Something to make you think

Fighting stereotypes with humour--and truth :)

BBC Trending: Female scientists post 'distractingly sexy' photos

Female scientists have been sharing "distractingly sexy" photos of themselves after a feminist website encouraged them to respond to comments by a Nobel laureate. Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt was roundly criticised when he detailed his thoughts about the "trouble with girls" at a conference of science journalists. "Three things happen when they are in the lab," he said, "you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry."

He said his comments were meant to be "light-hearted, ironic comment", but whatever the intention, it went over like a heavy metallic dirigible in a field with some widely acknowledged gender issues. Hunt has now resigned from his position at University College London.

On Thursday the hashtag #DistractinglySexy began taking off, with more than 10,000 tweets in a matter of hours. The trend was prompted by a shout-out by the feminist online magazine Vagenda which urged female scientists to share pictures of themselves at work.

and then there was this:

The unseen women scientists behind Tim Hunt’s Nobel prize

Hunt calls women scientists “girls”, as though they are immature, and incapable of forwarding academia in any serious way. He suggests they disturb serious, hard-working men in their scientific pursuit. Yet Hunt knows women who have bolstered to his own success. He is obviously aware of the ground-breaking research women are doing in science; he is certainly more aware than any member of the public, and many of those criticising him. Is it that only some women are distractions, or maybe he thinks he would have won several Nobel Prizes if there were no women around?

It is obvious that his comments were sexist, but few people could recognise the names or faces of the women he has so thoughtlessly brushed aside. Even in his inadequate apology, he neglected to mention any women scientists who have impressed him during his career, choosing instead to justify himself with unsolicited details about his love life. Many have railed against Hunt’s casual chauvinism, without questioning why positive remarks about women are still missing. Would such comments be irrelevant? Unless we acknowledge the stories of women he has forgotten, a negative portrayal of women once again takes centre stage.

YKWIA showed Brenda and me this video last week

and it's dead on.

Speaking of sexism...

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don't want largely female audiences

In an interview with Kevin Smith, writer and television producer Paul Dini complained about a worrying trend he sees in television animation and superhero shows in particular: executives spurning female viewers because they believe girls and women don't buy the shows' toys.

Vi at agelfeygelach transcribed part of Dini's conversation with Smith on the Fat Man on Batman podcast, during which he talks about the cancellation of Young Justice, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and Tower Prep. He explains that studios are looking to capture younger male viewers, "boys who are into goofy humor, goofy random humor," and that they aren't interested in the older Young Justice audience.

YKWIA brought this to my attention. It's just sickening that good shows are axed because executives think girls just like pretty pink ponies rather than superheroes and heroines and aren't seen as buying the dolls we call action figures. Grrr....

Good grief

Sexist Peer Reviewer Suggests Study Needs Male Authors

In woefully ironic turn of events, the reviewer of a rejected, solely female-authored manuscript examining gender bias in academia recommended that the scientists add in a couple of men to their team to make their research more scientifically robust.

“It would probably also be beneficial to find one or two male biologists to work with (or at least obtain internal peer review from, but better yet as active co-authors), in order to serve as a possible check against interpretations that may sometimes be drifting too far away from empirical evidence into ideologically biased assumptions,” the anonymous reviewer wrote.

Because, of course, the gender of an author matters more than the evidence or methodology.

UPDATE: PLOS ONE ousts reviewer, editor after sexist peer-review storm. Good.

Funny how something like this makes all that stupid stuff look, well, stupid and sexist, which it is

YKWIA showed me this today. I thought it demonstrated sexism very well.

Not surprising, but sad

Smoking Gun on Sexism?

But a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers evidence of bias among scientists -- male and female scientists alike -- against female students. The study was based on evaluations by scientists of hypothetical student applications for a lab manager position, with the application materials identical in every way, except that half of the pool received applications with a male name and the other half received applications with a female name. The faculty members surveyed -- 127 professors in biology, chemistry or physics -- were told that their analyses of the applications would be used to help the students. And they were asked to evaluate the students' competence and "hireability" and to consider how large a salary they would recommend and how much mentoring they would offer the student if hired.

The scientists evaluating these applications (which were identical in every way except the gender of the "submitter") rated the male student more competent, more likely to be hired, deserving of a better salary, and worth spending more time mentoring. The gaps were significant.

Female scientists were as likely as male scientists to evaluate the students this way. For instance, the scientists were asked to rate the students' competence on a 5-point scale. Male faculty rated the male student 4.01 and the female student 3.33. Female scientists rated the male student 4.10 and the female student 3.32. On salary, the gaps were also notable. The average salary suggested by male scientists for the male student was $30,520; for the female student, it was $27,111. Female scientists recommended, on average, a salary of $29,333 for the male student and $25,000 for the female student.

Click on the link above ('a new study') to read the paper itself.

Turnabout is fair play

If Male Superheroes Posed Like Wonder Woman

I'm particularly happy that Dream was included in that mix. Now Sandman, that's how comics should be.

Be sure to look at the comments for the picture of a icky-looking Captain America on steroids. Yes, it does work both ways. But it amazes me that men can look at pictures of women and never think, 'you know, I've never seen a woman with a Z-shaped spine with legs to her boobs and boobs that defy gravity'. Maybe that's the problem--they don't see enough real women.