Open Thread and Link Farm, Gerrymandered Edition
- “Atena Farghadani is a 28-year-old Iranian artist. She was recently sentenced to 12 years and 9 months in prison for drawing a cartoon.”
- How to make sense of Rachel Dolezal, the NAACP official accused of passing for black – Vox
- There is no comparison between transgender people and Rachel Dolezal | Meredith Talusan | Comment is free | The Guardian
- I pretty much never get tired of the cerulean sweater scene from The Devil Wears Prada. What scenes can you watch over and over? Provide a link, if you can.
- Decoded | Are Fried Chicken & Watermelon Racist? | MTV News – YouTube
- An Anti-Feminist Walks Into a Bar: A Play in Five Acts | Whatever
- Stop Trying to Make Conservative Feminism Happen – Amanda Marcotte
- Some people say that Hitler is never funny, but this cartoon totally cracked me up.
- Terminal Lance – Terminal Lance “Offended II” A cartoon by a vet responding to the “Caitlyn Jenner isn’t brave, soldiers are brave” meme. The essay following the cartoon is great.
- Comics Pro John Byrne Compares Transgender People to Pedophiles In Conversation With Fans On His Online Forum | The Mary Sue Byrne’s approach is as pure an example of JAQing off as I’ve ever seen.
- DC Comics’ Batgirl writers are rewriting one of their issues to remove transphobic art. I hope they did a good job of it.
- Speaking of transgender characters in comics, one of my favorite webcomics right now is the wonderful As The Crow Flies, by Melanie Gillman. Melanie has a Patreon to support this comic.
- 9 questions about gender identity and being transgender you were too embarrassed to ask – Vox“> This seems like a good basic FAQ to me, but of course, I’m cis, so there may be things I’m missing.
- How a new generation of activists is trying to make abortion normal – The Washington Post
- White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement –
- I’m in an Age-Gap Marriage, and Yes, Pairing Younger Actresses with Older Male Leads IS a Problem | The Mary Sue
- Should the dragons on ‘Game of Thrones’ have feathers?
- Caitlyn Jenner: transgender community has mixed reactions to Vanity Fair reveal
- Anti-Gay Pastor Rick Scarborough Says 40,000 People Will Go To Jail To Defy SCOTUS Gay Marriage Ruling| Gay News | Towleroad I think I’ve said this before, but I don’t understand how they think this will work – that is, how on earth does one get arrested in defiance of a pro-gay marriage ruling? Are they planning to trespass on same-sex wedding ceremonies until the cops drag them off the alter?
- Time for a New Suitcase: Airlines Want to Make Your Carry-On Bag Even Smaller
- On The Incident In McKinney, Texas, And The Black Girls Who Survive
- Military’s transgender ban based on bad medical science, say medical scientists
- Republican senator criticizes Obamacare on the grounds that Obamacare subsidies are awesome
- Voluntary Intoxication and Responsibility
- A Debate on Online Political Discourse — Medium This exchange between Freddie deBoer and the excelent Jay Caspian Kang was excellent. It’s refreshing to see deBoer disagreeing with someone without holding them in contempt. Via Veronica.
- New Evidence That Voter ID Laws are Racially Biased. The more white people in a state believe in racial stereotypes, the more likely that state is to have strict voter ID laws.
- How Automatic Voter Registration Would Change America The problem with this argument is that, even if people are automatically registered to vote, that doesn’t mean many of them will actually vote. I’m in favor of AVR, but I don’t think it’ll have large effects.
- Caitlyn Jenner is High Femme, Get Over It — Medium “The attacks on Jenner’s femininity represent transmisogyny and femmephobia because there is a glaring double standard here. You won’t hear a famous cisgender female movie actress accused of being too feminine or a stereotype for wearing a dress.”
- Ban Noncompete Agreements. Do It Now. Noncompete agreements being used to bully low-paid cashiers and the like – and that these agreements are in effect legal because no one expects them to be enforced with a lawsuit – is pretty disgusting.
- Arizona mosque invites armed anti-Muslim protestors, including a dude in a “Fuck Islam,” shirt, to join them in prayer.
- It’s Time To Bring Back Baby Cages: Gothamist (Link Via.)
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The Vox link (#13) doesn’t seem to work, but I googled it and found it interesting. Interestingly, it feels like the Vox article rebuts some of the points made in the Guardian piece about Rachel Dolezal.
[Link fixed! Thanks, Phil. –Amp]
Adding piquancy to the punchline for this British English speaker was the fact that my reaction to the second panel was “It’s ‘different from’, not ‘different than'”!
Tim Hunt: ‘I’ve been hung out to dry. They haven’t even bothered to ask for my side of affairs’
A Nobel laureate’s career is destroyed after someone tweeted “sexism” over an off-the-cuff joke. It certainly seems like these things are about condemning people and throwing metaphorical stones to me.
1) I agree that he shouldn’t have been fired, full stop. (Although the position he was fired from was some sort of honorary position? My impression is that he was essentially retired, although I might be mistaken.) I disagree strongly with anyone who called for him to be fired, but the people I blame are the ones that actually did the firing.
2) I don’t agree that it’s wrong to criticize Tim Hunt (or anyone else) for the things he says.
3) Jokes are not a “get out of criticism free” card, although of course it is part of context that should be taken into account.
4) It’s interesting that you imply that jokes should be immune from criticism. I’m sure the next time you see someone complaining about Jessica Valenti wearing a “I drink male tears” sweatshirt, you’ll be sure to defend her using the same principle.
In general, I think it was a stupid, sexist joke. I’m happy for that to be criticized; I’m not happy for someone to lose even an honorary position over it.
Incidentally, Desipis, thanks for posting the link to that article about Hunt; it was interesting reading.
Via PZ Myers, the journalist Deborah Blum attended the World Conference of Science Journalists at which Hunt made his remarks. (According to his interview with the Guardian, those remarks were a product of nervous energy.) Luckily, later in the day when such nerves had calmed down, Blum asked him directly whether his remarks were to be interpreted as ironic or a joke, and he affirmed that he feels women are too emotional to collaborate with.
And thanks for that link as well, Mookie.
I agree with the link, that Tim Hunt has not handled this well, and has almost certainly been less than truthful in an effort to make himself look better.
But this doesn’t change my essential view at all. Hunt should have been criticized; he should have apologized; but he should not have lost his job.
Fascinating story on Morning Edition today about the gradual development of ads targeting specific groups (in this case African Americans) starting in the 1960s due to a Chicago ad man who was one of the very first black people in advertising. It includes a bit about an ad published in the late 1960s (I believe) with ad copy something like “1856 – a very good year for beer” in Ebony magazine. Also some interesting stuff about how he developed a black Marlboro Man.
I’ve seen you kvetch about Deboer before. I’m unsure where you’ve seen him being contemptuous of everyone he disagrees with because that hasn’t been my experience with his writings. Do you happen to have recent ( within the past 2 years) links of him doing this?
The thing that struck me most about Hunt’s comments* was the bit about crying. Not just because not all women cry on the job–er, obviously–but because of the discomfort with the idea. If I said to my coworkers that I couldn’t get along with men because they sometimes got angry when criticized, I would be laughed out of the room: strident argument is just part of the job. But heaven forbid your reaction to frustration be tears rather than anger.
*I’m saying “comments” here rather than “joke” because he doubled down on this portion of his remarks, as Mookie pointed out. And this is also kind of a general reaction–I’ve heard this kind of stuff entirely seriously from men in my field before (which is heavily coloring my reaction to his joke, or whatever, so I probably won’t say much more about it, except to agree that his being fired was inappropriate).
As I understand it, Hunt didn’t lose his job. He lost an unpaid and honorary post.
