Cern scientist says "men are discriminated against in physics'

[Maeb]

Last Friday Cern held a workshop called "1st Workshop on High Energy Theory and Gender" to encourage women in physics. A prominent Cern theoretician, Prof. Alessandro Strumia, gave a talk (complete with slides!) on how women are not as good at physics as men (because 'lady brains') and are given preferential treatment, employment and funding over more talented men.

Dr Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London who also gave a talk tweeted about it and Cern have now issued a bland statement.

It was reported on Radio 4's Today (starts around 39:14 & interview with the idiot himself and Dr Jess Wade @ 2:40:31) and the BBC website.

Obviously this is just ridiculous but I'm curious as to how he can do his day job effectively with such backward views? Does he dismiss the opinions/work, etc of his female superiors, peers? Do his female students and subordinates get the education and encouragement that they are entitled to?

YY to your comments about Prof Strumia. I wasn't surprised about his comments, but I was also infuriated about the BBC's insistence on using the word gender instead of sex.

Well if he's openly stating that he holds misogynistic views about women in science, then it would seem inevitable that he would treat his female subordinates, colleagues and probably even superiors less favourably than their male counterparts.

What is a physicist doing giving a talk about neuroscience and sex differences, in a session about encouraging women into physics?! The organisers must have been aware of the topic, content and opinion in his talk!

It is incredibly disappointing, but yet again, not at all surprising. Men hate the idea that women are as capable as them.

There's another thread, Women and Physics.

Courtesy of reddit

Fuck, he's an absolute shit of a misogynist. One of his slides says "physics invented and built by men - it's not by invitation". What the fuck does he think women were doing when physics was being built? Being actively and deliberately held back by men!

This man should be disciplined, removed from any positions of influence and not allowed to lecture/mentor etc any students if he currently does.

He must feel he has enough backing to say this. I doubt he felt he was stepping out on a limb. These views don't exist in a vacuum - somewhere within his academic study and ongoing career, this has been a view he has shared and he must have been agreed with. He is not the only one.

My daughter is looking to head into a similar field and is studying physics. She is one of a few girls in her a-level course. I worry that at some point she will come across men like this.

Right now she does not believe in positive discrimination and wants to be seen on her merits. But if this is the opinion of some men within her field, then her merits will not even be considered.

I don't understand why he was even allowed to speak at this event, given the organisers had his slides beforehand?

press.cern/press-releases/2018/09/statement-cern-stands-diversity

I don't believe for a second that they didn't know what he was going to talk about. And I don't believe he'll face any further actions. He'll just be reminded to keep that sort of talk to amongst the men in future.

AssassinatedBeauty - apparently he did the old switcheroo on the topics.

From the slides it looks like he was passed over for a job by a bokes 'inferior' woman and it really, really hurt him.

It is worth noting however, that no-platforming works both ways.

If we don't hear these views, they are never exposed.

In some ways it has does women in STEM a favour and warned them of the man to avoid in the future.

That's also true, but it's soured what should have been a positive event.

Someone with more time should fill in the blanks for him and complete the slides, you know

"Men invented physics" on paper in the minds of some sexists because women were forcibly stopped from becoming involved in the education establishment or any task rewarded by status or money actually. Some changed their names to publish books as men and so on to get around this but that didn't become public knowledge until much much later.

Given that he used false slides to deceive the organisers, why didn't the chair stop his presentation once it became obvious what he'd done?

Anyone who thinks women can't do physics: two words, Marie Curie.

Women were banned from attending uni for centuries and were kept to a minority by quotas until fifty or so years ago. That's why "men made physics": they actually barred us from involvement.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_education

Emmy Noether, mathematician, physicist, and early invader of men's swimming pools. Her mediocre male peers who got positive discrimination by being allowed to matriculate and being treated like full humans have contributed nothing to physics.

Such disgusting behaviour from him!

rememberatime, please don't worry about your daughter wanting to pursue Physics. I graduated just over a year ago with an MSci in Physics and now work as a physicist in the nuclear industry.

The reality is, we sometimes come across people with these sorts of views and the first time it happens, it's hard not to take it personally. It just needs a strong belief in your own ability to know they are wrong!

In my experience, the people who make comments like this are people who have been rejected from jobs they wanted and are convinced it's because of positive discrimination. I was asked at my assessment centre by one of the other candidates how I felt that I was more likely to get the job because I'm a girl - in the end he didn't get the job and I did! I then asked the person who interviewed me (who I now work with) and he said they undertook training before the interview on making sure they don't discriminate (positively or otherwise) and they had a conversation before giving me the job to make sure they weren't positively discriminating - that they genuinely thought I was best for the job!

The people I've come across that matter generally don't have these opinions, e.g. staff at uni and managers at work and I can honestly say from my experience that the people with these views are in the minority and institutions and companies will not accept it! Just make sure she has the confidence in her own ability, to know that she'll succeed because of her ability, not gender.

Adam Rutherford was on radio 4 yesterday saying that physicists shouldn’t try to do biology ... there is no evidence at all that men’s and women’s brains differ to any material extent.
That knobber Toby Young has naturally got hold of this ... just lols at him attempting to comment on anything to do with the human brain. You can’t comment on what you haven’t got, poor old tobes

Echo opinions of jess, and just to add that I have worked in industrial research for many years. Women are few are far between, and we tend to get grouped together because once a manager has got a women on their team they typically want more of us.lack of Numbers of female physics/maths/computing graduate coming through the university system is considered a real problem.

I'm stating from memory so treat it as a ballpark estimate but something like 70% or more professorships are held by men, and physics is STILL tilted towards males, so I'm struggling to see a bias against males. Not read a full transcript of his presentation so unless he's made a more nuanced argument than has been reported it seems he is wrong.

Does he bring up GMVH at all does anyone know?

so it should be only for men because women came late to the party. Nice to see how the small detail that women were deliberately kept put of the party by misogynistic men quite eludes him. First they piss on us and then they complain that we stink!!!!

(And yes again NAMALT. Don't burst a vein.)

What worries me is I'm finding it quite hard to track down the actual case he's making. Given that we're talking about science here excommunicating someone for heresy is more the approach of a religion than a science.

However in other news (and with exquisite timing):
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45655151

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45709205

Suspended - seems they're taking it a bit more seriously

What rubbish. It seems to me that this person, who is young by the standards of Italian academia but I think old for theoretical physics (b 1969 according to Wikipedia) is very concerned about 'reputation', since he made an algorithm to 'measure' citations.

@CritEqual the reddit link at the start of the thread has the full slideshow.