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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Prof Alice Roberts attacks Dr Emma Hilton on Twitter

148 replies

CaveMum · 11/12/2019 15:00

Another low blow from Prof Alice - attempting to dismiss Dr Hilton’s credentials as a signatory to a letter to the Times on biological sex.

Twitter thread here: twitter.com/fondofbeetles/status/1204763423013244929

OP posts:
ShagMeRiggins · 11/12/2019 18:15

Parklife Guy won my heart today, but so many of you come close, especially BarbaraProzzi for exceptional information.

I watch and learn, have done for years, and believe I’m at least partly responsible for peaking a few here in my small corner of England.

ShagMeRiggins · 11/12/2019 18:18

BarbaraStrozzi I meant.

terfsandwich · 11/12/2019 18:18

Gosh Dr Roberts has protected her tweets. Not very engaging!

ARoombaOfOnesOwn · 11/12/2019 18:18

Ibloodylovewomen he is married to Gia Milinovich who is GC so he must know what’s going on.

DrMoonshine · 11/12/2019 18:25

This is why the real, actual paradigm shift that could change the way many of my academic generation think about prehistoric archaeology, for example, will likely be predicated on the role of ancestral DNA. It's empirical data.

Prior, we were trying to understand (and teach others) about developments in prehistory through, basically, our own academic beliefs about the relative importance of migration theory vs cultural change ideas.

Sorry I'm massively over-simplifying this.

Anyway, as Brian Cox would say, the way we need to look at the universe not through the lens of ideology but through carefully measured and described observations. Archaeology includes resulting interpretations.

And all of this should be up for open, public discussion and dissemination, without the favour of privilege not the fear of academic sanction.

I'm going to read Alice Roberts' tweets in detail this evening to form a better opinion. But the swipe at Emma appears on the face of it to be indefensible for someone in her position who claims a public role in archaeology.

Archaeology isn't like this.

YouSawThePlans · 11/12/2019 18:26

I just saw this on Janice Turner's Twitter. I went to read the thread on Alice Roberts page but it seems I can't. Is she using a blocker? Or has the Professor of Public Engagement in Science decided she doesn't want to engage with the public after all?
I thought Colin Wright's offer to debate by letter was more than reasonable. It would be a great opportunity for Alice to explain her 'scientific' position and I'm sure lots of lay people could learn from their correspondence.
Errol I agree with you about gender.

snowblight · 11/12/2019 18:27

Gosh Dr Roberts has protected her tweets. Not very engaging!

I'm not surprised after the abuse she's been getting from so-called feminists.

YouSawThePlans · 11/12/2019 18:33

Please post examples of the abuse.
All I've seen is questions about science, including ones from fellow scientists.

DrMoonshine · 11/12/2019 18:34

Gender theory debate is massive in archaeology. What's important here is that it's open and public.

In archaeological publications, gender is distinguished from sex.

It's not without nuance though. There is an understanding that perceptions of biological sex can and are themselves 'gendered' and historically and culturally specific.

The 'unknown unknowns' are significant.

MockersFactCheckMN · 11/12/2019 18:36

As Brian Cox would say, the way we need to look at the universe not through the lens of ideology but through carefully measured and described observations.

Cox just ripping off Carl Sagan as per usual: "There are two ways to view the stars; as they really are, or as we might wish them to be."

Sagan also writes about the rise of the Neo-Platonists, who stifled the early scientific enquiries of the Ionans, replacing their observational and experimental approach with the doctrine that a self-appointed elite of 'experts,' (Barbarians need not apply) could decide on the truth by consensus.

Also echoes of Matthew Arnold, FR Leavis and other prepostmodern hegemonic systems of exclusionary thought.

Clymene · 11/12/2019 18:36

Roberts does a cowardly thing where she posts something controversial then protects her tweets.

It's not the first time she's done it. If you're a professor of public engagement, then engage. Don't just lob an insult and run away. Have the courage of your convictions

MockersFactCheckMN · 11/12/2019 18:39

Professor for Public Enragement at the moment.