Gerrymandering:
Illinois used to have a great way to deal with this – it was called “cumulative voting”. We had 59 legislative districts. Each voter could cast 3 votes for anywhere from 1 to 3 candidates. The way it worked out in districts with a minority party with a significant number of supporters was that the majority party voters would vote for 2 or 3 candidates (if you voted for 2, they got 1.5 votes each), and the minority voters would vote a “bullet vote” – all 3 of their votes – for the leading minority candidate. That way, everyone in the district had someone in the legislature supporting their views. Each district also elected one Senator, using the normal procedures of one candidate/party and one vote.
It was noted that there wasn’t a lot of competition for many seats – people tended to hold them for a long time. It was also noted that a State with about 11 million people had a House of 177 Representatives. As a “Good Government” measure to try to increase competition and save money, each district was divided into two parts. Each district then elected one Senator, and each part-district elected one House rep, reducing the size of the House by 1/3 and supposedly introducing a lot more direct head-to-head competition.
How well did that work? Over 60% of all Illinois House districts had only one major party candidate on the ballot in the 2014 election. I’m curious to know what that number was like in your State. Note I’m taking State legislature here, not Federal. I’d much rather go back to cumulative voting.
@2 – I didn’t find that Vox article on Rachel Dolezal all that illuminating. The examples they give of families with different people choosing to self-identify with different races are generally people of fairly high proportions of “minority” (from an American context) ancestry. But in Ms. Dolezal’s case, it would appear that she has a quite low to non-existent minority ancestry. Her adoption of a black racial identity is simply deception.
I had a DNA analysis done. 61% English/Scandinavian (invasions ….), 31% Irish, and 8% West African. That aligns with parish marriage records in Bermuda that have a paternal great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-grandfather marrying women described as “colored”. Would any of you say that I’m black?
Let’s face it. This woman may well have done some fine work in the civil rights arena. I have no way to judge that and frankly don’t care. That’s something for the people she’s been working with to judge and deal with. But she’s been lying to people, and I don’t see anything in that Vox article that makes sense of that.
And just as I was about to hit “Enter”, this: she’s resigned as leader of the Spokane NAACP.
LOL. Prof says women are difficult to work with and a female co-presenter
disproves it by throwing a hissy fit at him on twitter. Case closed, I guess?!? And of course she’s unclear about irony. Congrats to everyone involved for striking a blow for gender equality while simultaneously providing Exhibit A in the case that you have to be really fucking careful working with women unless you want to see someone try and wreck your career in an hormonal rage fit. In retrospect, the main criticism of his position looks to be that it wasn’t extreme enough.I haven’t made this comment in quite a while, so this is exciting for me!
Wow.
OK, that crossed Poe’s Law for me. HAS to be a spoof. LOL.
Pete P., since you appear to be deliberately trolling the forum, I’ve put you on auto-moderated status; what that means is, rather than your comments automatically appearing when you post them, from now on each of your comments will require individual approval by one of the moderators before they appear in public.
Amp, I agree that Hunt shouldn’t have lost his / any jobs. I do take a bit of issue with characterizing honorary titles or nominal appointments (sitting on SABs and review panels, doing publicity for charities like Cancer Research UK) as “jobs,” however, because it could be a bit of a detriment to these organizations to appear to be condoning his belief that women are distractions in the pursuit of Real and Honorable Science.
UCL has amended their statement to clarify that Hunt had never been an employee, had never received a salary, and had offered his resignation without responding to their initial correspondence after the story broke (implying, I think, that they wanted to be gracious and not prolong the time between his public resignation and their acceptance of it and that they took the lack of a reply from him as a signal that he’d rather there be no further discussion). I don’t know if I entirely believe that, but it does contradict the Guardian piece that suggested he was going to be ousted no matter what.
If he’s teaching and/or running labs, his statements strongly suggest that he may have been intentionally discriminating against women. I don’t think he should be fired based on one statement. However, I do think that his statement should trigger investigations into and/or oversight of his grading, hiring and promotion practices.
Michael Eisen reports that he and Hunt attended a meeting in Kashmir this year in which the two served as “advisors” for the young Indian scientists attending. One session scheduled was a forum for “women to discuss the challenges they have faced building their scientific careers in India.” Several women volunteered to speak about their experiences as young professionals, and recounted being harassed and physically assaulted by male peers and supervisors, amongst other things. Given Hunt’s attendance, it does seem odd that only a few months later, he’d choose to use his address to the Korean Federation of Women’s Science and Technology Associations as an opportunity to joke about overemotional women (whom he has now stated he believes to make poor professional collaborators because they are distracting, because they fall in love too easily, and because, interestingly enough, they overreact when justly criticized).
I hope this isn’t somehow over the line, but I found that Vox FAQ to be, well, confusing.
I still don’t quite understand what gender identity is.
So, I actually have tried similar thought experiments to the one described at the beginning of the article; gender and sex are a minefield of complicated ideas, so I decided to imagine something fairly simple. I switched out the terms “man” and “woman” for height terms.
“Okay, I’m [six feet tall], but imagine my mind was telling me that I was [five feet tall], I might wish that I weren’t [six feet tall]…”
And I had to stop there because I was already engaging in anti-trans language. Look at what happens when I switch it back:
“Okay, I’m [a man], but imagine my mind was telling me I’m [a woman], I might wish that I weren’t [a man]…”
If I were to describe a trans woman as “a man who wishes to be a woman”, that would be considered extremely transphobic in most trans-friendly circles.
The more acceptable description seems to be that a trans man is “[A man] who was assigned [a female gender] at birth. A trans man has always been [a man] for their whole lives.”. It’s very common to hear that a trans man has always been a man, and a trans woman has always been a woman.
But if I try to turn it back around I get “I am [a five foot tall person] who was assigned [the height of six feet] at my last checkup. But I’ve always been [five feet tall]”
That’s harder for me to wrap my head around. I’m clearly using the term “five foot tall person” to refer to something other than a measurement on a ruler, but I’m not sure what that something is.
Especially when we get to this part of the article:
So a trans man may well be okay with having a (for lack of a better term) “female” body, which means that when he calls himself a man he’s not talking in terms of what his body is, or what it should be. In fact, it seems entirely possible that he may wear “women’s” clothes; I think we can all agree that a man can wear a dress and it doesn’t magically make him stop being a man.
But I get stuck on this; if that trans man isn’t using the word “man” in terms of facts related to his biological sex, and he’s not using the word “man” to describe an effort to conform to societal gender roles, what does the word “man” mean in this context?
I’m not saying “Rargh, he’s not really a man” because in order to do that I’d first have to have a definition of what it meant to “really” be a man. And I don’t. I’d really like to know what the definition is.
Another comment on gerrymandering:
There’s some of it at least that is done to create “majority minority” districts that are expected to then elect minority politicians and to thus raise their proportion in the legislature. See here. It’s about 15 miles east/west on that map. The enclaves in the city are highly Hispanic, the suburban parts not so much. Question to you all – does the objective of creating a district guaranteed to elect a minority Representative to Congress make gerrymandering more acceptable?
N.B. – my home is not on that map but I drive through part of that district quite often.
And something that may well make the Rachel Dolezal situation truly bizarre. Back in 2002 a woman named Rachel Moore sued Howard University for discriminating against her because she was white. Rachel Dolezal was married to a man named Howard Moore between 2000 and 2004.. I am not familiar with the web site with the former link, but they do link to a source document that looks pretty genuine.
What Hunt said makes me almost too angry for words, between the sexism and the homophobia and the fact that he thought these were appropriate topics to *joke* about. I’m a woman and a former STEM student, and I can tell you that ish is not even a little bit funny.
@ Christopher
I’m not trans, but I do have a gender identity, and as a woman, a queer person, and a trans* ally (to the best of my ability), I’ve thought about all this quite a bit.
