Sir Tim Hunt - women should stay out of labs because they distract men

[MurielWoods]

and they cry too easily and make men fall in love with them

I shit you not

I honestly believe that he just made a very stupid joke, however saying he's done a lot for women in science? Surely all that is required of anyone is not to discriminate, otherwise the women get on with their science and do it for themselves, surely?

I agree.
Although discrimination can be very insidious and the recipients may not even notice it. It may be in the form of expecting you to show up for meetings early in the morning or late in the evening, work over weekends, late in the evening, go abroad or elsewhere for extended periods.
Unless you have good support at home, it's not so easy for most women.

I would agree that the working conditions, and expectations, in research labs are very difficult for women, especially those with caring responsibilities for children or older relatives..

The same is, of course, true for a vast number of other professions and companies.

But the worst that can be said of individuals who work within those industry / company norms is that they have failed to take a stand to challenge them. The fact that an individual academic, or an individual manager within a large company, follows the organisational or company norms does not make them ACTIVELY sexist. It is just that they fail to be actively more supportive / campaigning against sexism than the rest of the organisation would be.

As I say, when i worked near Tim, he was very much LESS sexist than my female supervisor, and in general more supportive of women than the (then) organisational norms. He did not actively campaign for a better deal for women in science, at least in my time, but he did not in any way harm the progress or prospects of the women around him (was in contrast actively supportive to them as individual scientists), unlike some of his female peers, and treated individual scientists such as myself as colleagues on exactly equal footing to male students in the labs.

Doesn't matter if he's personally sexist towards the women he directly works with or not, to be honest: the fact that he has said it is bound to make some Neanderthal somewhere wonder whether he really should hire women.

As an engineer in IT I've always been the only woman on my team for as long as I've worked in this field. It's honestly hard enough to get men - especially older, senior men and particularly of they're clients - to take you seriously and stop seeing you as the default target for incompetent flirting. STEM women really do not need more guys publicly pointing out to each other that this is how they're 'naturally' supposed to view co-workers of the female persuasion.

And anyway: the one office crush I've had made me work my arse off to impress the object of my affection at the time. I'm reasonably certain my crush accidentally got me promoted.

Don't get me wrong - I am disappointed that he said what he said. But equally, I am conscious of a big disconnect between what he said on that occasion and the scientist I knew and the values he displayed daily..

I would, generally, tend to go with what I know of someone over a period of years rather than what was said on a particular occasion, however public.

The disconnect has caused me to re-evaluate my own experience, and to search it minutely for evidence of the sexist values so clear what he said more recently - and I honestly cannot recall any. Which is why I put it down to 'social awkwardness and failure to pick up social cues' - which very much was Tim, along with a lack of media canniness that meant it was Paul Nurse who did most of the press work when they got the Nobel together - rather than deeply held sexist values IYSWIM?

Knowing about how he met and fell in love with his wife in a lab, I believe he was telling an in-joke in absolutely the wrong place, actually.

And yes I agree Lweji about how insidious discrimination can be.

Yup, teacher, I think I get what you mean. It's just difficult, isn't it?

My generally lovely, mature, usually really feminist friendly male boss recently came out with the most ridiculous statement about some celebrity's body. I had a hard time squaring his statement with the man who'd mentored me and even supported me through a sexual harassment case against a colleague.

Fortunately he saw my point and apologized when I pointed out how ridiculous he was being. But if he hadn't I doubt I'd have simply filed him away under 'chauvinist arse'.

It's more complex when you know them and your experiences simply differ. Doesn't excuse them, though.

I can't complain about my previous supervisor, but I know he was often double checking himself about what he said to women.

Many women who get to the top positions and are successful are very competitive and possibly more demanding and less supportive than men, yes.
I doubt that it is an innate quality, and wonder if it's not that they have had to give themselves very few breaks to be able to get through the glass ceiling and work extra hard compared to their male pears. Whereas men can afford to be more "generous" although maybe they are actually being somewhat patronizing.

I'd hope this changes over time as workplaces become more female friendly and gear up towards equality.

Many women who get to the top positions and are successful are very competitive and possibly more demanding and less supportive than men, yes

I call it the Margaret Thatcher syndrome, they become harder than hard

Interesting reading re the Timothy Hunt comments and the subsequent witch-hunt, ending the career of a British Nobel Prize winner. Who does support women in the lab...

www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-timothy-hunt-witch-hunt/#2