Very cool: We humans have landed a space probe on a goddamned comet!
Not cool: when one European Space Agency dude gave an interview about the landing, he was wearing a shirt festooned with cheesecake images of scantily clad women.
Even less cool: when Atlantic magazine science writer Rose Eveleth pointed out that this choice of attire doesn’t exactly broadcast the message that women (other than scantily clad ones) are welcome in STEM, she received a torrent of abuse from angry Twitter dudes, including requests for her to kill herself.
The cherry atop this crap sundae? The nastiest Twitterer of the bunch, who not only went after Eveleth but her defenders as well, is a regular contributor to A Voice for Men.
The whole thing started off with a couple of tweets from Eveleth about the shirt. Here’s one of them:
https://twitter.com/roseveleth/status/532538957490561024
After this, the deluge:
And those are just some of the harassing tweets Eveleth retweeted. (I’ve highlighted the explicit death wishes for your convenience.)
You’ll notice that one of the death wishes (“Please kill yourself”) comes from a fellow named Christopher Cantwell.
If you take a look at his Twitter profile, you’ll see that this self-described “Anarchist, Atheist, Asshole” and Bitcoin fan had similar advice for a number of others who found the shirt troubling.
To wit:
Cantwell has also been sharing some of his charming thoughts about women in STEM.
So how does A Voice for Men respond to this sort of behavior by one of their regular contributors? They repost his blog entry on the, er, controversy, deriding concerns about the shirt as “feminist hysteria” and arguing that the real reason more women aren’t in STEM fields is that, well, they’re just not as smart as he is.
No, really:
The reason you don’t see women in highly technical fields nearly as often as you see men is not because of sexism. It certainly isn’t because of Matt Taylor’s shirt. You can’t even blame this on education anymore, since more women attend college than men. The issue at hand is one of simple aptitude and the choices people make as a result of that aptitude.
You gals remember choices, right? I seem to recall you caring about those things once upon a time.
If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. A society needs leaders and followers. In men, we see very high IQs figuring things out and working out these complex ideas. They document them in easy-to-understand ways for those of lesser intelligence in society and make technology available to all of us. We also see these low IQs, which are more suited to, say, mining the resources that this technology requires and operating the machines the geniuses designed. Women, traditionally carrying the role of raising children and supporting the men who designed and operated the machinery, needed to be somewhere in the middle. They couldn’t well manage the many complex tasks their role in society required of them without being smarter than the worker drones, but there wasn’t any need for them to be super geniuses who could land spacecraft on comets hundreds of millions of miles away either. …
For those of us at the upper end of the IQ spectrum, we are sentenced to a lifetime of watching stupidity like this run rampant. We will watch in horror for all of eternity as idiots dominate the headlines with their hysteria, responsibility avoidance, and demands for state privilege disguised as “equality.” We’ll see brilliant men like Matt Taylor smeared as being the worst type of bigot, simply because he’s smarter than the people who accuse him.
Yeah, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would complain about sexism in STEM.
No. Many of us do science because we care. I work on a bacterium that can cause some very serious illnesses in babies. I do it because I don’t want more babies to die. Your statement just generalized all scientists as being not very nice. Are there scientists who aren’t very nice? Yes, but they make up a small percentage of scientists. There are so many more amazing and wonderful and NICE people here too.
I agree that he should be reprimanded. Firing seems a bit extreme in this case, but if he does lose his job, it will be because of how he represented his employer. It’s the same reason that many companies have dress codes, particularly for employees that interact with the public. They want to project the best image possible and that shirt does not do it. His representation of the organization was unprofessional. That’s all there is to it.
Also, if anyone hasn’t heard, apparently a friend made that shirt for him.
Niceness inhibits Science, it’s elementary Skycastlian logic. The inverse proportionality of Science V Niceness has been investigated by such prestigious institutions as the School of Some Guy, What That Bloke Said, The Assocation of Bartenders, Whiskey and Late Night Theories and even given credit by the research think thank of Wait, What if?
