It’s time for a retrospective on the Tim Hunt case. Dan Waddell and Paula Higgins look over Louise Mensch’s “contributions” to the story, and unsurprisingly, discovers dishonesty, distortions, and omissions: many of the people she claimed were contradicting the story of Hunt making a poorly done sexist joke were actually confirming it, but simply saying that it was a sad attempt at humor that backfired.
In the end, the parable of Tim Hunt is indeed a simple one. He said something casually sexist, stupid and inappropriate which offended many of his audience. He then confirmed he said what he was reported to have said and apologised twice. The matter should have stopped there. Instead a concerted effort to save his name — which was not disgraced, nor his reputation as a scientist jeopardized — has rewritten history. Science is about truth. As this article has shown, we have seen very little of it from Hunt’s apologists — merely evasions, half-truths, distortions, errors and outright falsehoods.
As he points out, the story would have been a brief flare-up that could have ended with an apology, Tim Hunt’s career would have continued on, maybe a little more wisely. Instead, Mensch and others turned it into a protracted mess in which they attempted to refute the facts, and now the label of sexism is attached even more firmly to Hunt than cyclins are.
A very thorough piece of journalism. If only the more important matters facing the planet could be covered with such an evidence based approach.
I guess those denying sexism wanted the evidence and now they surely can’t deny the accuracy or the consequences of Hunts reported comments.
As is often said by those of us on the side of atheism important claims require large amounts of evidence. Well here we have a blatantly sexist comment backed up with a mountain of evidence. The opposition (tim hunt apologists etc) are now probably only left with the response “but you can’t prove you are not a brain in a vat”!
I was particularly amused during Piggate to see Mensch standing up to defend David Cameron. Apparently the pig claim simultaneously didn’t ever happen and was perfectly normal University larks! I’m sure Cameron was delighted to have her onside.
But how firmly attached are the copulins? Has any woman gotten close enough to attach her copulins to the man yet? That’s when we’ll see real change.
People should step back from the minutiae of the reporting of the case and just look at the undisputed fact. Hunt’s comments. Even if one treats the comment about falling in love in the lab as self-deprecating humor, the line about women crying in response to criticism was pretty obviously sexist.
Well, there’s some good news here. The culture does change. Hunt hadn’t caught up yet, it appears, but despite the weird spectacle of people leaping to his defense, the story is that pretty much the whole room, of both sexes, was appalled by his remarks. Our university makes strenuous efforts to get the message across to everybody that disrespectful remarks directed toward women or any class of people, discrimination, and harassment are contrary to our values. This is not the world of 30 years ago.
Until she jacked it in as a Tory MP to spend more time with her money, Louise Mensch was vying with Nadine Dorries for the Nastiest of Nasties title previously held by Teresa Gorman.
In Tory circles, a woman needs to out-nasty the men to get ahead. Witness the lurch to the right of formerly centrist Theresa May as part of her bid for the Tory leadership in a couple of years when Cameron decides it’s time to follows Mensch and spend more time with his money too.
This reminds me a lot of the people freaking out over Anita Sarkeesian wanting to take away their video games. Most of us would likely never have heard of her if they didn’t freak out and start attacking her in the first place.
Anti-feminists and misogyny-apologists are really good at getting the Streisand Effect going.
David Gerard @ 2:
Schrödinger’s Pig Head?
Tabby Lavalamp @7:
The analogy I always use is that Gamergate is like a bunch of incensed twentysomething men threatening to burn down the local art-house cinema because a local film critic said mean things about Michael Bay’s latest boobs-n-booms extravaganza.
The big game studios behind the AAA titles had probably not have even heard of Anita Sarkeesian’s critiques of video games prior to Gamergate, and are unlikely to give a monkey’s about them anyway. No more than Michael Bay’s
backersenablers are going to stop giving him money to make stupid, pointless two-hour-long collections of images and loud noises that ought not to be dignified with the term “movies”.They’re talking about making a film out of Zoe Quinn’s book now. If the vast, ignorant bulk of Gamergate lard hadn’t had their man-trum and made Quinn’s life a misery, she’d just be another indie developer making odd little games. Now she’s speaking at the UN and having a movie made of her life! Congratulations, dudes!
Louise Mensch is so hyper-busy screenshotting and storifying all her critics on Twitter —hard evidence of shenanigans ya’know?— that it’s a mystery how she manages to tweet so much, and how she has any time left to quietly delete so many of her own tweets. One day Mary Collins —self-proclaimed feminist— will wake up and realise she’s been used by Mensch and will regret ever having retweeted Vox Day.
This day and age, apologizing is tantamount to confessing. It never ends anything, but is just the beginning.
@wcorvi#11, very true. One of the many donkey-flogging sticks is one factual error (about Tim Hunt and his later-disputed presence at a meeting) which was made by science journalist Sue Nelson. She later double-checked, retracted it, explained the error, and apologised. That relatively minor journalistic indiscretion should have been briefly embarrassing but ultimately irrelevant. But it hasn’t stopped it becoming a flamingly full-on reason for repeatedly putting the boot in.
What’s weird is to see Mary Collins joining forces with the Menschmob obsession with highlighting every last discrepancy in an effort to distract from what
@qwints #4 rightly pointed out as the real issue. Mary Collins has repeatedly highlighted the stupidity of her husband’s remarks, yet has simultaneously and vigorously supported anyone claiming anti-SJW credentials in the battle about the unfairness of not letting a cluelessly recidivist sexist dinosaur, who’s lovely really, go about making insulting remarks followed by claims that it’s just a joke meant in true seriousness jeez can’t you ladies take a joke you’re proving my point for me really.
