So the other day some of the fellas over on Chateau Heartiste — one of the internet’s top destinations for racist, misogynist pickup artist wannabes — ran across a little graphic celebrating some of the lesser-known “[w]omen in science that you should know … and probably don’t.”
Apparently offended by the reminder that, yes, women have actually had some influence over history, one of Heartiste’s readers decided to make a graphic similarly celebrating the men of science. But while the original graphic contained pictures of only 12 women, this new graphic featured a vast sea of male faces, as if to rub in just how male dominated the world of science has been, and still is.
Looking at the graphic, Heartiste also thought he spotted another demographic anomaly: a preponderance of white faces. “That’s one pale looking pastiche,” he wrote.
“The Men in Science poster. A Snowvalanche of Whiteness,” agreed one of his commenters,”Bwahahaha.”
Huh. That’s weird. because when I look at the poster I don’t see a lot of white. I mean, if you blow it up a little you can see that the spaces between the various squares are white, but the squares themselves are all sorts of colors. Red. Pink. Black. Brown. Blue. Green.
Are a significant portion of the Men of Science from Mars?
And there’s another odd thing about this not-so-pale pastiche: it’s full of repeating patterns. If you look closely, you’ll discover that this isn’t one vast sea of male faces. It’s a small pond, endlessly repeated.
Specifically, it’s this bit (from the upper left-hand corner) pasted over and over.
Also, when you look closely at these alleged “scientists” they turn out to be real blockheads. Yep, if you zoom in a little further you don’t find an assortment of tiny Einsteins and fig-sized Newtons. You get this:
All hail the founding pixels of science!
Heartiste, you may want to get your eyes checked for bigotry.
Thanks to dashapants for bringing this wondrous graphic and its repeating patterns to my attention.
…Was that quote on the original?
That pic just looks like one of those optical illusion things, which is appropriate, I guess.
Other than that, this is just “wut” nothingness from try-hard Fartiste.
Darn you Dr.Pixel and your doctorate in the field of science!
What’s this? PUAs posting meaningless scribble and claiming it proves something?
What he’s missing here is that the point of the original collage is that those specific women were cool and that you should know about them, not just that Women Did Stuff in general. He could have made a specific collage of male scientists who he thinks don’t get enough attention, and that would have been fine.
Manic Pixel Dream Scientists?
In much the same way that MRAs dismiss female athletes because they are inferior to the menz, even though those woman would utterly decimate them in any contest, the readers of Heartiste’s blog like to claim men are superior to women in scientific terms, when none of them would be able to hold a candle to any woman scientist.
He’s so frustratingly close. Yes, black people and women have been underrepresented in science. If he could just make that extra little logical leap to add “because assholes just like me have kept them out” then he’d be there.
This blog post brought to you by the PUA Coalition for Completely Missing The Point, All The Time, Forever.
<dog-based derail> Pixel is my dog’s name, and I think I am just going to assume we’re all talking about the same guy, it being funnier that way, and all. I didn’t know he had a doctorate in science, though! I only new about the BA in eating garbage and the Master’s in “fitting into improbably small spaces”. </dog-based derail>
I should know better than to try HTML anything without a preview. Please enjoy this episode of HTML Fail for Fun and Profit.
Even if there were fewer unknown female scientists than unknown male scientists, that wouldn’t really serve Heartiste’s biotruthy views. After all, patriarchal gender norms have made it difficult for women to even enter science altogether.
Pleased to meet you, Dr Pixel.
In related news, I hear only fugly men should do science. What white man, who can get away with… well, murder, actually, err, I mean, standing your ground, would spend 8 hours a day burying his nose into a book?
Arete – wouldn’t your Pixel have a Dogtorate?
Having seen what Fartiste looks like for realzies, I have to say he’s a fine one to be judging women on their looks. (Dude probably wears elevator shoes. And what is it with him and Roosh and their emo-douche hair?)
Most women in science don’t look like movie stars. It’s true. Most men in science don’t look like movie stars. Most people in the general population don’t look like movie stars or models. So what?
Also, who died and made Fartiste a SCIENTIST? Bro, do you even basic high school biology?
PS: I may no longer be a girl, but I was often told I could get away with murder because of my big brown innocent eyes. I happen to spend AT LEAST 8 hours a day with my nose buried in books, because I love them. Unlike PUAs, books are interesting. So, fuck you, Anonymous Internet Commenter Quoted By Fartiste.
Well that’s just pure laziness.
In general, people who don’t like to read are pretty boring.
Finally, we have ironclad proof that Roissy is fractally stupid. I suspect it goes all the way down to the quantum level.
“anonymous internet quote” sounds every bit as authoritative as “bathroom wall graffiti” or “fast food place mat”. They couldn’t even be bothered to dig up a quote from some credentialed hack like David Stove?
“Ok, sir, please read the letters in this line.”
“N… I… G… G…”
“Let’s stop there sir. Please.”
“Colorblindness test next?”
“I think that’s just going to be wasteful at this point.”
After taking off my glasses and giving the image close scrutiny, I believe I have found the faces in the zoomed selection.
Actually, I think the pixels are appropriate- most science is done by computers these days anyway.
I have no idea how to imbed an image.
http://oi58.tinypic.com/mwbevn.jpg
Oh boy, these guys not only surprise me constantly by finding new depths of awfulness but also new depths of gullibility.