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!

"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?

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

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?'

Bugger;

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05y11vz

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.

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!)!

Anniegetyourgun