Some readers thought our editorial tendentious – and that there is a gargantuan difference between a ‘sexist comment’ and inferring a man’s whole character from what he saidGuardian coverage of remarks by Sir Tim Hunt,the Nobel prize winner, to a group of women scientists approximately his “trouble with girls”, and has been criticised by some readers. An editorial was one area of readers concerns. It was published three weeks after he made the remarks to a world conference of science journalists in South Korea that eventually led to his resignation from his honorary post at University College London.
Prof Hunt said at that conference: “Three things happen when [women] are in the lab … you topple in admire with them,they topple in admire with you and when you criticise them, they cry.” The editorial, or published on 1 July,begins: “It is three weeks since Sir Tim Hunt, a Nobel prize winner, and shared his sexist opinion of female scientists – distractingly sexy,prone to weep when criticised and best segregated at work – with a room full of science writers … Within 24 hours of his after-dinner speech, he had gone This bitter mix of resentments amplified by the polarising environment of social media should have met a calmer official response. But the professor still had to go.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com