1) You might find Julia Serano’s description of her experiences with ‘gender sadness’ illuminating. This is taken from a page on her old blog, but I highly recommend her book “Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity” if you are interested in transgender issues, sexism/feminism, or intersectionality.
2) It might be helpful to consider that different aspects of a person’s identity are of varying importance to different people. For instance, to some people, their nationality might be an important part of their self-concept, self-image, and their sense of who they are (i.e. their identity). For some others, their nationality may be only a very small portion of of what they consider to be their core self. The same can be said of pretty much any other trait or attribute – religious background, sexuality, profession, ethnicity, (dis)ability, family role, etc. And of course, it likewise applies to gender idenity. For instance, though I have a fairly specific and narrow range of gender expressions within which I am comfortable, I don’t have a strong innate gender identity (though I identify ‘politically’ – for lack of a better term – as a woman, and with womanhood, due to the historical and current myriad issues with sexism, strict gender roles, etc). I sometime describe my gender identity as ‘shy’, because if I ‘put it in the spotlight’ by thinking about it too hard or too long, I end up feeling uncomfortable and upset. It’s pretty neutral or androgynous though I think, and somewhat fluid. (Sometimes I feel like ‘one of the boys’, and sometimes like ‘one of the girls’.) It’s also worth noting though that I feel very much at home in AFAB (assigned female at birth) body, and I identify strongly as cissexual.
3) There are many aspects of a person’s biological sex. Some of the main facets:
– hormones: estrogen and progesterone vs. testosterone
– hormone cycles: approximately monthly vs. daily
– chromosomes: there are two sex chromosomes, X and Y, and many configurations of one or more copies of the X chromosome and zero or more copies of the Y chromosome in humans. Chromosomal testing is very rare, so we don’t really have good data at all about how common the various arrangements are in general, or how they correlate – if at all – with being cisgender, transgender, and/or intersex.
– secondary sexual characteristics, eg: breasts vs. facial hair and deepened voice
– primary sexual characteristics: genitalia
– gametes: egg cells vs. sperm cells
Now if a trans woman, for instance, has the hormones, hormonal cycle, secondary sexual characteristics, and genitals commonly associated with being female, unknown chromosomes, and no male gametes in her body, there is a very strong case to be made for her to be considered ‘biologically female’, and it certainly would be very difficult to assert that she was ‘biologically male’. Moreover, many cisgender people lack one or more of the listed factors (eg, post-menopausal women, men who have received radiation therapy, women who have had a mastectomy, etc.), yet we would not consider them to be less ‘qualified’ to be considered ‘biologically’ female or male, as applicable, nor would we doubt their experience of their subjective gender.
Many trans people have spoken or written about their experiences with HRT (hormone replacement therapy) in similar terms to the following memorable passage (emphasis in the original):
I’ve been on estrogen for nearly eleven weeks, and I still count down the hours (seven) until I can take my next dose. […] It’s hard to describe, but everything just feels more natural now that my mind and body are no longer flooded with testosterone. It’s as though after 23 years, I have finally stopped trying to fill up a diesel car with unleaded gas. My brain was made to run on estrogen.
As well, I think it’s worth noting as well that many trans people experience body dysphoria and social dysphoria as distinct but related phenomena, which they they may experience at different levels of severity. Additionally, there are a great many physical changes that can be effected via HRT, electrolysis, and various non-genital surgeries. And of course there’s really no way to tell what genitalia someone has without looking at them naked from the waist down — which really never comes up an interactions with someone who isn’t an in-person intimate partner, and sometimes not even then!
Sorry my comment was so long; I hope there was some stuff in there that was helpful or interesting.
RonF:
I’m not sure how I feel personally about this idea, in the abstract–in my opinion, a system of ranked voting is a better way to ensure minority representation than a system of districts. (Although I’m kind of an extremist when it comes to the idea of “regional representation”–I think we should abolish the electoral college in favor of a one-vote, one-person system, and I’d be in favor of reforming the structure of Congress so that the representation each human within the U.S. gets is much more proportionate.)
But RonF, I think the idea you bring up of drawing districts such that minority representatives are elected can be seen in the illustration that leads of the OP. Figure 2 is designated “Compact, but unfair” because, while it creates 5 equal districts, the minority–red–is completely shut out. Figure 1, “Perfect representation” does, in fact, have districts that were drawn to encompass the minority, and it results in minority representation even as the majority still wins.
I want to write a comment here that discusses a question that Christopher raised and also some of my own mental stumbling blocks when it comes to trans issues and gender issues. I do not intend to be impolite, but it is possible my comment here may be triggering for people who are struggling with these issues in a more personal way.
This is a question that I’m honestly trying to find a meaningful answer for.
I understand, as a writer and a progressive and a person who generally doesn’t want to cause people harm, that it is polite to refer to a trans woman as a woman, to use the pronouns that she prefers, and to use the name that she requests. I have no problem with that, and I understand that this use of language might be more than just politeness but might contribute to a space where someone feels safer.
In other words, I don’t want to sound transphobic or to do things that are transphobic. But, on another level, I don’t want to be transphobic. I can say that Janet Mock (for example) is a woman, but it feels like I’m being dishonest unless I also believe that Janet Mock is a woman.
Now, I don’t hold the belief that Janet Mock is a man, or that she is not a woman, or that being trans is a third sex. But if I’m going to hold the belief that she is a woman, then I feel like I need to understand what a woman is such that Janet Mock fits the criteria.
This might sound like a transphobic thing to say, and if it does, I’m sorry, but for me, finding out the answer to that question is the key to not being transphobic.
At the moment, the best I can glean is that a woman is a person who identifies as a woman (and a man is a person who identifies as a man). That’s functional from a rhetorical perspective, but it does render some common narratives illogical. (How can you, as a child, feel like “a person who identifies as a woman” — there must be something more, beyond simple identification, such that a person can reasonably say, “I have always known I was a woman” or “I have always known I was a man.” Or, “I did not change from being a man to being a woman, I changed what I identified as,” etc.)
The Guardian essay says this about Rachel Dolezal:
I feel like the Guardian essay engages in the logical fallacy of question-begging: Rachel Dolezal is not black because she is only choosing to identify as black, but trans people are the gender they identify as because they actually are that gender.
Anyone in the Western PA./Eastern Ohio area is invited to the Wheeling Summer Solstice Festival this Sunday.
Phil, in alternative 1, “Perfect Representation”, all the districts are equally compact. That’s because in the “map” given, there is symmetry in how the minority is distributed. But in real life you don’t get that. Say you number those little squares 1 – 50, top left to lower right. What that map shows is that all the minority people are in squares 1, 2, 6, 7, … (5n+1), (5n+2). But what if they are in 1, 5, 13, 22, 23, 34 … in other words, what if they are distributed randomly, such that it is not possible to create a district that is “majority minority” with any reasonable definition of “compact”? And you have do do what is shown in the map I linked to, which is so extremely gerrymandered that in order to keep the territory of the district contiguous the people who drew it connected the two parts of it with a stretch of I-294 – just the roadbed itself – where no one lives. Do you think that such a thing is legitimate to achieve some objectives but not others?
Christopher, dragon_snap, and Phil:
Thank you for treading so lightly.
I’m including your comments in a post which I’ve just drafted, and which should go up tomorrow. Let’s see if we can continue this discussion in that dedicated thread, once it goes up.
Grace
Phil – what is “a system of ranked voting”?
I’m thinking you’ll all like this cartoon.
I’d say yes – in that I’d like representation to fairly well represent the makeup of the voters – so if a city is 40% conservative and 60% liberal, it makes sense to me to have districts that try to get close to this. Now, maybe this isn’t possible without ridiculous contortions, and I value contiguous districts too, but I’d prefer that “40% conservative and 60% liberal” doesn’t mean “100% liberal representation,” just from a standpoint of valuing democracy.
