By all rights, the furor over rocket scientist Matt Taylor’s cheesecake shirt should have died down by now. After being chided earlier this week for marring the celebration over the landing of a space probe ON A GODDAMNED COMET by doing interviews in a tacky shirt covered with half-naked ladies, Taylor offered a brief but heartfelt apology. You would have thought we’d all be able to move on.
Not so fast. Because these days apparently no controversy can ever be over as long as it serves someone’s interest to keep it going. And so a loose but very familiar coalition of reactionaries and antifeminists and angry techies have started flogging an amorphous cause they call #Shirtgate or, more popularly, #Shirtstorm, purporting to be outraged that Taylor was “humiliated” into apologizing.
So many of the angriest voices in this, er, conversation are #GamerGaters it looks a lot like a sequel. Call it GamerGate Part Two: The Straw Graspening. And it’s not just me making the connection: #GamerGaters and #Shirtstormers, often one and the same, are making the connection:
So radical #shirtstorm SJW have attacked my games my #gamergate revolt and now they are attacking #science. Am i allowed to be mad ?
— Anti-ProcrusteanBed ☀️🏴 (@antiprocrustes) November 16, 2014
I am a man. I'm sick of hearing that because of my gender, my opinions don't count and sexism towards me isn't real. #GamerGate #shirtstorm
— Lord Inquisitor Ineptus Astartes (@AstartesIneptus) November 16, 2014
https://twitter.com/Scrumpmonkey/status/533409838207078400
Heck, our old friend Milo is making the connection:
Note to those infuriated by poor Dr Matt Taylor and #shirtstorm: this is what #GamerGate has been fighting against. Are you getting it yet?
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) November 15, 2014
Oh, it’s a veritable #GamerGate Old Home Week! GG mainstays Thunderf00t and Mundane Matt have rushed out videos about The Shirt.
People are making graphics covered with hard-to-read text:
There are giant complicated conspiracy theory graphics covered with red lines and angry red text. This one notes that Chris Plante, who wrote an article criticizing Taylor’s shirt, also wrote one of the now-notorious “Gamers are Dead” pieces.
https://twitter.com/Reyeko_/status/533482641774100480
Apparently there were a few dudes who were none too pleased with Plante’s story on The Shirt:
https://twitter.com/plante/status/533244307105648640
#Shirtstormers wrote angry “letters” in too-small-type. (Click here for larger, more readable version and here for one with angry graphics, too.)
https://twitter.com/Alpha_duck1/status/533698520100777984
While others tried to draw a parallel between Taylor’s alleged “humiliation” and … rape.
#shirtgate #SupportMattTaylor #GamerGate pic.twitter.com/L8s1GrOow7
— Mark 🐸 🗑 Samenfink (@MSamenfink) November 16, 2014
#ShirtStorm #shirtgate Matthew 7:1 pic.twitter.com/bRXr7bA1Si
— Be Just & Fear Not | Let None Survive (@SuperNerdMike) November 16, 2014
Neo-reactionaries and “Dark Enlightenment” types see opportunity in the #Shirtstorm hashtag.
https://twitter.com/voxday/status/533336186535030784
Don't judge me because of what I'm wearing – unless I'm a guy. Then you can define my personality and try to ruin my life. #shirtgate #NRx
— VDARE (@vdare) November 15, 2014
https://twitter.com/antidemblog/status/533341319184531456
https://twitter.com/BernardChapin/status/533628518077186049
As do MRAs:
https://twitter.com/deanesmay/status/533758421158227969
As does this familiar name:
Women do not face a hostile climate in science. And they can handle seeing a guy in an edgy shirt. #GamerGate https://t.co/8gvTyo0bg6
— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) November 16, 2014
They’re all there, all hoping to turn a debate over a shirt into another endless internet Benghazi.
His exact words were ““I made a big mistake and I offended many people, and I am very sorry about this.””
He gets that his behavior was a distraction and offensive to many people.
Some people seem to be reading a great deal more into the apology than is there.
Along the same lines as #GamerGhazi, the HT #ShirtGhazi is already a thing for mocking this idiocy. 😀
@kirbywarp Oops, I forgot. These guys are Olympian-level rationalization gymnasts.
I first saw the hashtag #shirtstorm used by some of the leading female scientists on Twitter, like @kejames and @drrubidium, so the gamergaters co-opted it from them, I think.
If this hasn’t been mentioned, there seems to be more of a shit fit about the shirt objection than the shirt on this. How is this anymore about science? It seems the nutters have found another wedge issue for their cause they know little to nothing about.
They pretty much seem to believe that men are always right, no matter what, and women are always wrong.
The gamergate goons piled on Anita Sarkeesian for months, including death and rape threats, then when she complains tell her “It’s just the Internet! Grow a thicker skin.”
The exact same yahoos are now throwing a tantrum because a scientist almost cried for 10 seconds after a couple of days of criticism of his public appearance representing a government agency.
I can’t make this stuff up.
I’m wondering if ESA management kind of set Matt Taylor up for this #shirtstorm, encouraging him to be hip and cool, and he took it way too far.
Matt Taylor has only been working on Rosetta a couple of years, he was formerly working on northern lights research. All the profiles of him being such a cool guy and a scientist too seem to be a good part of why he was hired for the position of lead scientist — to project a hip geeky image for Rosetta and ESA.
