Segregation of Female Scientists!

[Sheitgeist]

Started a thread in Chat about this, but no one's noticed.

The Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt has made some ridiculous comments about female scientists:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/10/nobel-scientist-tim-hunt-female-scientists-cause-trouble-for-men-in-labs

He's apologised for causing offence, but says he still means it!

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Anniegetyourgun

[Lancelottie]

It's a grand word, Chunky, just don't mix it up with mitigate (we had this snarky reminder written into our work's Style Handbook!)!

[ChunkyPickle]

God I love Radio 4 (it must be my age) - I have never, in 36 years heard the word 'militate' and there it is, casually used in a program description as if everyone will know what it means.

I like it. It shall be my word of the day.

[Yops]

Bugger;

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05y11vz

[Yops]

There was a good programme on R4 last night, Inside Science, talking to five female scientists about their experiences. I missed the end, so don't know what conclusions they reached. The middle bit didn't sound like all doom and gloom though;

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05y11vz]

'Adam Rutherford is joined by five female researchers at differing stages of their scientific career to explore whether the culture of science - from school, through university and into the lab - is rigged against women getting grants, staying in the world of research and getting promotion. Do the pressures on scientists to publish many papers militate against women getting to the top of the profession? is there unconscious bias against women making it in science?'

[Lweji]

I had forgotten that there were only two women (not girls) who cried in the lab I worked for 15 years. Both caused by the same man. A twat in many ways. Who also tried it on me while he was dating someone in the lab and I was married fairly recently. I reported him for sexual harassment to the head of the lab and eventually he moved offices.

The problem is not with the women...

[catsrus]

Tim Hunts own inability to manage his labs properly (making people cry is not good management it's often indicative of bullying ) or control his own emotions when attracted to a colleague, is not a reason to prevent other people, who are possibly more emotionally mature and sensible, from working together. I've worked in a mixed sex lab and made some lifelong friendships, actually I was sexually attracted to one of the heads of the lab and he to me - We dealt with it, we joked about it and were careful not to be in a situation where it could become a problem - just as my then H dealt with his relationships to women he worked with in business.

Seriously, even when you're doing rocket science it's not rocket science to manage relationships - everyone has to do it in all professions. Labs are nothing special - actually, to be honest, scientists in academia are pretty tame unless it was all going on behind my back

[Anniegetyourgun]

I don't think men are temperamentally suited to work in laboratories. One temper tantrum and they'd have smashed up a load of delicate, expensive equipment; one female passing by in a lab coat that doesn't quite reach the floor and their tongues are hanging out like Pavlov's dogs, unhygienic and unsightly. They should stay home and mow lawns. To be fair, some men have historically invented good stuff, I'm not saying they shouldn't go into science per se, but in their spare time and out of the way of serious scientists.

[QueenStromba]

I'm surprised by the even split in the private sector, maybe that's where all of the women missing from academia from PhD onwards end up.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

I've worked in private sector science for 25 years and it's been pretty evenly split sex-wise at all levels including management. The only times I've come across single sex labs has been when there are only one or two scientists working in them.

[QueenStromba]

Even in biology, which generally has more female undergraduates than male (at least at my university), there are very few women at the primary investigator level and way more men even from PhD level onwards. For a while my supervisor had just me and a female postdoc in his lab so I could see how a female scientist with a small lab could have all women under her just by chance for a short period of time, but I doubt that would last for very long.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Very puzzled by 'single sex labs are more conducive to good scientific research.'

Does anyone know of any female-only labs?

If he's talking from 'considerable experience' that implies that there's lots of them, doesn't it?

[ChunkyPickle]

Sure, he has a right to say anything he likes. And now that he has - and critically, has said it again, he has to take responsibility for that.

[QueenStromba]

It's not a lot different to what James Watson said about black people.

[YonicScrewdriver]

"5) We may disagree with what Tim says, but we should defend to the death his right to say it."

If he'd suggested separate labs for black people or gay people or Jewish people, would you say that?