So that’s a legitimate use of gerrymandering (IMO).
What’s an illegitimate use?
“Let’s make sure the Jews don’t have any power.”
“Let’s make sure that our 40% conservative city has 80% conservative representation!”
“Let’s make sure that our 60% liberal city has 100% liberal representation!”
As far as racial gerrymandering goes, I’d have to look at it on a case by case basis. In general, I’d probably be opposed, but certain areas have such a history of institutional prejudice that it’s important to deliberately maintain a voice for racial minorities.
—Myca
You were right, at least as far as concerning me!
The problem with debates about gerrymandering is that if you choose how to shape districts based on who’s in them then you’re choosing the makeup of the legislature, which is bad. But if you choose based on some other factor like geography, you’re randomizing the makeup of the legislature, which is bad. Once you understand the system, you can’t unsee what you’ve seen.
Patrick:
People in particular geographic areas often share common interests (for instance, water rights are extremely geographical) and benefit from distinct representation.
The main problem is that first-past-the-post single representative districts are a really poor basis for constructing a legislature. You can try to fix the problems of minority groups getting shut out completely because they are everywhere a minority for reasonable districts (and doing so is a good thing where reasonably possible, because sizeable groups getting completely cut out of being represented in the legislature is obviously a bad thing), but there are far better ways to elect representatives in a way that is actually representative (and still preserve geographic representation).
I don’t disagree, I just object to calling geographical districts ‘random.’
An interesting take on the Rachel Dolezal affair, to which I confess I have not been paying careful enough attention. My head has been buried in school-related sand, but this piece was thought-provoking enough that it has made me want to go back and read/watch much of what I have missed.
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Myca:
What do you think of it in the case I linked to?
Hey, RonF:
We were talking about public opinion of Andrew Jackson, and we realized that we have no idea what the general conservative consensus on Jackson is. So, if you have any idea yourself, do you know what the general feeling about Jackson is in right-wing circles? Positive? Negative? Mixed?
Thank you.
yrs–
–Ben
RonF:
It looks as if a spammer has taken over your aol.com address – I got a spam email from you (looks like it may have been sent to your entire list of contacts). I’m telling you here just in case email sent to that address might not reach you. :-(
An interesting take on the Rachel Dolezal affair, to which I confess I have not been paying careful enough attention. My head has been buried in school-related sand, but this piece was thought-provoking enough that it has made me want to go back and read/watch much of what I have missed.
I made it aaaaaaall the way to “I have learned through experience the challenges of raising black boys in a white supremacist nation”, and decided that I had better things to do that read someone who is so out of touch with reality. There is a better argument for the US being a theocracy than being a white supremacist nation, and neither argument is a good one.
I wish that everyone who accuses a large group of people of being Nazist, white supremacists, sadists, psychopaths, etc… would have to spend a few days with the real deal. People who say that Bush/Obama have turned the US in a Nazi/Commie police state are on top of my list.
—
As for the affair, I do not see what the big deal is. If she wants to be Black, let her. She acts and looks Black enough, and I do not see how it harms me or anyone. Of course, I had quite the culture shock when I realized that many people in the US did not see me as White, but ‘ethnic’. Race is so much more important to Americans than it is anywhere else. Of course, everyone else has their own hangups. Being perceived as working class in Britain, embracing foreign influence in France, некултурний in Russia, rural in Bulgaria is no better… it’s just so much easier to outlive.
Did anyone else read this and assume that Pesho must be a vampire?
Ben – I do not consider myself a valid source to provide any information about the general conservative consensus on Andrew Jackson. I’m not even sure there is such a thing.
Amp – thanks. In fact, I maintain that AOL address in part so that I can provide it for blog registrations, companies that I’ve bought things from and want one for product registration, and any other source that I have absolutely no trust in whether or not their databases are secure. If anyone gets an e-mail from an AOL address that purports to be me, it’s spam. I never use that address to send mail out to people.
Let’s see – work, MIT alumnus, cable company, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, ARRL, QRZ, Mindspring, and at least two others I’d have to look up – I’ve got a few e-mail addresses…. Work lives on my work PC 24 x 7, Cable company and MIT alumnus live on my home PC 24 x 7, gmail hits my phone 24 x 7. ARRL forwards, QRZ forwards, Yahoo and AOL definitely do NOT forward and Mindspring is probably dead. I’ve got Twitter but there are very few people that I care to hear their random < 140 character thoughts 24 x 7. Texting is convenient at times – I used it last night at church during the Bishop's sermon to let my choirmaster know I'd brought the whiskey for after the service after he'd texted me apologizing for not bringing the bottle he owed me for fixing his boyfriend's PC (Bad! Bad RonF!).
RonF, an example of that would be “instant runoff voting” which allows voters to rank candidates in order of choice. (Check out instantrunoff dot com if you’d like.)
Wikipedia describes it as a way to elect a single winner from a field of candidates, but that’s not inherent to the system; it could also be used to elect a slate of candidates from a larger field.
The Oscars currently uses a similar system.
This would, in my view, be preferable to geographic districts because some issues are geographically important and some aren’t. So, if you and your neighbors care very very much about one particular candidate, you could all rank her #1 and she’d have a decent chance at getting elected. On the other hand, if you and your neighbors are very much split about who will best represent you, you can rank your choice #1 and rank your neighbor’s choice #2 (because, for example, you believe that a person committed to representing your neighborhood is a better choice than any of the alternatives) and you wouldn’t be wasting your vote by voting for the person you really want.
I happen to believe that instant runoff voting should be implemented in U.S. national elections, and that we should do away with the electoral college.
Related to The Mint Garden but not really on-topic:
I’ve planted mint twice! You don’t know my life! :)
It’s a healthy distance away from the other herbs, though, with nearby plants that get as tall or taller than it does, so that it can’t easily kill them. A large amount of it is next to the lawn; I don’t care if it invades the lawn. It’s mostly there to fill in space underneath a large rosebush (the same one in my profile pic, which I believe I’ve correctly identified as Blush Hip).
Illinois right now has an allocation of 18 House of Representatives members. Are you proposing, then, that there be a State-wide slate and that the system be used until only 18 candidates are left – and thus elected?
Ben – it might be interesting to ask some Democrats what their consensus is on Andrew Jackson. After all, he was a – if not the – major figure in their party’s founding.
I’m finding the discussion at The Mint Garden thread eye-opening. And voluminous. So I thought I’d praise Grace here rather than adding more verbiage there.
1. Her posts challenge my initial thoughts about the extent to which concepts of identity rely on (learned) socialization. That’s worth the price of admission right there.
2. She’s really investing time there. She’s gamely knocking back tennis balls even though there is a real asymmetry in the number of people on each side of the net.
3. She’s really investing effort there. I expect Grace would find this topic draining to discuss – not only because it’s complicated and subtle, but because it unavoidably poses challenges to Grace’s (presentation of) identity. I expect that Grace would experience The Mint Garden as a garden of microaggressions. But she soldiers on without defensiveness.
Anyway: Yea Grace! I may lack the social skills to leaven my substantive remarks with words of appreciation and encouragement. (Hey, sue me; I wasn’t socialized as a girl. ) But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate people. It just means I don’t say it. Until I do. Like now.
Phil:
You didn’t know?
Grace
I’m not sure we use the word “slate” the same way? But other than that, yes. Or maybe a system of voting for party slates, rather than individual people. (So if the Republicans have 20 people on their slate, and win 50% of the vote, then the top 9 people on the Republican slate get to be House members.)
At its founding, the Democratic party was loathsome in a whole bunch of ways.
