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.
You know, landing a space probe on a comet is one of those “humanity’s finest hour” moments that should unite the world in pride. Everyone should be holding hands on a hilltop, crooning “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”.
So, when you’re announcing this incredible human achievement to the world at a press conference, and you’re dressed like some dirtbag looking for action at the local bar, it pretty much undermines that inclusive, all-of-humanity message. The shirt’s problematic not because it’s tacky, but because depicting women as half-naked, degraded, sexualized decorations implies that science is a boy’s club, cishet men are the default humans (who else is this shirt aimed at?) and boner-pleasing must get equal billing with landing a probe on a frigging comet. It’s terrible optics. Not only does it alienate half the world population, it’s insulting to the female scientists who were part of the mission, and it’s just a general humanity fail. 10,000 years of civilization and scientific advances culminating in this incredible undreamed-of moment, and we’re still acting like pigs about women?
If I were the comet, I’d send the probe back and say “try again later, humans.”
As for the Twitter creeps who think this is all about women being fashion police, it’s interesting how many of these “lofty IQ” guys are low-level literal thinkers, completely unable to grasp things like symbolism and dog whistles. Talk about missing the point.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/11231320/Rosetta-mission-scientist-Dr-Matt-Taylor-cries-during-apology-over-offensive-shirt.html
Maybe he learned something? Maybe he’ll think, I mean really think, about his actions and how his assumptions feed sexualised aggression?
Maybe I’m too optimistic?
I can’t buy the whole “He wasn’t thinking about what he was wearing” schtick.
I used to work at an animation company that had a much different standard of “professionalism” than most places do. Drawing naked people is an essential cornerstone of our education. Female designers had their bishi pin-ups, male designers had their sexy pinup cartoon women, and several of the women would join the openly gay producer at the beginning of each month for the ceremonial unveil of the naked dude of the month on his calendar.
But when we had bankers, school tours or government officials come in, the management would give us a day’s notice to ensure the office was clear of any “R-rated” materials, and warn the director not to wear the “Fed Sex” joke shirt.
Trying to pretend that one of the greatest accomplishments in space exploration would be just another day at the office staggers imagination. They had social media managers tweeting everything. He swapped shirts later on, so It’s obvious at some point someone realized it was inappropriate. I’m betting it only happened when they saw the pushback on twitter.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/rosetta-scientist-matt-taylor-is-really-sorry-about-his-shirt
Daggers!
Ninja’d.
Shade’s link is better.
I’m impressed he had the guts to apologise like that, that must have been really hard. Especially given that wasn’t the question. I don’t think you can do that and not learn.
Probably true because the tweets were pretty good and I’m guessing the social media managers would be aware enough to think “He appeared on tv wearing that shirt? Oh crap!”
This is such a huge problem amongst male nerds. Seeing women as sex objects is one of the main features of macho culture. More so than being a jock in my opinion because a lot of athletes are good guys. The Ray Rice types may get all the press and there are certainly problems in jock culture but I’ve met plenty of athletic guys who aren’t sexist. Male nerds to realize that being nerdy does not insulate them from toxic masculinity. They may have been the victims of it at times, but so are women. They’re just turning their toxic masculinity on women instead of other men. That’s not okay.
I also don’t get why whoever wrote that piece thinks that nerd culture is about merit more than jock culture. They’re just different merits. Success in both intellectual and athletic pursuits are due to a combination of natural talent and hard work. Nerdy men need to quit acting like they’re some sort of master race because they can code well or memorize every bit of Star Wars trivia.
As someone who is a little on the nerdy side, I’m glad geeky stuff has become socially acceptable. But it is unfortunately leading to a lot of aggrieved entitlement amongst the more privileged members of geek circles.
This is only tangentially related, but I really hate when people call The Big Bang Theory “nerd blackface” or “nerd minstrelry.” Ugh. Just no.
@Lensman,
And I believe it’s wrong to exclude half of humanity’s finest scientific minds from places like the ESA by creating an environment that is actively hostile toward them. Who knows what we could have achieved by now if douchebags like this weren’t making it difficult or impossible for women to even contribute?
Also – and I say this as a lifelong scifi nerd and NASA fangirl – I’m not gonna cry over one ESA scientist losing his job, because the lives of the 3 billion women down here on Earth are more important right now than putting shit in outer space.
Also, did everyone see BarnBurner’s link upthread? Apparently Dean Esmay is writing for the Huffington Post.
Oh geez. Don’t read the comments on that Telegraph article.
Women make mild criticisms like “that shirt was offensive and considering the history of sexism in STEM fields, maybe it wasn’t the best idea.”
Angry dudebros respond by telling feminists to kill themselves, they cry fascism, they liken feminists to Nazis, they make melodramatic declarations of western civilization collapsing under the terrifying jackboot of political correctness.
Then in the same comment they declare “SJWs” to be the irrational overly emotional ones.
Seems legit.
I’m gonna say this: The guy’s apology was actually decent. The organization should still issue one, as well, but I’m heartened by the lack of weasel-language and excuse-making in the simple, “It was wrong, I offended people, and I’m sorry” nature of the statement.
He apologized. He admitted at least that the shirt was offensive and he apologized.
No one has requested his dismissal, even though the shirt constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace. We just pointed out that the shirt is sexist and wearing it on international TV had a negative impact on real people.
