larger point (seeing as I guess we’re nearing the end of the time you allow comments, and this might not be published), I think the danger people are worried about is a “spiral of silence” effect, institutional conformity, etc. Also, that there’s something fishy about “feminism” today, and that we ought not to give it a free pass just because of the cachet of the term from its noble achievements of the past.
Just to clarify: I’m 56 years old; when I was 5 or 6, I rejected the Catholicism I was raised in on the grounds that the Catechism was obviously trying to indoctrinate me into thinking of women as inferior (made from a man’s rib) and I thought that was nonsense because the females around me didn’t seem notably inferior to the males, just different. That’s how feminist I am, natively. Bona fides established, I’m dubious that modern “feminism” is feminism at all, and I’m worried that it’s a doctrinaire form of intellectual totalitariansm. Why? Because it’s based on identity politics. Because it seems to have lost sight of individualism as the basis for liberalism. It’s precisely and only in terms of individualism that the pursuit of equality before the law makes any sense (people are manifestly unequal, equal treatment before the law means treating people equally as rational agents – at which level of abstraction everyone is in fact equal – in any judicial or institutional or societal context).
If gender equality before the law is established (as it largely is – note that you yourself point out that the institutions Hunt belonged to have gender equality as a principle) and you find that women aren’t represented in equal numbers in x profession, and you think that’s a problem which betokens some subtle form of institutional gender bias that’s yet to be rooted out, then it may be the case that you’ve lost sight of individualism and you’re thinking in terms of groups and abstractions and you are filtering human beings through that classification. Unequal outcomes may be the result of residual institutional bias, but if they are that ought to be separately determinable; on the other hand, an unequal outcome may just show that women aren’t interested. As a Bayesian, you can’t rule that out, you have to figure it in. And if they aren’t, that’s no business of yours – or even of any other man’s or woman’s. Humanity is not a topiary garden to be shaped just so. There’s a rabbit hole here; I beg of you, don’t go down it, have a serious re-think.
“The salient point of the usage, both historically and metaphorically, is that an accusation is false.” — The baggage, however, is that it is as serious as murder and historically the murder of women, the ultimate manifestation of misogyny. That’s why it’s appalling to use such hyperbolic language at all, and the more so in this context. As I’ve explained several times now.
“It’s true that if Hunt and his wife were elitists, that’s how they’d behave. But you still haven’t demonstrated that Hunt and his wife are elitists.” — I linked to an article in which that is exactly how they behaved. Therefore, by modus ponens, your own reasoning entails you agree they are elitists. Assuming you mean “if and only if Hunt and his wife were elitists,” but you must have, since you didn’t state any alternative.
“To me it looks like his wife was expressing indignation at the shabby way they were treated by people they’d thought they’d had a human relationship with.” — How they were treated is only shabby from the POV of an elitist. As I’ve explained several times now.
“I think the danger people are worried about is a “spiral of silence” effect, institutional conformity, etc.” — And gay marriage will lead to marrying children and pets and roadway signs. Slippery slope is a fallacy. You would never have made that argument if Hunt said “the trouble with Negroes is…” That you don’t see them as the same illustrates how pernicious sexism is: that you think when women are treated with the exact same insults as black people, it’s no big deal and should have no consequences, but when it’s blacks (or Jews or Native Americans or the disabled etc. etc.) you’d see at once it’s appalling and grounds for dismissal from positions requiring the holder to express the opposite values. Meditate on why that is.
“[T]here’s something fishy about “feminism” today, and that we ought not to give it a free pass just because of the cachet of the term from its noble achievements of the past.” — There is nothing here about giving feminism a free pass. Least of all because feminism isn’t a person nor a monolith. I’ve already covered this. Catch up on current events.
“[I]ntellectual totalitarianism” = “[that which is] based on identity politics.” — Demonstrating you don’t know what either phrase means.
“Because it seems to have lost sight of individualism as the basis for liberalism.” — No it hasn’t. The importance of individuality and individual differences and individual responsibility and decision-making and facing the consequences of your own individual actions is so frequently discussed and promoted in contemporary feminist writing, I can only conclude you haven’t read any of it. Individualism entails you must accept the consequences of your personal choices. Therefore individualism entails Hunt should accept that his actions have consequences. He doesn’t get a pass from causality.
“If gender equality before the law is established (as it largely is – note that you yourself point out that the institutions Hunt belonged to have gender equality as a principle) and you find that women aren’t represented in equal numbers in x profession, and you think that’s a problem which betokens some subtle form of institutional gender bias that’s yet to be rooted out, then it may be the case that you’ve lost sight of individualism and you’re thinking in terms of groups and abstractions and you are filtering human beings through that classification.” — Nonsense. Bias is a scientifically demonstrated fact: women who are in fact the equals of men are not treated equally in hiring and compensation (I have cited numerous studies conclusively proving this, e.g. when identical resumes are sent to committees with a single thing changed: the gender of the applicant). So this isn’t about ignoring individual accomplishment. It’s about getting people to ignore gender bias so they can recognize individual accomplishment.
“Unequal outcomes may be the result of residual institutional bias, but if they are that ought to be separately determinable; on the other hand, an unequal outcome may just show that women aren’t interested.” — That myth has been empirically refuted numerous times. You cannot be up on feminist literature and not know that.
“As a Bayesian, you can’t rule that out, you have to figure it in.” — As a Bayesian I have to pay attention to the science and empirical case studies. And they demonstrate there is no significant difference in women’s interest when women aren’t pipelined by sexist education systems, and that even when they are a significant amount of the differential outcome is still caused by sexist decisions and behavior and not women’s disinterest. Again, there are countless studies proving this. Catch up to modern science.