Sexism and misogyny are alive and well

Don’t ever for one minute get sucked into a state of false belief that sexism, misogyny, and sexual harassment are things of the past, and that women have won all the battles that they need to win. In fact, the battle is just beginning. After getting a glimpse of Trump’s America, I think we’ve been set back by about fifty years. So we need to begin again. We need to raise boys and girls to have respect for each other. We need to remind young adults that NO means NO when it comes to sexual activity, and that no one should ever feel pressured to have sex just to please another person. Male chauvinist pigs like Trump need to go back to the school of hard knocks to get re-educated. It’s not ok to sexually objectify your daughter, your wife, other women, etc. In fact, it’s not just creepy, it’s ethically wrong and illegal if you step over any line in that regard, even if you are married in most civilized societies. Since he seems to have a hard time keeping his pants zipped, it’s no wonder he can’t keep his mouth zipped. I guess there are women stupid enough to fall for his tricks. That’s what always surprises me, the women who come out in support of this dinosaur. Men like him are nearing extinction in my book. They’ve had way too much power and they’ve misused it when it comes to women. I don’t know if women will be any better in the same positions of power, but it sure as hell might be nice to find out. And we will if Hillary gets elected.

You might also think that dinosaurs like these are only an American problem. WRONG again. Norwegian academia has and has had its share of these dinosaurs throughout the past twenty years. Men who comment inappropriately on your looks, men who step over the line physically and verbally at Christmas parties when they’ve had too much to drink, an institute leader (deceased) who saw nothing wrong with patting the rear end of a visiting woman scientist from Brazil. The same institute leader who used to like to corner non-Norwegian women in the elevator to ask them if they knew the difference between ‘fytte’ (used in connection with curse words) and ‘fitte’ (pussy) because if you are not Norwegian, those words often sound alike and you can make a fool of yourself if you pronounce them the wrong way. Another male scientist who regaled his female colleagues with jokes about ‘bushes’, again in the elevator where you couldn’t just escape immediately. The list of sexist, odd and questionable behavior is endless. These are men who enjoyed making women feel uncomfortable so that they could joke about it afterward. These are men like Trump, with a lot of power and no respect for women. Because it's really simple in my book--if you respect women, you don't behave this way. These are men who consistently ignore women in favor of men when it comes time for choosing new leaders or promoting from within, even when those men are clearly less qualified compared to the available women. Men who tell women who get angry about the unfairness and injustice of these types of behaviors that they are ‘unbalanced or psychologically unstable’, or that ‘perhaps they should get some professional help’. Men who joke that these women who get angry just need to get laid. And the women who joke like this about other women are just plain traitors to their own gender. Men have had the power now for eons and eons, and it’s time women took the reins. I don’t know how long that’s going to take, but we’re not going to get there if feminism is defined solely by women who take off their clothes in the name of emancipation (from what or who?), so that they can appear in porno rags and online videos and define these actions as feminist. It might be one definition of modern feminism, but it’s not the major one. They get paid a lot of money for it, however. Perhaps that’s how they think they will gain respect. They will gain money and power, yes, but not necessarily respect. That’s not a given. But perhaps for them, it's enough. I don't know and frankly, I don't care. It's not my definition of feminism and it does not help most average working women to fight the daily battles that they fight in their workplaces.

Oddly enough, if you look at many of the classic films from the 1940s and 1950s, there are roles written for women that are worthy of respect. The female characters are strong, opinionated (think Katharine Hepburn's character in the comedy Adam’s Rib), and they sometimes suffer for their independent ways and strong wills. But they are women to look up to. Many of them work, they are professional, they speak and dress well, and they stand up to and stand their ground with the men in their lives. I can relate to the women's roles in these films, in a way that I cannot relate to many of the modern roles written for women now. How can that be? I am not sure what happened, but respect for women has taken a real nose-dive recently. We need to figure out why and how to fix that. And I think we should start by emphasizing that both men and women have a lot to gain by treating each other with respect, in the workplace and outside of it.