[scallopsrgreat]

"He simply believes, based on his own considerable experience, that single sex labs are more conducive to good scientific research.". Except he doesn't. He believes that scientific labs should be free of women.

"Posted by an ordinary chap and advocate of human rights for both sexes" No you aren't. You need to go away and understand what human rights mean for women.

[Lancelottie]

So we should, what, duplicate all scientific research by doing it in both male- and -female only labs?

Or, let me guess, only do the well-funded stuff in the male-only labs.

Athene Donald is/was a good lecturer and researcher (she taught me, briefly, years back). Surely she would have the sense to preface any of that Hunt-support with 'We all know that his idea of single-sex labs is bollocks BUT...'

[QueenStromba]

You could guarantee that all the dodgy microfuges etc would end up in the women's lab.

[Lweji]

5) We may disagree with what Tim says, but we should defend to the death his right to say it.

Sure, anyone has the right to show himself to be sexist. It doesn't mean they keep the right to be in positions where they decide what happens to women.

Also:
Tim Hunt commented that a problem he has had, working in labs in the past, is that women tend to cry more when confronted with criticism. Nevertheless he fully supports women in science.
How grand of him. To still support women despite their obvious faults.

And hurray for gender apartheid in labs. Genius.

[DadWasHere]

We may disagree with what Tim says, but we should defend to the death his right to say it.

Why, you think what he said was a serious commentary? Appears to me like he tried to make a series of bad-taste/ironical jokes/comments that were dead on delivery, like the comment about who prepared the food before he started speaking about 'science' issues.

[thedancingbear]

single sex labs are more conducive to good scientific research

What the absolute fuck?

[Karisade]

1. Tim Hunt has, for decades, mentored and supported women in science. He has done more for women than 99.9% of those who called for his resignation.
   
   
2. Tim Hunt "was always immensely supportive of the ERC’s work around gender equality" (Dame Athene Donald)
   
   
3. Tim Hunt made an experience-based assertion, based on over half a century of experience, that men and women working together in labs can be emotionally distracting for both sexes.
   
   
4. Tim Hunt commented that a problem he has had, working in labs in the past, is that women tend to cry more when confronted with criticism. Nevertheless he fully supports women in science. “No one seems to mention his main speech in Korea in which, according to the ERC President, he was ‘very supportive towards women in science and he said that he hoped there was nothing that barred women from science’” (Dame Athene Donald). He simply believes, based on his own considerable experience, that single sex labs are more conducive to good scientific research.
   
   
5. We may disagree with what Tim says, but we should defend to the death his right to say it.
   
   Please read the other side of the story here and, if you agree, sign the petition to help reinstate Sir Tim Hunt:
   
   www.ipetitions.com/petition/bring-back-tim-hunt#scrollTo-upvote-1653069
   
   (Posted by an ordinary chap and advocate of human rights for both sexes).

[Lweji]

We female scientists are a resourceful bunch!

Go figure!
It's amazing we haven't all started crying over his comments.

[tribpot]

I think I've found the article in question - the confirmation statement he gave to the Beeb was also 'just a mistake'. Quite an unfortunate week he's had. And he has been subject to a particularly vicious social media campaign - I have no idea what this is. I'm sure he got some awful tweets, probably nowhere near the number Sue Perkins, Mary Beard or Caroline Criado-Perez have received this year. But actually the Twitter 'campaign' I've seen has been hilarious and about positively celebrating female scientists, two things he seems to have failed to do.

[tribpot]

But it wasn't a joke - to quote the Beeb article:

"I did mean the part about having trouble with girls," he said. "It is true that people - I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it's very disruptive to the science because it's terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.

I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult.

I'm really, really sorry I caused any offence, that's awful. I certainly didn't mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually.

He also said they were meant in a 'light-hearted' way but I'm not sure how - he was given the opportunity to retract them, or claim they'd been taken out of context, but all he appears to have apologised for is saying them where journos could hear. Hardly the bloody point.

He needs to take it like a grown up. He said what he said, he confirmed that he meant what he said. He was presumably informed by UCL that his comments were not in keeping with their ethos and so he resigned.