I was up at Oxford at the same time as Louise and David.
The pig thing is funny precisely because it didn’t happen but will dog him to the grave. There will never be another Cameron visit to a pig farm nor shall pork products ever be served at an official dinner he is to attend. It is utterly unfair and so richly deserved.
Cameron knows that he can’t bring a libel suit over what his accuser admits is something his source had heard had happened. Because if there was a libel case, all the activities of the Bullingdon club would be fair game. A libel suit would mean three weeks or more of the country hearing about their homoerotic escapades at a time when the party they supported was committed to keeping homosexual activities illegal between consenting adults who were like them under 21 years of age.
I am not sure why you think Louise’s intervention has been counterproductive, I didn’t see her get involved until after the damage was done. I don’t agree with the way the article glosses over the fact that what we are told are three offended individuals giving independent accounts actually met up as a cabal to plot their campaign against Hunt. I am pretty sure something of the sort does go on among a certain type of journalist, but its the type that works for the likes of Fox News and the Sun rather than the type I find trustworthy.
What? Journalists with integrity trying get the story and words straight before any type of publishing? What is your exact problem with that?
@14 Nerd
I have a problem with it too. Although the initial story stated that the three journalists had recorded what they heard independently and then compared notes, it latter turned out that no one had written anything down until after they conferred.
And your problem, given that no official recording was made, is WHAT? Vagueness doesn’t mean squat.
@Nerd
The problem is that given there was no official recording and eye witness accounts appear to be contradictory, Waddell and Higgin’s story is as misleading/dishonest as they claim Mensch’s story to be.
They all three perked up their ears, started making notes, met each other to check notes and recollections with each other and to decide who was best placed to break the story. No plot. No campaign planning (if only!). Tim Hunt and his supporters and disinterested onlookers confirmed that what was reported was accurate. Later quibbles over exact wording (such as “but seriously”) crept in later. This part of the story is much clearer than most parts. Contradictory eye witness accounts turn out to be far less contradictory than you’d normally expect.
Mensch has involved herself ever since the story hit the papers, but had recently picked up activity again around the same time as the Guardian article in defence of Tim Hunt’s apparently thoroughly-ruined career and the apparent damage to Collins’s.
Gee, THE WORDS REPORTED WERE ACKNOWLEDGED AS ACCURRATE BY TIM HUNT ON THE BBC. See the OP. What the fuck is your real problem????? Your hero made himself look bad?
Where and what are the inaccuracies? You provide no evidence. That is my point. Just vague allusions to problems are dismissable. You must provide accurate and specific evidence to back your claims. YOU DON’T.
@19 Nerd
My problem is that so many people were so willing and even anxious to uncritically accept a story that as initially told made no sense (Tim Hunt stood up and made demeaning comments about women to a roomful of women) just because it confirmed their own particular biases. Everybody associated with this story starting with Blum and St. Louis but including Waddell, Higgins and Mensch has an agenda and everybody went looking for evidence to support their own agenda. It’s about as lacking in objective reporting as any story could possibly be.
Tim Hunt acknowledged the 39 words. He has also stated that they were intended as a self-deprecating joke not an insult against women.
Read and compare both sides of the story if you want to see the contradictions.
Right. End of story. He was accurately reported. His intent is irrelevant. He insulted and demeaned women, which is a form of sexual harassment. That is an irrefutable FACT.
Again, why are you still defending the indefensible?=
@21 Nerd
The fact that no one denies is that amongst his comments were the 39 words that Connie St. Louis reported in her original tweet. That he insulted and demeaned women is an inference that some people (women and men) but not all people (women and men) took from those 39 words, either in the context of his entire speech or in isolation or influenced by Connie’s original tweet. Inferences should not be treated as facts. Why are you defending the indefensible?
@Chris61 #20
Fixed it for ya. It’s all on the record in his interviews with the beeb.
It wasn’t self-depracating, he said he meant it seriously. Even if it was intended to be purely self-depracating as he later claimed before promptly undermining himself, then it was in fookin’ poor taste: the sort of poor taste that you might expect an oblivious old sexist to imagine was funny.
Tim Hunt doesn’t need a witch-hunt, he’s already buried himself. Just let him be.
What inference? Legal definition of sexual harassment, in the form of a microaggression against women. QED, and recognized as such by feminists of all sexes/genders.
A quick, proper apology and a donation to a program aiding women in STEM programs would have settled the issue, right then and there. The fact that MRAs can’t stand to have a man apologize to women, and some non-femists who support them, want to explain it away by handwaving, smoke, and mirrors. That is what is happening, and what you support. It’s not the feminists keeping this issue alive. Why can’t you and your fellow apologists let it die? Look at your allies. I wouldn’t want to be associated with them.
@24 Nerd
Uh hunh. According to the female scientists who he’s mentored he has already done a lot to aid women in science. Probably more than most of the people accusing him of having made a sexually harassing statement have. Not to mention that he did apologize.
@23 EigenSprocketUK
What did Tim Hunt say he meant seriously? We don’t know because we don’t know what the question was. The Beeb didn’t tell us. Did he mean that he had had problems with women in his lab, that he was being honest about his personal experience? That’s the interpretation that people prepared to interpret his remarks charitably seem to be taking. Did he mean he supported gender segregated labs? There’s certainly no evidence that is true. He ran a lab for many years. Had he wanted to only take male students and post docs he certainly could have done so but he didn’t.
Well, Chris, you’ve moved the goalposts so far that I can no longer even see you.
G’night, and send my love to Louise.