Among progressives, despising Andrew Jackson is so commonplace it’s cliche. I assume any progressive that doesn’t hate Jackson, is just unfamiliar with the history.
Speaking of Jackson, Amanda Marcotte – while proposing five possible women for the ten dollar bill – wrote:
RonF:
As far as I can tell, there is an overwhelming left-wing consensus (among Democrats and non-Democrats alike) that Andrew Jackson was horrible. The only person I’ve seen come vaguely close to defending him said “he was a truly representative of the people of the US at the time — racist and violent.”
I was curious whether there was a left/right agreement on this issue.
I want to second the thanks given to Grace.
This gets at my only objection to the idea of booting Andrew Jackson off of the $20 bill: I think that some of our national/cultural emblems need to just present our history, in all of its complexity. If we presuppose that having one’s face on a piece of currency is an honor, then, yes, it makes sense to get rid of Jackson (and, for various reasons, many of the other men on our currency.)
But if our currency is just a way of acknowledging our nation’s history, then it makes sense to include women, because women were a part of our nation’s history. But the villains of our history shouldn’t be erased, either.
This reminds me of the way that Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year,” which became the “Person of the Year,” evolved in many people’s minds into being an honor instead of a designation of a person* who had most impacted the news that year.
*interestingly, Time did occasionally designate women as “Man of the Year.”
For proportional representation systems, I think I favor the system used in the German Bundestag: voters vote for a candidate in their local district and for a party (they don’t have to match, so I can vote for the Social Democrat I like and also vote for the Green party). Half the seats on the Bundestag are district seats, the other half of the seats are pulled from regional (Land) party lists to make the total proportions match the party preference votes within each Land, so if in every single district of a Land the voters elected a Christian Democrat, but the party vote was split 50-30-20 CDU, SDP and Green, then the second half of the seats would be split 60-40 between the SDP list and the Greens list. There are additional steps to ensure that the national party proportions of seats match the national party preference vote. This dual voting system preserves proportional representation and preserves local representation (at both the district and land level). The division between party vote and candidate vote also means that you can kick out a bad local representative (or elect a local representative you really like even though they are the wrong party) without harming your preferred party’s position in the legislature.
The Towelroad article seems to have vanished.
Re Hunt
David Colquhoun’s covered a lot of ground in the past week, but two updates are particularly interesting: one, an interview with Hunt from last April in which he admits that a scarcity of women in science is not a bad or a staggering thing that needs to be corrected (putting paid, I think, to the notion that he was Joking about his Own Inadequacies when he advocated for sex-segregated or woman-less labs) and, second, Colquhoun observes that Hunt’s decision to abandon his ambassadorships and honorary positions make sense on several levels (he’d only be publicly embarrassed by a tribunal, and what he’s advocating for is illegal).
Yesterday, in an interview with the Observer, Hunt acknowledged that his work with UCL was at an end, anyway, and he’s looking forward to Wimbledon. Problem solved at all ends, then, except for the HashtagReinstateHunt crowd.
Free speech comes up fairly regularly for this site, so this seems on topic: http://popehat.com/2015/06/22/dojs-gag-order-on-reason-has-been-lifted-but-the-real-story-is-more-outrageous-than-we-thought/
Short summary (which I hopefully got right): the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York subpoenaed Reason (a libertarian magazine), demanding that they identify anonymous commenters who had made intemperate and hyperbolic comments about a particular judge. The subpoena was (apparently) followed by a gag order that Reason not discuss or admit the existence of the subpoena or the gag order itself.
The story is of interest to anyone who’s a loudmouth on the Internet, concerned about government overreach, or concerned about having the free speech right to criticize authority. I put myself in all three categories. Ken from Popehat has been doing god’s work in covering the story.
Amp and Charles S:
Well, take Illinois as an example. As you find in many States, there’s a geographically extensive rural area and a compact but very densely populated urban area. If you use straight-up ranked voting for candidates, you could find that all 18 of your House delegates are from the urban and suburban areas and none elected from the rural area.
As far as party slates go – where representation is apportioned based on the percent vote each party gets – that puts way too much power into the hands of the party bosses. For example, I have for years been represented by a Democrat in Congress who voted against the ACA and opposes Federally-funded abortions. We also for a term had a Senator who ignored his party’s desires and put in a U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois who acted independently of party interests and indicted over 60 politicians (and convicted about 95% of them) for fraud, electoral shenanigans, etc. That would be very unlikely if my only choice in voting was the party and not the actual individual, as they would most likely not choose candidates who did not pass the party’s ideologic purity test (and loyalty to the party hierarchy).
Our Founders actually deliberately chose to NOT have a party-based legislature. I think it was a wise decision. Parties and party interests should not be entrenched as a formal part of our government. It reduces the direct accountability of an elected representative to his or her constituents. Parties have too much power already, the last thing I want to do is to give them more.
There are also methods like that (eg single transferable vote, or even IRV could be done this way I think) that compromise between the two. Instead of 18 districts you’d have, say, 6, made by combining 3 of the old districts. Then each of those new districts elects 3 representatives, instead of each district electing 1. So the three most popular candidates (by whichever method) are sent to the legislature, meaning that in, say, a district split 51-49, you’d ensure that the 49% still got at least one candidate in, but all three of the candidates would be somewhat local to you, if not always quite as local as before.
Harlequin, see my post #12 in this thread. That’s very similar to what Illinois used to do.
Phil:
Tip O’Neill (D-Mass and Speaker of the House for just over a decade):
A national issue may have many local ramifications. A rise or drop in defense spending can affect local jobs in one juristiction, pollution in another, and corporate profits in yet a third. Frankly, you’d have a hard time sorting out very many Federal questions that don’t have disparate local effects.
RonF,
The Bundestag system involves voting for both an individual and a party (which draws from a list to make up the difference). The list is used only to make up the difference between the balance of the individuals elected and the party preference expressed. An anti-corruption candidate can run on whichever party line, and people can vote for them and still vote loyally for the party (so I could voter for an anti-corruption Republican and still vote Democratic as well, I’d just be ensuring that one of the Republicans was anti-corruption. Likewise, Republicans could comfortably vote for the anti-corruption Democrat, knowing that they were just making the Dems less corrupt, not making the Dems more powerful). Also, proportional representation systems are much more supportive of more than two functional parties, which can serve an anti-corruption function (e.g. the anti-corruption Democrats could split off and run their own list, and win seats proportionately even if they couldn’t win a seat directly). I can buy that pure list systems are probably supportive of entrenched corruption, but mixed direct/list systems seem distinctly unsupportive.
On the rural issue, Illinois is 80% urban, 9 % small city, 11% rural. In an Illinois Bundestag, rural and small town voters could still be in the same districts they are in now, electing rural and small town candidates. They’d also be voting for a party, so the 40% (or whatever it is) of Illinois small towners who vote Democratic would not be shut out entirely, just as the 10% (or whatever it is) of South Side Chicago voters who vote Republican would not be shut out entirely. The proportional representation system would also mean that Democrats would have much less need to gerrymander the districts: currently, Illinois has only one house seat that is majority rural, which represents only 1 quarter of rural voters, so 3/4 of rural voters in Illinois are currently heavily outvoted by their small town and urban neighbors. In a PR system, they could band together and vote for a Rural Party list (or for a Rural Democrats list and a Rural Republicans list). The Rural Republicans and Rural Democrats might be at risk of falling under the minimum percentage cutoff and being excluded, but they’d at least have more of a chance than they have
now.
Certainly, Illinois Suburban Republicans would be much better represented in a Bundestag system, where they could join with all the other Suburban Republicans in electing Suburban Republican candidates, rather than being split up as a minorities within majority Democratic districts.
“Approval of same-sex marriage will have UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES!”