You’ll find that each time someone says “thank you” their ability to falsify their hypothesis empirically decreases, while their desire for reading fantasy fiction and write soliloquies increase.
It’s only reasonable. And it bears out in reality. I’ve done some Science to test it myself.
Unfortunately my conclusion might be tainted by the fact that some fella once called me “An awful nice bloke”; and I fear that my ability to interpret scatterplot graphs of multi-variate composite mathematical statistics has, ever since, been only somewhat below average.
ej: I was reading that the shirt’s maker also happens to be female, which predictably the shirt-defenders have jumped all over as “evidence” that it’s not sexist.
Ugh, if there’s one thing I hate more than unreasonable criticism it’s hysterical backlash to reasonable criticism . Seriously, the discussion about his shirt was even toned and brief, and yet the manosphere explodes like she demanded his head on a platter.
And as people have pointed out, even if we take the sexism problem out of it, there’s still the issue that he wore THAT shirt to represent a major company on a historical day. From a business perspective alone, it’s a double facepalm moment. Good lord what was he thinking?!
I bet he’ll look back at this in a few years and want to crawl into a hole.
I have a friend who works with comnputers whose department was going to be filmed for something. The previous day was spent in lectures about what was or was not appropriate to wear or say.
Now I get with the comet-landing this wasn’t possible or wanted. And
Comet landing! WOOOO!
But surely a publicity person at the door or the room being filmed with some jackets or jumpers to shove on people wearing something stupid could have been managed ?
I’m an atheist and I feel totally embarassed when someone connects or tries to explain their own misogyny (and eventual homophobia, racism, ableism, and ageism, amongst others) to their beliefs, or rather lack of.
Being an atheist doesn’t make anyone an automatic jack@ss. If you’re an @sshole, you’ll just be that way no matter your religion/non-religion.
That being said…
“The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate.”
I thought it was fairly obvious that the shirt was a gag between friends that should have stayed between friends.
Knowing some Masters-degree level physicists, the lack of “appropriate” attire doesn’t surprise me. Not the sexism part – dudes I know are hella feminist- but no shits are given if anyone wants to wear socks and sandals while they calculate launch sequences. So I think the fact nobody called him out on it is to do with that, when the standard is already “casual whatever”, it’s harder to notice and point out something that’s off-colour (Like 11-year old boys wearing “sexy nun” outfits at my school’s Children In Need fancy-dress day). It sort of blurs the standard for “appropriateness”.
But yeah, whatever the office culture and tolerances for everyday Physicist-wear at the ESA, I’m surprised nobody sent out a memo for business shirts and closed shoes for that one big event.
That said, at least it gives a good focal-point for a discussion about everyday sexism and how it affects women in STEM fields. Let’s hope they actually address the issue, rather than just changing the dress-code.
It’s not even as if the workplace dress code needs to be a high bar. People don’t have high expectation of sartorial excellence when it comes to scientists. In fact, if he’d shown up in a smart suit, half the viewing public would think “who is this MBA? Show me the real scientists, the ones who look like they don’t care about clothes!” That may not be a fair stereotype, but it is kinda liberating. Just don’t dress like you want women to be afraid of you, you know?
Wow, I didn’t expect to get so slammed. Does this mean I get to do a troll challenge? I am perfectly willing to do it, but it will most likely require me some trial and error to get it right.
I apologize in advance to everyone for using italics to quote them, but I can’t quite figure out how to tame the “Quote Monster” yet.
@kittehserf
One precious male is soooooo important, can’t be doing anything to say this behaviour is unacceptable now, can we?
Could you please tell me, where exactly in my previous post, I am endorsing his behaviour? Where exactly am I saying that he shouldn’t face any consequences for his actions? Where exactly, am I saying that what he did was acceptable?
I don’t think I am even indirectly implying it, but if that’s the impression I gave, I apologize.