BovaryX · 11/12/2019 18:43

Gender theory debate is massive in archaeology. What's important here is that it's open and public. In archaeological publications, gender is distinguished from sex

Can you give an example of this? How are they distinguished in archeological terms?

ScrimshawTheSecond · 11/12/2019 18:44

Roberts has done this several times. I think it's fair enough to protect your social media, if people are actually being abusive - from what I saw earlier it was only very calm and measured responses telling her that she was ... mistaken, or calling her behaviour unedifying.

Alice, should you be on here, by any chance, I think there are several very well respected and sensible scientists who would welcome a calm and rational debate with you, rather than your current methodology of public engagement, which seems to consist of yourself lobbing a woo grenade, insulting your peers, and then running off back into the Twitter fridge to escape the fallout.

MockersFactCheckMN · 11/12/2019 18:45

Wanna Twitter Fridge!

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 11/12/2019 18:45

Right, Clymene.
I have sympathy with someone for doing it once. I think it's normal to be taken aback by the force of the onslaught of disagreement and how upsetting it is. I don't blame her for feeling unequal to dealing with it, even though all but a tiny number of tweets were polite and measured.
But if it has happened to you once you would think you would be more circumspect than to post bitchy tweets in the first place.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 11/12/2019 18:47

Also, she did have the option of, you know, apologising to Dr Hilton...

littlbrowndog · 11/12/2019 18:54

Jeez what a snide Roberts is. Pure snide

TiredofthisBS · 11/12/2019 18:58

Alice Roberts is coming across as a rather cowardly bully who runs and hides when people call her out on her behaviour.

DrMoonshine · 11/12/2019 18:58

@BovaryX Bear with me please and I'll refer to a recent academic archaeological publication, and reply to others. I need to be on a PC or laptop, not on my current train & phone combination.

Female archaeologists have fought for decades against what might be termed 'consensus by [male] privilege'. This is all so disappointing.

So is this recent news:

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/23/society-antiquaries-turmoil-vote-to-back-sex-abuser

Ereshkigal · 11/12/2019 19:04

She's been deeply pathetic on every one of these regular occasions.

Ereshkigal · 11/12/2019 19:04

She's been deeply pathetic on every one of these regular occasions.

BarbaraStrozzi · 11/12/2019 19:04

DrMoonshine - I'm interested in hearing more about this.

I have a friend who's an anthropologist and she's told me some fascinating stuff - about Y chromosome bottlenecks, where suddenly there's a crash in Y chromosome diversity (suggesting a shift from most men being in monogamous pairings to a handful of powerful men in polygamous set-ups), and also about cultural attitudes to sex and gender (in the old-fashioned social sciences sense of "culturally approved roles, behaviours and clothings for men and women" - but also some stuff on the prevalence or not of "third sexes" in given cultural groupings).

Am I right in thinking when you say "perceptions of biological sex are gendered" you're thinking of the way societies (and scientists within societies) project gendered expectations (i.e. culturally conditioned beliefs about appropriate behaviours) onto biological sex. Something like primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's "Myth of the Coy Female", where male primatologists went into the field expecting to see promiscuous men competing for females, and monogamous females pair-bonding to the most successful, so that's what they did indeed "see", whereas female primatologists went into the field without such expectations and "saw" a lot more varied behaviour, including strategic non-monogamy from females.

FondOfBeetles · 11/12/2019 19:05

Hello!

I haven't posted here for ages, years maybe. I used to be called MaidOfStars, if anyone remembers me from that long ago.

Thanks for the support and solidarity today. I suspect many of you are on the various Twitter threads.

ErrolTheDragon · 11/12/2019 19:09

Oh! Yes, of course some of us remember you, I'm pretty sure your name has come up on 'people we miss' type of threads - delighted you're back, and thank you so much for being so brilliant on Twitter.