So Richard Dawkins is calling astronomer Jennifer L Hoffman a pompous idiot then.

Jennifer L. Hoffman @astroprofhoff

.@weswt @missafayres Am I serious about being respected by colleagues in my professional environment? Uh, yes. #shirtstorm
9:00 PM – 12 Nov 2014

I wonder how many other colleagues and perhaps friends he’s calling pompous idiots.

I think I’ll collect some. Feel free to assist.

There’s Phil Plait:

I tweet about the sexist shirt worn by a scientist & get thoughtful replies. @roseveleth does the same and gets monumentally harassed.

There’s Sean Carroll:

Rosetta landing shows humans are awesome; Rosetta scientist shows individual humans have a long way to go. #shirtgate http://t.co/81UEUFi6x7
5:13 PM – 12 Nov 2014

There’s Jacques Rousseau:

.@GretaChristina explains (something that shouldn’t need explanation) why Matt Taylor’s shirt was offensive: http://t.co/XUukeo7QMi … #Rosetta
1:52 AM – 15 Nov 2014

As context for some concerns sparked by (not about) #Rosetta shirt, this piece on sexism in academic science: http://t.co/B9iQHfr4UZ
7:42 AM – 15 Nov 2014

There’s drug monkey:

Which reminds me- hey scis who want to be edgy and rad….try a man-bun instead of an offensive shirt
11:17 AM – 15 Nov 2014

H/t Hj Hornbeck

There are:

Dr. Raychelle Burks
Dr. Pamela Gay
Dr. Gwen Pearson, “Bug” Gwen just did a couple retweets, which was probably pompous, according to Dawkins
Dr. Nicole Gugliucci

H/t kellym

There is Carolyn Porco:

Carolyn Porco gave Richard Dawkins a response on Twitter, and he took down one of his silly tweets: https://twitter.com/carolynporco/status/533728652739899392

H/t Xanthë

There’s hydrogeologist Scott K Johnson:

.@RichardDawkins Wish you would respect other women’s viewpoints of it more, in addition to @carolynporco ‘s.

Stephanie’s off the top of her head list:

Emily Willingham:https://twitter.com/ejwillingham/status/533356011168346112

Alice Bell: https://twitter.com/alicebell/status/533607352449376258

Jacquelyn Gill:https://twitter.com/JacquelynGill/status/533472965967757312

Tom Levenson:https://twitter.com/TomLevenson/status/533359454470045696

Ed Yong: https://twitter.com/edyong209/status/533030472587423746

Ben Lillie: https://twitter.com/BenLillie/status/533305119379435520

Maryn McKenna:https://twitter.com/marynmck/status/532981583905849344

MarieClaire Shanahan:https://twitter.com/mcshanahan/status/532967134398140416

Melanie Tannenbaum:https://twitter.com/melanietbaum/status/533603167381237760

Sarcastic Rover:https://twitter.com/SarcasticRover/status/533024338341937153

 

Huh. I thought it was over. I thought it had ended well, and we were all going to move on. I thought it had ended well and without bitterness and recriminations. I thought Matt Taylor had said damn, that was a really bad move and I’m sorry, and we had all figuratively embraced him and gone back to rejoicing at the success of the Rosetta mission. (Not that we had stopped. I’m seeing people complaining of “radfems” fussing about a shirt instead of paying attention the the success of the Rosetta mission. Wrong. We were doing both. It’s nice not to have a shirt cluttering things up though.) I thought it was done and dusted.

I’m so naïve.

Richard Dawkins on Twitter.

Do not blame feminism for the pompous idiots whining about a Rosetta scientist’s shirt. True feminism is bigger and better than that.

Many congratulations to Matt Taylor and the Rosetta team on an amazing feat of space engineering. Such things make me proud to be human.

Remind me – who made Richard Dawkins the arbiter of what true feminism is?

[Read more…]

Ed Yong wrote a post in 2010 about a study of how objectification silences women.

Many people brush off the importance of men staring at women’s bodies.

Tamar Saguy is different. Leading a team of Israeli and US psychologists, she has shown that women become more silent if they think that men are focusing on their bodies. They showed that women who were asked to introduce themselves to an anonymous male partner spent far less time talking about themselves if they believed that their bodies were being checked out. Men had no such problem. Nor, for that matter, did women if they thought they were being inspected by another woman. [Read more…]

News not news: Brendan O’Neill “argues” dishonestly.

Case in point: he has a stupid rant about how the Grand Old Feminism of Yesteryear has reversed course and gone all wrong. You know what it is without looking – feminism used to be brave and tuff and liberatory, and now it’s all about being viccctimzzzzzzzz. The first few paragraphs could have come from Christina Hoff Sommers or Richard Dawkins or TIME magazine. Then he gets into particulars, and that’s where the dishonesty comes in. [Read more…]

Surprising no one anywhere (maybe that can be  one of TIME’s “words” to be banned next year), TIME’s offering of “feminism” as a candidate for its annual “what word should be banned” poll provided inspiration for the kind of people who hate feminism. How could TIME possibly have foreseen that??! Other than by thinking about it for a quarter of a second, that is.

Yes, why does everyone have to talk about feminism? Why can’t we all just be feminists quietly? At home? Only very late at night when everybody’s sleeping? Or like in our teeny tiniest voices? Or in a soundproof hyperbaric chamber, maybe, where it won’t, like, bother anybody?

Ok, maybe that’s not quite fair, but making a case for banning a word that refers to a mass social movement alongside the nonsense phrase “om nom nom” is pretty stupid. So stupid we suspected it’s the work of 4Chan’s /b/ board, and we were correct. Over at /b/, the Internet’s home for barely potty-trained trolls, everyone’s being encouraged to vote for “feminist,” with one user declaring, brightly, “Let’s trigger some bitches.”

And that’s exactly why there’s no need for feminism any more and the word should be banned.

Obvi.