Prob’ly true, sez Slate’s associate editor J. Bryan Lowder.
In the era of racial segregation, black people of varying social classes lived in closer proximity to each other. They built vibrant communities of black-owned enterprises. Desegregation changed that. Given new choices, gradually higher status black people moved into the same neighborhoods, attended the same schools, and patronized the same establishments as higher-status white people. The old black neighborhoods and institutions became seen as the place for those who lacked any viable means of escape.
Similarly, in an era with narrowly-drawn sexual norms, a vibrant underground community arose among the many and varied who did not conform. With the soon-to-be-issued Supreme Court decision rejecting gender discrimination in marriage laws, gays are rapidly gaining access to the same neighborhoods and institutions as other high-status people.
So, ironically, by winning social acceptance and the discretion to get a legally-sanctioned marriage, gays may be losing other options.
For examples, gays can openly go drinking anywhere – accept gay bars, because those bars are closing due to the fact that gays can now go drinking anywhere.
As same-sex marriage receives both legal and social acceptance, will other forms of domestic relationships become more stigmatized? Will employers cease offering benefits to partners of employees unless they are married? Will states repeal domestic partnership laws?
Moreover, where will that leave the other members of the coalition? As gay goes mainstream, will those with non-mainstream sex lives seem even more marginal?
As same-sex marriage becomes a dead issue, won’t ever more gays feel free to go Republican?
Finally: Throughout Western popular literature and popular imagination, marriage has been seen as the goal, the happily-ever-after symbol of success and conclusion, around which to organize your life. The LGBTQ communities, deprived of a realistic path to this goal, established more fluid norms of relationships. In short, they valued friendships — a type of social arrangement that popular culture relegates to buddy movies with the deprecating term “bromance.” Even long-running TV series purporting to celebrate friendships tend to end with members coupling off and going their separate ways. With the rise of same-sex marriage, will “mere friendship” join the growing list of things that are ever more marginalized?
A leaked European Commission report has supported Sir Tim Smith’s claims that apparently sexist comments about the “trouble with girls in science” were meant as a joke.
desipis: see, first, Amp’s comment at #4. “It was a joke” isn’t actually a defense of those comments.
That report also doesn’t explain why, when asked about it later, he doubled down on the bit about women crying in the lab and how that was difficult for him. And “ha ha I’m just joking” is, frankly, a way for people who are making offensive jokes that they half-believe to deflect the criticism they know is coming their way–that is, it is possible for a thing to both be a joke and to express beliefs the joker holds or is sympathetic to. That’s way more common, in fact, than a true devil’s advocate joke.
There is a wide swathe of intellectual parameter space where somebody could hold no sexist attitudes themselves and could also understand that women are subjected to those attitudes from other people; folks in that intellectual space don’t make such jokes, or make them with close friends who known they don’t mean them seriously. And there’s a wide swathe of intellectual space, from slightly paternalistic/maternalistic but mostly benign sexism all the way through to serious misogynists, where such jokes would be humorous but also would be seen as holding a kernel of truth. But “I hold no sexist attitudes and yet I had no idea this joke would go over so badly” is a reeeeeeeeeeeally fine middle ground between those two groups. “Sort of believed it, but not very much” is far more likely than “didn’t believe it at all but also didn’t know it would go over like a lead balloon.”
To repeat what I said up at #10… the kind of guy who would make that sort of joke, from a place of being just a little bit sexist? I’ve worked with or been a student with at least one at literally every institution I’ve ever been associated with. They all make jokes like that (and then later make mildly sexist non-joke comments–I’m not just guessing at their attitudes based on their jokes or anything, they’ve all revealed them in serious discussion). The thing that made Hunt’s joke notable was not the content. It was the venue, and Hunt’s personal notability.
Probabilistic arguments like that shouldn’t be used in hiring/firing decisions etc, but as far as casual discussion on the Internet goes? Yeah. No doubt in my mind, frankly, that Hunt believed at least some of what he was saying as a joke.
Mother Jones posts an updated map of states where same-sex marriage is legal.
Charles S, I see what the Bundestag system does. But it also has the consequence of having people vote for parties, not individuals, and thus giving more political power to people – party bosses – who are not themselves elected officials, while making the elected officials more dependent on the party bosses than they are on the electorate. I oppose that, and in my opinion the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages. I also think that the system that Illinois had for years and then abandoned gave the same advantages with fewer disadvantages. I ask you to understand that I’ve been living in a State that has had one-party rule with demonstrably disastrous results and am quite sensitive to the issue.
desipis, yep, I’d read that quote before too. Doesn’t change my opinion at all.
Edit: to unpack that a little, “takes especial care in treatment of underlings” is a common (though unfortunately not universal) philosophy of professional interaction in science, as elsewhere. I can well believe that Hunt was an excellent mentor to everyone who worked for him. That doesn’t mean he didn’t hold sexist beliefs, though, just that the student-mentor relationship was one that he took special care with.
Well, Harlequin, if one woman says he’s not a sexist that’s good enough for me and it should be good enough for you. Never mind what he’s actually said.
Dunno if Mandolin’s around, but to answer a question she asked on Twitter*: I think they’re both equally difficult and require the same type of craft (as you discuss in replies I see)–it’s just whichever you’ve done more of that makes that one easier. In fact, one of my most frequently-used pieces of writing advice comes from this essay on writing sex scenes that explicitly makes the comparison between sex and action scenes. (I mean, I’m sure you’ve come across such things before, but my actual writing training is like two writing workshops in college, so :D)
*I’m in the annoying situation of having a protected fandom Twitter account that can’t reply to anybody (protected so I can mention personally identifying info), and a public work-related Twitter account that I try not to use for other things. Which makes responding to people outside my fandom and work circles very hard! Internet identity is weird, folks.
Harlequin — I know! Internet identity is super weird. (If you feel like adding me to your protected account–and no worries, it sounds like you might not want to mix those streams–I’ll follow back, just message to let me know who are you.)
I’ll take a look at the article, thanks! Marie Brennan also pointed me to a book she wrote on the subject — http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fight-Scenes-Marie-Brennan-ebook/dp/B00FDYV6BK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435359133&sr=8-1&keywords=marie+brennan+fight
The fact that they are so similar craft-wise is what makes the question interesting to me. Most people have more experience with sex than fighting, but obviously not all. Some people have experience fighting; some people don’t have experience with sex. Etc.
For people without experience in sex but not fighting, a lot of it seems to balance on where they tip in the “experience” versus “embarrassment” line.
Harlequin:
On one hand we have someone that worked with, travelled with and was mentored by Hunt for 6 years, and as a result formed an opinion of who he is as a person.
On the other hand we have someone reading a report that takes a single joke out of context, and deciding that report is a sound basis to psychoanalyse Hunt and determine his inner biases.
I know which one I find more credible.
(emphasis mine) This is what people mean when they say feminists have no sense of humour. The idea that these things are so important that barely anyone who takes them seriously would joke about them is an intolerantly humourless assertion.
Is it opposite day?
I’m not trying to convince you, just explaining why I find your arguments on this thread unconvincing; I don’t actually expect that I’m going to change your mind.
(Among other things, for example, different people can find different things to be sexist. It’s possible that if I had experienced the exact same things the anonymous commenter did, I would have come away thinking Hunt was sexist. Or I wouldn’t have. Impossible to tell. I mean, there were things that happened to me that I didn’t find sexist at the time, but that I cringe looking back on–even my own judgment has changed over time. I wouldn’t mind substituting her experiences for my own experience of Hunt’s single joke, if there was some way to make it comprehensive; asking me to substitute her judgment for mine as well is something I’m not willing to do.)