In case, I wasn’t clear, I’ll say it outright: What Matt Taylor wore was deplorable and unacceptable. The fact that he was the manager of the team that made the comet landing, doesn’t somehow excuse his behaviour, and he should, at the very least get reprimanded for this.
@pallygirl
And I fucking noticed what you did there, we’re discussing a man and you bring your damn point to include women as well. Fuck off you dishonest shit, including women in science only as being unidentified in a morass of scientists who are arseholes is not fucking helping women in science either.
I am sorry but I don’t quite understand what you are trying to say. Are you saying that women shouldn’t engage in the same behaviour as that guy with the shirt? If that’s what you are saying, I agree.
Look, have you heard of the Hawkeye Project? Where artists are encouraged to draw Hawkeye in the same poses that women are drawn in super hero comic books in order to highlight the sexism in the Comic Book Industry?
The principle is the same: You call out the sexist behaviour of others by putting a focus on their behaviour in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable and forces them to think.
And the two guys you pulled out as evidence, Einstein died in 1955 and Tesla in 1943. Way to prove your point that current science is being advanced by not particularly nice men. Who fucking cares what Einstein and Tesla were like – were they on TV in the past week wearing an offensive bowling shirt?
You are correct, Einstein and Tesla’s views of women were very much a product of their time. There are, however, many other more recent examples of scientists behaving like assholes -Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and Phylis Mason come to mind- and behaving in increasingly sexist, harassing and inappropriate ways. And these are people who, by today’s standards should know better!
I used Tesla and Einstein as examples, because their contributions to science as they stand are irrefutable, and because they are often quoted by MRAs (in fact, there is an Einstein article on AVfM). Dawkins’, Krauss’ and Mason’s contributions to science are still debatable but you still can’t deny the fact that some very smart people, who are very good at their fields can believe some very stupid and sexist shit.
This DOESN’T make it all right, and this sort of behaviour needs to be called out for what it is.
I don’t object or refute anything else that you are saying. I am glad that my other arguments got a good slamdown and I can finally bury them.
@Ice and Indigo
I don’t think anyone’s suggesting anything more extreme than an official telling-off and a non-sexist dress code, are they? No one’s even proposing a non-dorky dress code: the world’s full of ugly shirts he could wear that aren’t all boobies and be-hinds.
The thing is, I just know that this guy is on his way out soon. I am willing to bet money on it.
After reading through pallygirl’s rebuttal, I don’t think that him losing his job over this is wrong anymore. I still think it’s a pity, but I no longer think it’s wrong.
In other not-really-good-news…national exposure for AVfM
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dean-esmay/dont-ask-dont-tell-dont-t_b_6153578.html
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I find it very ironic that girls and women are perpetually reprimanded for their choice of clothes with work environments, school environments, oh and let’s not forget how important our clothes become if we are raped!!! But the moment a male’s attire is commented on, then all of a sudden we are “thought police” and unattractive and should just jump off a cliff. SMH, and these are the poeple who mandate there is no need for feminism, and we are evil…..I cannot speak for everyone, but I, nor any feminist I know, have never built ourselves up by tearing others down. Especially in the manner which they have chosen. BOOOOOO
They fixed his shirt for him over at the mary sue. It is excellent!
http://www.themarysue.com/we-fixed-it/
The problem seems to go something like:
– There aren’t many women in science.
– Men in science don’t have much exposure to women at work.
– Men in science act like they have little exposure to women in the workplace to the point of sexism (“I can wear this shirt and noone will be offended”) – whether intentional or through sheer cluelessness.
– Women see this behaviour and don’t want to be around it/don’t feel like they could be a part of the community.
– So women don’t sign up, and go and do something else.
– There aren’t many women in science.
Vicious cycles can be really hard to break, especially when you have no influence over them (i.e. you’re an outsider).
So it needs people on the inside to make an effort to break the cycle, and if all it takes is things like not wearing that shirt to work – well, as I’ve seen many feminists told when they ask for tiny things like this – “boohoo, cry me a river”. I’m sure it won’t hurt too much to wear something else.