Weighing in on #distractinglysexy

This past week showed me just how well female scientists can defend themselves against the sexism that still exists in the noble profession of academia. It also pointed out to me yet again the power of social media, for better or for worse, in dealing with political incorrectness. For those of you who don’t know what transpired, here’s the story. The 2001 Nobel Prize winner Sir Tim Hunt from Britain, 72 years old, opened a conference in South Korea with what he deemed to be a joke about women in science. He said essentially that girls (he did not use the word women, mind you) fall in love with you and you with them, that they distract you (men) from doing science, that they cry when criticized, and that he was in favor of single-sex labs *. Social media exploded predictably with appropriate and inappropriate responses. Hunt later apologized for his foolish remarks but not for his beliefs. Because he does believe that what he said about women is the truth. Nowadays you have to be very careful about what you say if you are in the public eye, because social media will try you and fry you for your transgressions, superficial opinions and comments. I’m not going to enter a debate about the pros and cons of social media; I leave that to others. I will say that I found the responses of a majority of female scientists to be quite amusing. Rather than going on a strident attack, they responded to the situation in a humorous fashion. I don’t know who started the hashtag #distractinglysexy, but if you go onto Twitter and search for it, you will be rewarded with a number of tweets that will leave you laughing—photos and accompanying comments of women dressed in lab coats, protective gear, goggles, hats, etc., all of whom comment on how ‘distractingly sexy’ they look while carrying out their laboratory work. They took the piss out of Hunt’s comments by doing so. That is the intelligent and cunning response.  

I have worked in laboratories all my working life. Being a scientist has been my career. I’ve done alright through the years, and as many of my readers know from other posts, I’ve had the support of male mentors who have done their level best to ensure that I succeeded, or had the same opportunities as the men around me to succeed. But there were a few men who behaved questionably toward me up through the years. I learned to deflect their sexist comments that came my way—about sitting on their laps, about the view of my rear end when I bent over, about my being ‘unbalanced’ when I shed a few tears in anger and frustration about not getting a raise I more than deserved, and about whether I planned on becoming pregnant. I am well aware that I am no exception to these kinds of comments; I grew up in an era when women were making inroads into the workforce and certain types of men found that threatening, irritating, or pointless. They needed to make women feel inferior; I remember thinking ‘their poor wives, having to put up with them’. Certain types of men still react that way. Unfortunately, I learned along the way that certain types of women also react that way. Not all women help other women in the lab. Again, we can argue for and against this fact. Should women support women unequivocally? I try to provide moral support for the younger women I work with, simply because I know how hard it is to climb the academic ladder. But I do the same with the younger men as well. Because their lot is not easy these days either; there is less money and fewer positions. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in academia, even more so than before.

This episode points out that the world NEEDS to be reminded every now and then of all of the women in science who have done terrific science, who have worked tirelessly to promote good science, who have won Nobel Prizes, some of whom have done so while raising a family. Kudos to them—to Marie Curie, Barbara McClintock, Gertrude Elion, Rosalind Franklin, Ada Lovelace, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Rachel Carson, Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall, Lise Meitner, Elizabeth Blackburn, and Dorothy Hodgkin, to name a few. I could also list the many female scientists I know internationally who plod along, doing their daily work, writing papers, publishing, and mentoring students. All of them are equal-opportunity employers and mentors; I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of them express a preference for female students or employees at the expense of men. They are not sexist. Perhaps the male twits in the scientific community could learn from and be inspired by them, and then maybe we would not have to listen to their twaddle any longer.

Apropos, I was going to call this post 'A Twit, His Twaddle, and Twitter', but opted for the current title. But I like the other one too (I'm happy with the alliteration).

*This is what Tim Hunt was reported to have said:

“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls........Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.” After offering an apparent apology, he dug the hole he was in even deeper when he said “I did mean the part about having trouble with girls. It's terribly important that you can criticize people’s ideas without criticizing them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth. Science is about nothing but getting at the truth.”