Again, my conclusions would be different if I had any actual interaction with or power over Hunt. But I don’t. Basically: if the standard is “proven sexist beyond a reasonable doubt” to talk about sexism, we could almost never talk about sexism. I would like to talk about sexism, because it has actual negative effects on my ability to do my job. So I am more judgmental than I would be in a personal interaction, because for matters of discussion of sexism (where we’re looking for patterns) it makes sense to go with the most likely interpretation, rather than the most benevolent, which is what you’d use in a personal interaction.
Not what I said in that paragraph:
I was talking about the joke at this specific venue, ie at a luncheon hosted by (and I think on the topic of?) women scientists, not such jokes generally. Which is not humorlessness, but a point about context and standard professional behavior.
Mandolin, I don’t think I can message you without you following me? I already follow you as it happens–username’s goseaward. It’s mostly random life stuff & yelling about boy bands and the World Cup at the moment, rather than anything political, though. A little about reading/writing I guess.
(If anyone else is interested in that you’re welcome to follow me as well, although if I don’t know your username you might have to tell me who you are first)
For more results of my creepy lurking, I’m also happy to talk about how to use tumblr, though email might be better for that…?
Harlequin :
The standard I would be looking for would be “have something more than a misunderstood joke”.
Then talk about sexism. You don’t need to pretend a joke is serious to justify accusing someone of sexism. I’m sure there are cases of actual sexism you could talk about.
The most likely interpretation is what the person who said it claims it meant: that it was a joke. Anything more is you projecting your own prejudice onto the situation.
Because women scientists don’t have a sense of humour?
Desipis, please make your tone more thoughtful and less hostile.
Desipis,
Just because someone makes a joke at my expense that they claim afterward they “didn’t really mean” (which is a quintessential weasel phrase) not only does not mean I am obliged to find it funny; it also does not suddenly remove responsibility for the attitudes contained within the joke from the person who told it or suddenly render the joke acceptable in any and all contexts. The person’s intent might make the difference between concluding he or she is an out and out (in this case) sexist and concluding he or she has remarkably poor judgment, but that’s a whole lot different than concluding the words “I was only joking” suddenly empties any other words the speaker points to of their offensive content.
RJN:
The joke was made at his own expense. He was lampooning himself as a “chauvinist monster” as a light-hearted way of acknowledging that it was odd that an old white man would be asked to make remarks at lunch for female journalists and scientists.
The idea that it’s inappropriate to make a joke in such a way is absurd.
Harlequin:
I’m curious what standard of proof you’d apply to the claims made here. Admittedly it reads like a bit of a hit piece, but if we’re using the “just the thinnest shred of evidence” standard then the article is pretty damning.
Look: yes, I agree, it was a joke. I also find the idea that it’s a defense to call it a joke be really weird. I’m not confused about whether or not he was attempting to be funny. But the end product was an unfunny, sexist joke, any opinions of Hunt himself aside.
Basically, you still haven’t made a counterargument to Amp at #4 or now RJN at #79 when they points out that jokes, like any speech, can be the subject of criticism for their content, even when clearly understood by everyone to be (attempts at) jokes.
Again: context matters. As an extreme example: except under very limited circumstances, it would be inappropriate to stand up to give someone’s eulogy and instead to roast the funeral attendees. Not finding such a roast funny wouldn’t tell you much about the senses of humor of the people in the audience; it would tell you about the way the speaker failed to properly calibrate their speech to the mood of the audience and the circumstances in which the speech was given. In fact, there are ways to make this joke that are quite funny, and could have potentially been found appropriate by the audience, but that’s not the tack that Hunt took.
As for the rest of your comment, I disagree with you on whether Hunt’s comments were sexist, so when you say (paraphrased) to leave this topic and talk about things that are actually sexist…in my opinion, I am already talking about a thing that is actually sexist. Both of us are somewhat begging the question here, in that you’re wondering why I’m being so vociferous about something that wasn’t sexist, and I’m telling you that I’m annoyed by a sexist thing.
It’s not “the thinnest shred of evidence” to me, clearly, or I wouldn’t be basing my opinions on it. In any case: I find those claims troubling for the career of the original reporter, if any of them are true (I wouldn’t trust the Daily Mail to accurately report the day of the week, let alone perform reliable investigative journalism). But I’m not sure what bearing that has on the discussion we’re having, since the thing I’m bothered by is the words Hunt actually said, as agreed on so far by every person there including Hunt himself.
To return a question to you: earlier in this thread you stated that you found the person who worked with Hunt for 6 years was more reliable on the subject of his sexism than me, a random Internet commenter (I agree with that: I expect her belief to be far more persuasive than mine to other people, which is not the same thing as saying her belief is more persuasive to me than my own chain of reasoning). Well, every woman who was in the room who’s spoken up so far has stated she was offended or put off by his comments; they have more first-hand knowledge of the events than you do. Do you consider that relevant data? If not, why not?
By the way, here’s an interview with Hunt from about a year ago:
which–again–is not the statement of a slavering misogynist, but is pretty dismissive of things that most women in science would say are serious problems.
He doesn’t need a response. The issues at play when we discuss whether a piece of media like a joke can be criticized are different from the issues at play when we discuss whether and to what extent a person ought be condemned. Desipis is pretty clearly talking about the latter and the efforts at turning this into a conversation about the former while retaining the condemnation aspect that Desipis is criticizing is a derailing tactic.
Well, since this is your blog and it’s not an open thread, it’s fair for you to dictate what is or isn’t a derailing… Oh, wait.
I think I was pretty clear that I don’t want Hunt “condemned,” but I do think criticizing what he said is reasonable. This was literally the second comment about Hunt on this thread. So I don’t think it’s reasonable of you to call approaching it from this perspective a “derailing”; it’s something that’s been in the mix right from the start of the conversation here.
You do bring up a legitimate point about how the conversation has proceeded (although of course, you twist it to suit your anti-feminist bias), which is worth discussing – the different perspectives that feminists and anti-feminists bring to this issue.
Desipis, it doesn’t seem to me that you’ve been acknowledging a distinction between criticizing Hunt for what he said, versus casting a judgement on Hunt as a person. Am I mistaken about that? Do you think it’s possible to criticize what Tim Hunt said without bringing up the question of if he should be entirely condemned as a human being? Do you believe any of the feminists here have been approaching this issue from that perspective?
Harlequin, and other feminists here who have commented on Hunt, could you clarify what your perspective is? Do you think Hunt being pressure to resign from an honorary position was a proportional and correct response? Do you think of this issue as “was what Hunt said sexist and inappropriate?” or “should we condemn Tim Hunt?”
It’s derailing when it’s used over and over by Harlequin to try to sidetrack what Desipis is saying by demanding that he address what is fundamentally a different question than the issue Desipis appears to care about. I stand by that.
I don’t consider myself an anti feminist. You’re free to consider me that way. I’m certainly anti certain brands of feminism. I get along quite well with virtually every feminist I know who’s over the age of fifty. I have strong life long personal and professional contacts with a bunch of older (from my perspective) feminists who work local women’s shelters and college women’s safety programs, and I’m proud of the work I’ve done for them. Of course, the feminist clique you seem to hang with clashes with that group periodically, so it’s not surprising that you might view me differently, and that’s your call.
An easy rule of thumb- imagine a conversation about rape and alcohol. The feminist woman in her fifties with the crew cut and the live in same sex partner (actually, as of yesterday, possibly spouse?) talking earnestly to a bunch of students about campus safety is my people. That’s my tribe. That’s where I grew up, and that’s where I come from. They didn’t literally raise me, but they were there the whole time, knitting and drinking tea and showing me how to throw a left hook. The feminist student listening and going home and blogging angrily about all the victim blaming going on is very, very, not my people. Not at all.