It sucks that people don’t get that “I have the right to wear what I want” doesn’t trump, “I have the right to work without having soft porn in my face all day”.
lensman – maybe you’ve got something with the Yaoi shirt idea.
thebewilderness: I saw that earlier too. 😀 So now the real question is: how long will it take for someone to start making shirts like that. I bet they’d be super popular.
I think so too. They are looking in to what it would take to get the high res pictures on a tee.
thebewilderness: That re-make is awesome!
Yup. It’s another “Guys, don’t do that” moment.
lensman:
The problem with your post was that you only talked about what shouldn’t happen, which invariably makes it seem like that is the only thing on the table. Sure, you said the shirt was inappropriate, but then you seemed to be setting up a false binary of “fired/no response” as the only options, because you only talked about firing. If, instead, you’d said something akin to, “Okay, the culture here is obviously bad, so firing the guy outright for this is not really fair–he’s obviously been conditioned to being blinded to it. Instead, the ESA should take a good, hard look at their policies, and do a company-wide effort at raising awareness; this fellow in particular would be a good candidate for some sort of mandatory consciousness training,” no one would’ve blinked twice.
Also, the ‘scientists aren’t nice’ thing was just kinda out of left field. Sure, there are historical examples of not-nice scientists who made incredible strides. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be employed usefully AND corrected when they step out of line.
Whoa! This Cantwell guy styles himself an anarcho-synicalist? I really hope he has a dream wherein Emma Goldman does some propaganda of the deed on him. Seriously.
One of the many things I wonder about shirt guy is, who thought putting someone with this shockingly bad judgment in charge of anything.
I’ve been following this via Facebook; the group organizing the anti-RSD resistance thinks the venue may be the Marriott Hotel near Potsdamer Platz. So it looks like they’ll be doing what Destroy the Joint did in Australia, and going after the venue until the government declares him persona non grata.
I’m translating as much of this as I can into English for my blog. The petitions against RSD seem to have worked, so far, in every place they’ve been done. Blanc has been barred entry to Korea and Brazil, thanks to Chang.org and Avaaz petitions.
Yep, that’s pretty much what I figured. If you’re not a fucktoy, you’re a killjoy, a boner-wilter, a ball-bustin’ bitch.
How tiresome it must be to be stuck in that mindset.
*Change.org, aargh. Here, Typo Monster, have another bite.
The problem is that his stupidity got in the way of his smarts. That’s the real problem here. That shirt is unprofessional and does nothing to raise the profile of the mission. It also makes him, personally, look like a sexist idiot. And it demonstrates that the organization failed to organize properly. If they wear idiotic, sexist shirts on TV, what does that say to the home viewers, especially bright young girls considering STEM careers? And what does it say about mission unity and inclusive workplaces?
A better solution than the “moar freeze peach” approach would have been to issue shirts with the team logo on them to all members, and require them to wear them, no exceptions, no stupid crap on top. That would have accomplished plenty: furthering a non-toxic, non-sexist work environment, promoting team unity, boosting their professional image (which matters more than anyone thinks), and hey, it’s also a nice souvenir of a successful never-been-done-before sciency thing.
I’ve gone over a few comments and I suppose you guys are right. Whether the scientist meant meant harm or sexism over the shirt is a bit of a moot point. It’s one more piece of male privilege.
Bina: I’ve been following the UK petition to keep him out on Facebook. It seems to be working, but of course there is backlash.
Namely, a different petition to allow him entry, a particularly loud voice in a small crowd claiming that he’s not a racist, or sexist, that he hasn’t committed any crimes and isn’t hurting anyone.
I tried to point out to one guy that he DID commit a crime in Japan (forcible indecency) with video evidence, and was met with, essentially, “since he hasn’t been put in jail it means he didn’t break the law.”
VIDEO. FUCKING. EVIDENCE!!