What gets me is he makes one stupid comment and loses admittedly an honorary position but then we have David Starkey...
Probably the rudest man to broadcast on British media. What did we do to deserve such a lout?
What gets me is he makes one stupid comment and loses admittedly an honorary position but then we have David Starkey...
I I'm pretty gobsmacked too by what Brian Cox - a man I respect enormously - has said this morning. Disappointing.
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Tim Hunt is not helping.
I am a pretty upfront and radical feminist however I feel very sorry for the guy and unapologetically so.
He's a 72 year old man who makes a better scientist than he does comedian. If hoards of women come forward saying what an awful sexist misogynistic pig he his and he has treated them badly then I will reassess my opinion. However, so far any who have come forward have said the exact opposite which leads me to suspect he was just being a pillock.
I had several lecturers that could have so easily made the same gaffe but they supported me in my goals and when I became too ill to continue fought to try and keep me. I'd have hated to watch them go through this.
It feels like one man is being held out to dry for the failings of society. It was like one female scientist moaned about how she couldn't go to the pub to talk about grants because she had to go home to feed her family. Well I actually think that is not the science field's fault it's her husband's -- he could sometimes have gone home and fed his children so she could go to the pub. It was a society issue.
I just think about my gran her language was sexist, racist, homophobic etc because she was born in 1907 she wasn't actually any of those things and was remarkably tolerant for the time and place in which she was born.
a reminder of how quickly social progress can leave the older, less flexible generations behind. That will, no doubt, be us someday.
or how thoughtless and stupid the "whipper-snappers" on "so-called" social media can be.a reminder of how quickly social progress can leave the older, less flexible generations behind
Plenty of young people are inflexible, bigoted and thoughtless. Lots of old people are flexible.
I guess I just think that Hunt's comments were not merely "ill-advised," they were crass and stupid. Also, I, my colleagues in education, and many others are trying to do everything we can to get more women into science. Tim Hunt is not helping.
One the one hand we have an old man, raised in another age who attempts some poorly judged, out of touch, light humour and it backfires. Cringe worthy, wince inducing and a reminder of how quickly social progress can leave the older, less flexible generations behind. That will, no doubt, be us someday.
On the other hand we have the social media outrage machine demanding that he be, in a professional sense, flogged and flayed and led naked though the streets like the hateful, despicable man they judge him to be on the basis of one isolated gaff.
One of these things is indeed deeply problematic and says something very unpleasant about our society, and it ain't the out of touch old man.
I could be controversial and say that academia is part of the problem, not part of the solution...the lack of male input, and therefore balance, into today's education system, especially at primary school age, is a real problem. None of my kids had a male teacher until they got to secondary school.
I could be controversial and say that academia is part of the problem, not part of the solution...the lack of male input, and therefore balance, into today's education system, especially at primary school age, is a real problem. None of my kids had a male teacher until they got to secondary school.