Seeing the unseen

More from Hilda Bastian’s post on “just joking” and sexist talk in science.

Sexist humor’s impact may also reduce people’s willingness to take action against discrimination. Take for example this randomized controlled trial of men recruited via Mechanical Turk, published by Ford and colleagues in 2013 [PDF]. Men who were already high in hostile sexism were less likely to express support for actions that would improve gender equality after hearing sexist rather than neutral jokes. Even if that only meant they were more willing “to show their hand”, it’s not reassuring.

No, it’s not. We see that playing out all the time on Twitter – all those sexist bullies reducing each other’s willingness to take action against discrimination, day in and day out. Twitter is to sexism as manure is to tomato plants. [Read more…]

Disparagement humor

Drop everything and read this: “Just” Joking? Sexist Talk in Science by Hilda Bastian. She’s a scientist and a cartoonist. She has a cartoon at the top of three guys indulging in a spot of sexist “banter” – it’s amusing that all three of them could be Richard Dawkins.

I want to talk about research and sexist jokes, and where that leads. It’s a response to a narrative about the Tim Hunt situation that goes something like this:

It was just a joke. An unfortunate turn of phrase. It’s not that big a deal. He’s a nice guy who’s nice to many women – he didn’t mean to belittle anybody. It’s not demeaning if you don’t intend it to be. He’s eminent as well as nice, so give him a break. Lighten up. What has the world come to? Over the top social media firestorms are a worse threat than thoughtless remarks. Academic freedom/democracy is at stake.

We’ve been seeing that narrative for two weeks, intensifying all the time, and it’s gone into high gear today thanks to the Times and the Daily Mail and their publication of breathless pieces saying “it turns out that Tim Hunt was joking and that changes everything!!!” We already knew he claimed he was joking (along with also saying he was serious about at least some of what he said), and it changes fucking nothing. [Read more…]

In SAME SPEECH

Damn, I thought I was going to be able to drop it now but nooooooo, there’s too much new nonsense flying around – all in aid of the important cause of Doing Nothing when a celebrity scientist says sexist things at a science conference because hey he was only joking. Sexist jokes are never in any way any kind of problem at all whatsoever, just as racist jokes are not, just as anti-Semitic jokes are not, just as homophobic jokes are not. Jokes cannot ever be a problem because they are meant to be funny? Can’t you crazy social-justice warrior prude witches get that through your crazy lynch-mob heads?

The Daily Mail does its more unbuttoned version of the Times story, with all caps and exclamation points.

Revealed: ‘Sexist’ Nobel winner went on to praise women scientists in SAME SPEECH, continuing after criticised comments by saying ‘Now seriously…’

The SAME SPEECH I tell you.

And he said “now seriously” which PROVES that he was joking before and if you are joking THAT MEANS YOU’RE NOT BEING SEXIST BECAUSE IT’S A JOKE. [Read more…]

Oh wait, it turns out he was joking!

You think it can’t get any more ridiculous, but it keeps doing exactly that.

This time? A “leaked” transcript of what Tim Hunt said at that conference in Korea supports his account that it was a joke, so it’s all good and he should be given all his honorary positions back. This is according to the Times, so I haven’t read the whole article because paywall. But even the first paragraph is absurd.

A leaked EU report has increased the pressure for Sir Tim Hunt to be reinstated to his academic positions after it revealed a markedly different account of his speech about the “trouble with girls” in science.

Has increased “the pressure”? What pressure? There are some aggrieved assholes complaining, but so what? Journalists do love those vague agent-free statements about bodiless “pressure” from no one in particular. [Read more…]

Historians and librarians

Here’s a good thing to come out of the horror in Charleston: the #CharlestonSyllabus.

Last Friday, like the rest of us, historian Keisha Blain was scrolling through her social feeds, watching the renewed “national conversation” on race and hate crimes play out in real time, following the tragic shooting of nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

There was one post out of all of them that caught her eye. Chad Williams, associate professor and chair of the African and Afro-American Studies Department at Brandeis University, tweeted the following:

Chad Williams @Dr_ChadWilliams
Lots of ignorance running rampant. Folks need a #CharlestonSyllabus. #twitterstorians @KidadaEWilliams @DrMChatelain @historianspeaks

[Read more…]

The attempts to obfuscate

A conversation.

Deborah Blum ‏@deborahblum 4 hours ago
As @connie_stlouis says & says well: Stop defending Tim Hunt. Women in science need your support more. http://gu.com/p/4a3gh/stw @ivanoransky

Corey S. Powell ‏@coreyspowell 1 hour ago
@deborahblum @NerdyChristie Nobody would defend “Let me tell you about my trouble with [blacks/gays/Jews].” Nobody should defend this either

@deborahblum I’m amazed by the attempts to obfuscate what would be a crystal-clear issue in a non-gender context.

Well you see women and men are biologically different…

By bullets to the head or by any other convenient method

So, that’s good, I guess, except it should never have in the first place so it’s not so much good as…no, right, of course not, why would you even ask.

A judge has relieved California’s attorney general of the duty to process a proposed ballot initiative that advocated killing anyone who engages in gay sex.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Raymond Cadei ruled late Monday that the so-called Sodomite Suppression Act was patently unconstitutional.

The what? Ok I should have looked at this in March. The  Sodomite Suppression Act…

An Orange County, Calif., attorney has filed a proposed ballot measure with the California Attorney General’s office asking voters to criminalize homosexuality in the state and impose a death penalty sentence.

The filing, submitted along with the required fee of $200, will allow attorney Matthew G. McLaughlin to begin the process of collecting the approximately 365,000 signatures needed to put the measure before California voters on an upcoming ballot, reports Raw Story.

But now that’s not going to happen. Good. Can we get attorny Matthew G McLaughlin to leave the country and relocate to an uninhabited island in the Pacific?

Under McLaughlin’s proposal, “The abominable crime against nature known as buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha.”

“The People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.”

Full text of the proposal is here.

An island with a harsh climate and an active volcano?

See: what bears do in the woods

People are always so eager to fall all over themselves with excitement because the pope manages to say one sensible thing once in a blue moon. It’s very hard to say all absurd things all the time – naturally the pope slips up now and then. If he says “this milk has gone sour” when the milk has in fact gone sour, there’s no need to interrupt anyone with a news bulletin.

So yes, just because he thinks it might be worth not frying the planet we live on to a crisp, that doesn’t mean he’s not still a catholic. He is still a catholic. He wouldn’t be a pope otherwise. I promise you that’s a major criterion for the job. [Read more…]