So, Dudebros,
His job is secure. He admits he made a mistake. Hopefully now we can have a meaningful public discourse about why we need feminism, how men can be better allies, how women can address internalized misogyny and how the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
Done. This isn’t personal. This is not even about the man in the ugly shirt. His intentions, do not matter. His action, it’s context and it’s impact matter. That women talk about it without getting harassed and threatened matters.
Him admitting his mistake does improve my opinion of him. That does not mean this conversation does not need to continue because:
THIS ISN”T EVEN ABOUT HIM.
He’s not under attack. He’s not getting threats. He may be embarrassed right now over his own actions and how many people saw him screw up at being a good person detracting from a monumental occasion that should have been inspiring to all people. He’ll get over it and hopefully do better. That’s what all decent people do. We stumble, we sometimes fail and then we get back up and try to do better. He doesn’t seem to be scared of criticism. You are.
This isn’t about you either, unless you are an unrepentant misogynist, asshole. Then, fuck you. This is all about you and how we’re not going to shut up and go away. You are going to have to get used to uppity ladies and their friends calling you out.
And yes, the comments in that same article were just vile. *Sigh*
Yeah, sorry about that, I should’ve warned everyone that the comments on that link suck! 🙁
You know, I hate to be all “please someone think of the children!” here but as a child I was obsessed with space. I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. I would’ve been following this story along with my dad if this had happened when I was a kid. This stuff is what we used to bond over.
I’m sure there are tons of girls today who are just like I was. The message they are getting is that if they have the smarts and put in the hard work to work for a space agency when they grow up, it’s still going to come secondary to boner pleasing. I’m glad the apology seemed to be sincere, but still. It’s just really sad.
How did the dude tweeting that a woman was ugly as a way of dismissing her critisism not see that he was making her point for her?
The depiction of women as sex objects enforces and amplifies society’s treatment of women as existing for men to put their dicks in and having babies when the patriarchy tells them to. Sex objects may not have standards or demand respect. They are object for boners and if they are not servicing the appropriate boner, then they don’t matter.
Sex objects do not do science either. Being sex objects they cannot ever be a man’s equal. They are never smart or strong or anything else, unless they are malfunctioning. Then you can do what you like to them to “fix” them again.
That is not remotely like saying that women cannot express their sexuality. Pictures of naked, ridiculously posed, sexual caricatures of women have no self to express. They were not women. A man was literally wearing them as sexy ornaments.
Had one of the female scientists shown up to be interviewed in what the pictures of women the man was wearing were, she’d have been fired. The double standard should be obvious.
That’s what was wrong with the shirt and how does this asshat respond to a woman criticizing it? He tells her she’s ugly and he truly believes that is a valid refutation of her criticism.
Just.
Wow.
@Wwth, not just that but that if you do get into the space agency, your manager, the person printed over you to be tesponsible for your wellbeing, will be the guy who wears that shirt to work. ????
Not printed, promoted. Damn you, autocorrect
Bah, so I wrote this whole long post about how even if a woman had a shirt full of sexy men, it wouldn’t have the same effect on the type of men who would think Taylor’s shirt was okay. It wouldn’t make them sexually uncomfortable in the same way.
I linked to a shirt on zazzle that I think would actually have a similar effect on that type of man…but my whole post is gone, not even pending. Is it because I linked to a vending site? Or maybe I just broke the html. Or maybe I just wrote too much, lol.
I’m sad now.
And then when someone reminds them that they don’t actually own the universe they sulk like toddlers told that they can’t have any ice cream before dinner, and occasionally throw kicking, screaming tantrums like toddlers told they can’t have a mars bar at the supermarket checkout.
@ creepycukcake
You’re aware that neither the general public nor the media is forced to interact with your Facebook wall in order to find out what happened in science today/as part of doing their job, right? Put whatever you want in the background on your social media accounts as long as it’s not gore, but don’t wear it to work (or have it up on your work computer if it’s porny). This isn’t complicated.
This is what people objecting to dude’s shirt were actually suggesting should have happened, rather than a public execution preceded by a gala where everyone throws rotten tomatoes at him.
The real point to take away from all this, though?
The thing is, even if it was an a subconscious level, that’s probably part of why he chose to wear that shirt. And that’s why people are so pissed off, because the culture of the STEM field constantly reinforces that idea that women’s place in the universe is as sex dispensing units designed to service men, and this dude put that attitude on display during what should have been a triumphal moment, thus sending the message “this triumph isn’t for you, ladies, your job here is to give the hero a congratulatory blow job”. Which is something that women have every right to be angry about.
@ lensman
Ah, so you’re back to whining about the evil feminists oppressing men. Notice the complete lack of surprise from everyone else here.
mistyful: Did it throw up an error or anything? Maybe the mods or David can shed some light on it. If it’s not pending though, I wouldn’t hold out much hope. 🙁
I usually copy-paste big posts into a text file before I hit post, since blogs (especially WordPress ones) can be so damn picky sometimes about what they want to do with your comments.
Maybe I am being too cynical but I can’t help but wonder if his remorse is about the fact that pretty much everyone in his field, to say nothing of the rest of the world, now know he is in to BDSM. Not something that most people would want to have as general knowledge.