This may help explain why no one questioned his choice of attire — that was part of the job the execs at ESA hired him to do, to be edgy.
I also wonder if none of the women he worked with said anything to him because they wanted to see him get his comeuppance in public. He has twitter pics seeming to show him wearing the shirt to the office in October. Since he was the lead scientist, maybe no one felt free to say anything about it, or maybe someone said something and he blew it off.
I do want to know if that shirt is considered acceptable workplace attire at ESA.
I accept Matt’s apology and don’t feel he needs to be further punished, assuming he’s been thoroughly educated on proper workplace decorum now.
But the ESA management and PR team still have some explaining to do. This was a livestream they tried to get into schools! A major part of the mission of NASA and ESA is education, to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. How could they not have planned and supervised the proceedings with a general audience, including school kids, in mind? ESA, not just Matt Taylor, owe the public and the science teachers / students an apology, imho.
Is this a spoof?
http://www.imagesbuddy.com/images/180/giving-boys-the-best-possible-start-in-life-international-mens-day-november-19th.jpg
That has been international mens day for quite a few years. Men freuently complain that there is none but there is and it is Nov 19.
And it’s right in men’s health month too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember
Sadly, I failed at my misandry this month as I am sponsoring two men for Movember.
Well its being hijacked
https://www.facebook.com/international.mens.day
AVFM: Stop trying to claim other organizations successes and missions as your own. The international men’s day was totally not your idea, and the organization’s web page is much prettier than your knockoff.
Real url: http://www.internationalmensday.com/
I’m so tempted to shoot them a message about AVFM hijacking them, because I’m pretty sure they’d find it repugnant.
I’d even argue they’re being condescending to Taylor as well as the shirt’s artist – they’re adults and, like any grown-up, should be able to handle criticism. I’m pretty sure they’ve had to deal with far worse criticism when it came to their work. They aren’t small children who need protecting.
Even some FB friends of mine are erroneously claiming he was “forced” into giving said apology, as if they knew what he was thinking and thus have some authority to make such a claim. Taylor willingly wore the shirt, he got called out for it, and decided to apologize for it. There is no reason for this to still be an issue – but the same over-sensitive people who fault others for being over-sensitive (’cause, hey, who cares about being hypocritical?) have to drag it out, instead of just letting it pass and move on.
International Men’s Day? Isn’t that EVERY day?
Actually, just did email them.
GW contrapangloss. This op looks similar to that White Ribbon.org thing from earlier. Maybe the Dark Lord should have a look too
proxieme – weasels in a trenchcoat! Are they related to the ferrets in cat suits in a human suit we know to be David? O:
Interesting looking at the IMD logos, too. The one on the left is presumably by AVFM, or some other anon on the internet, and is — as one would expect — absolutely awful.
The one on the right is the official logo, and is actually mildly clever. I didn’t realise sticking a dot over a capital M would make a little cartoon of a person in a suit jacket!
Damnit, did it again. Why won’t WordPress remember my preferences?
Shouldn’t the FBI be interested? Should we be alerting the relevant consumer protection organisations in our countries?
@gelar
I highly, highly doubt that. Especially if the dudes are doing the same poses the half-naked women on Taylor’s shirt are.
It’s ironic how there are so many “things women wear that men hate” articles out on the Internet, but once a woman starts criticizing a man’s outfit, it’s apparently the end of the world. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say, if these dudes can’t handle their clothing choices being critiqued, wouldn’t that make them the ~*delicate flowers*~?
In arguing the claim that men are just better at mathematics and have a ‘natural’ preference for working in STEM fields as opposed to women (who have ‘a propensity’ for work in humanities), she states, “These days it’s politically radioactive to deny that everyone is good at everything and no one is better than anyone else”, and then ends with a little mocking laugh to herself. I can’t even.
Yeah, a big part of Sommers’s schtick is that everything is biologically determined and the existing gender imbalances are 100% natural and unchangeable… as long as the balance favors men. If women outperform men in some area, suddenly society is a huge influence and there’s a secret “war against boys” keeping the men down, because a powerful anti-male conspiracy is the only possible explanation for women excelling at anything.
Leave it to Sommers to weigh in on this kerfluffle with the charming stance of “It’s great that incidents like this might discourage girls from studying science, because girls are stupid and have nothing to contribute anyway.” Christ, what an asshole.
So this site is trolling feminism right? Disgusting!
Finally, the excuse they needed because “ethics in videogame journalism” was just too laughable. Now they can stop pretending to care about that and just get outraged at feminism existing.
My cousin Ellen — who started her career as a professor of molecular biology at Cal-Berkeley — wrote a book entitled “Every Other Thursday” about a group of woman scientists that she participated in in the Bay Area that was specifically formed to help woman scientists to overcome problems in their careers. The argument that women naturally prefer the humanities may be factually correct but it is bogus — just because more women choose the humanities (some because of the hostility they anticipate facing in the sciences) is no justification for excluding women who have the interest and aptitude to excel in the sciences. It would make as much sense to tell a man who is good at writing but not math, “No, it’s the sciences or nothing for you, buddy.” This is the sort of thing that cost Larry Summers his job as president of Harvard — stupidly saying discouraging things about women in science.
(Could it be that there is something about the name Summers, no matter how you spell it or whether you acquired it by birth or marriage?)