I’m definitely anti head hunting and making examples of people. I think the ritual public excoriation of people for things that don’t that deserve level of response is morally wrong. I think the act of picking someone out virtually at random, declaring them to be the poster boy for some societal trend you dislike, imbuing them in public consciousness with all the negative traits of the thing you dislike, and demanding that everyone acknowledge your group’s right to vilify that person, is a fairly standard power tactic of every activist movement under the sun, and is morally wrong.
I think Desipis is unquestionably right about this- that this guy tried to make a self deprecating joke about how old dinosaurs like himself with old attitudes and values and emotional responses aren’t what a women’s conference really needs. I think his joke didn’t go over the way he wanted, probably because he’s an old dinosaur. I think that vilifying him has become a “salute the flag and show your allegiance” issue for certain internet feminist cliques, that it essentially isn’t about this guy anymore, but still victimizes him. And I think that’s wrong.
Can I be blunt.
Hunt was misreported as literally advocating sex segregation, without being given a chance to comment (see below and there are plenty of other examples). He was then forced to resign because of the misreporting, again without a chance to comment. That it was a joke, and he wasn’t advocating segregation as people said he was is a legit defence.
The criticism for a joke discussion is derailing. It didn’t happen. What happened is he was criticised because your ideological allies told massive lies and produced tons of shitty journalism. Tough situation to be in, but don’t try and shift the topic. I’m sure he’d have loved to be criticised for something he actually did, but he wasn’t.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/10/nobel-scientist-tim-hunt-female-scientists-cause-trouble-for-men-in-labs
For me the issue is precisely that Hunt’s joke, regardless of intent, was ineffective and therefore inappropriate in effect. Not because it is wrong for a man to make a self-deprecating joke in that context, but because the joke clearly did not work. Effect, in other words, matters more than intent.
As said in my comment, the fact that his intent was to have a laugh at his own expense might—I would say probably should—make the difference between concluding that Hunt was a conscious, willful, purposeful sexist and concluding that he simply put his foot in his mouth. In other words, unless I suddenly learn something I don’t now know, I don’t think the immediate response should have been to pressure him to resign. Rather, the immediate response should have been to point out that the joke clearly failed and to give him a chance to somehow make it right.
As I read desipis’ argument, however, nothing about it suggests that he would not be making the same accusation of feminist humorlessness if people had simply called loudly and clearly for Hunt to apologize and to make some demonstration that his apology was more than just words.
This reminds me of the controversy over Daniel Handler’s inappropriate joke at the 2014 National Book Awards. He apologized and he put his money where his mouth was. Hunt should have been given the opportunity to do the same thing. That he wasn’t does not mean that criticism of his joke demonstrates the humorlessness of feminists.
Does anybody have a link about how Hunt was pressured to resign? Everything I’ve read indicates that he resigned before the university was able to speak with him.
No, not in any way. And I….
…huh, seem to have mostly deleted the bits where I was affirming that from previous comments (I’ve been writing longer things and cutting them down). I apologize; that probably made my comments seem more severe than I meant them to be. You can see the echo of it here:
and in a few other comments of mine as well. I’ve been assuming a context of discussing this amongst ourselves in person or on the Internet–not anything directed at Hunt, not any contact with him, not any efforts to impact his life. If there was any effect on him (and I don’t think there should have been) it should have come from the people who actually know and work with him.
I was talking about the first one–I mean, regardless of his personal views, what he said wasn’t very sexist–that’s not a “condemnation” kind of thing, it’s a “teach and learn” kind of moment. But, again, I’m not advocating or supporting that anybody except the people Hunt worked with should have had anything to say to him personally, or to his employers, at all.
Jake Squid, what I’ve seen says that his wife was told by a somebody in the UCL administration (where she also works) that he’d be fired if he didn’t resign, and that he was directly pressured by the European Research Commission.
From the Guardian:
Ampersand, Harlequin, and RJN, I share desipis’ and Pete Patriot’s frustration at you.
For you to say “Hunt shouldn’t have been forced to resign for making a bad joke” misses the point. He wasn’t forced to resign for that reason. He was forced to resign because he had allegedly articulated sexist views in sincerity. Had that allegation been true, his forced resignation would have been appropriate. But the allegation doesn’t appear to have been true .
So Hunt was forced to resign because of Connie St Lewis’ and others’ apparently false allegations. Yet all you want to do is talk about Hunt’s behaviour, while disregarding St Lewis et al‘s actions. In other contexts you’d call this rhetorical stance “victim blaming”.
Ampersand:
I not only acknowledge that distinction, but my responses to Harlequin’s comment #64 were largely about disagreeing with the argument that what he said can be used to cast judgement on Hunt as a person (or what he believes, or what his unconscious biases are).
If the response had taken the form of critical feedback, respecting Hunt as professional with the ability to think and self-correct, intended to let Hunt know about the audience member’s displeasure at the joke and to possibly influence the way he approaches the issue in the future, then I wouldn’t have had a problem with the criticism. However, it was framed as a public shaming, as a damning condemnation from the priest on high, where the only valid response was for the blasphemous peon to get down on his knees, kiss the ring, and beg for forgiveness.
I agree, in general, with the points you made in your comment #4. I made this comment at the time about how I felt about Valenti male tears shirt, comparing it to another joke where I felt the response was way over the top. I agree that jokes can be subject to criticism, however I think the fact that something is a joke significantly limits the extent to which the individual who made the joke can be criticised.
Am I the only person here who see parallels between the Hunt and Shirley Sherrod affairs?
In Sherrod’s case a recording of her speaking was released apparently showing her endorsing racial discrimination against white people. As a result, she was fired. Later a fuller version of the recording proved that she rejected discrimination. It was suggested that the first recording had been maliciously edited.
We don’t have a recording of Hunt’s speech. What happened, was that some journalists released quotes from his speech apparently showing that Hunt had articulated some hidiously sexists opinions. As a result, he was forced to resign. Later a fuller transcript of his remarks emerged showing that they were clearly intended as a self-deprecating joke, however flat it many have fallen, and where not his sincere views.
Harlequin:
I don’t see it as dismissive at all. It sounds more like he doesn’t have a strong opinion: “I’m not sure… I have no idea… It is not obvious to me… I don’t know.“. At the same time he acknowledges that some people do: “I must admit the inequalities in the outcomes… it clearly upsets people a lot”. He seems to be taking a classical scientist position, acknowledging the evidence but equivocating on the ideology.
I don’t see questioning the (evidently) prevailing dogma as some horrid sin. Even if the separate-labs idea was put forward seriously, I don’t see putting forward that idea as something that is morally wrong. Criticise the idea, sure; tear it to threads. But don’t attack the person that said it. To do so is the exact sort of anti-intellectualism that is rightly criticised when done by the right. Independent thought and a willingness to question the established ideas and bring new ones to the table is the exact sort of mentality we want in the sciences.
Ampersand:
Just to be clear, I don’t consider myself “anti-feminist”.
Harlequin:
Do you not find it curious, or relevent data, that not a single woman in the room (at a luncheon hosted by the Korea Federation of Women’s Science and Technology Associations at the World Conference of Science Journalists) has spoken so far who wasn’t a member of the sexism in science writing panel, as far as I can see. Is it your experience that female science journalists generally,i.e., science journalists who happen to be female but who aren’t focussed specifically on the topic of sexism, are oblivious to sexism? Or reticent to talk about it when they do encounter it?
It seems to me that people who weren’t there have a lot of theories about how the negative interpretation of Tim Hunt’s remarks were based on taking them out of context, but that the record from people who were there actually doesn’t support that excuse, and that Tim Hunt has previously stated his unconcern with under-representation of in STEM and that he confirmed that his joke was kidding on the square, intended as a light-hearted and exaggerated expression of his beliefs, not as a satire of sexist beliefs of older male scientists like himself.