Feminist Philosophy

[NynJa]

Its hardly being a SJW to be able to expect people to work around the opposite sex. Come on now.

Except "work around the opposite sex" is always "except men to work around female expectations".

[Enkidu]

Nobel prize winners sometimes say stupid shit. Anyways like I was saying earlier, he was basically saying what everyone knows, but wont say out loud - and it's not that men and women shouldn't work together. Rather it's that PI's have complete control over their research program and can institute inane rules at will.

If women were a distraction to him, and his work was largely made possible by his standards, then I guess more power to him? But the point is simply that what he's saying is not really true and anyone with more experience in a 21st century lab would understand that. This dude is just old school, he lives back when women in STEM were just eye-candy secretaries looking for their knight in shining armor.

[Blubbartron]

Nobel prize winners sometimes say stupid shit. Anyways like I was saying earlier, he was basically saying what everyone knows, but wont say out loud - and it's not that men and women shouldn't work together. Rather it's that PI's have complete control over their research program and can institute inane rules at will.

If women were a distraction to him, and his work was largely made possible by his standards, then I guess more power to him? But the point is simply that what he's saying is not really true and anyone with more experience in a 21st century lab would understand that. This dude is just old school, he lives back when women in STEM were just eye-candy secretaries looking for their knight in shining armor.

While I agree that everyone, regardless of intelligence, is capable of bias and saying stupid shit, I'd really like to know what specific reason you have for thinking this about him other than he's old. The things he's saying seem completely rational when taken at face value. He acknowledges that feelings can develop one-sided, from either himself or others, but either way it's a distraction. He also acknowledges that anything that makes you treat people with kid gloves is going to diminish the science, because you're no longer 100% about getting to the truth of the matter. That doesn't mean you can't do any research at all if you encounter these problems, but to think it doesn't impact it is foolish. Work gets done even when teams have the token fuck-up douchebag present, but that doesn't mean the work is as good or done as efficiently as it could be.

[Byrthnoth]

I did find it somewhat surprising that many of the more "PC" outlets responded to his blatantly sexist comments with blatantly ageist comments.

[Enkidu]

While I agree that everyone, regardless of intelligence, is capable of bias and saying stupid shit, I'd really like to know what specific reason you have for thinking this about him other than he's old. The things he's saying seem completely rational when taken at face value. He acknowledges that feelings can develop one-sided, from either himself or others, but either way it's a distraction. He also acknowledges that anything that makes you treat people with kid gloves is going to diminish the science, because you're no longer 100% about getting to the truth of the matter. That doesn't mean you can't do any research at all if you encounter these problems, but to think it doesn't impact it is foolish. Work gets done even when teams have the token fuck-up douchebag present, but that doesn't mean the work is as good or done as efficiently as it could be.

I think I clearly explained why what he said is stupid... As I've said twice now, it's something everyone knows is true (bias), but doesn't say because it's career suicide. My comments on his age have little to do with any deficiencies related to age, but rather the power-trip and exceptions generally made for famous PI's.

Your generalizations, in this case, are only true for him and those with like feelings (yourself perhaps?). There are many people in the scientific community who are intelligent enough to separate their bias from scientific progress, and they are by far the majority. There are also those who become encumbered by specific bias's, whether it's attractive woman working for them, the nationality of those working for them, the language/region where they were raised (especially prevalent in Indian PI's), etc... It's a weakness based on their insecurities, but it's also something that if simply ignored could ruin their research (again already said), so in the end it's a tough situation to police and/or change.

This becomes a question of progress vs. equality and it's not really a topic I'd like to touch on because it's extremely complex and honestly I'm not sure there's a right answer.

[zoobernut]

While I agree that everyone, regardless of intelligence, is capable of bias and saying stupid shit, I'd really like to know what specific reason you have for thinking this about him other than he's old. The things he's saying seem completely rational when taken at face value. He acknowledges that feelings can develop one-sided, from either himself or others, but either way it's a distraction. He also acknowledges that anything that makes you treat people with kid gloves is going to diminish the science, because you're no longer 100% about getting to the truth of the matter. That doesn't mean you can't do any research at all if you encounter these problems, but to think it doesn't impact it is foolish. Work gets done even when teams have the token fuck-up douchebag present, but that doesn't mean the work is as good or done as efficiently as it could be.

You seem to be stuck on the bold part of your post when it clearly isn't completely rational. It isn't even close to rational. Rational would be recognizing the complexities of human behavior and not trying to over simplify it. That is thinking irrationally. That is letting your personal bias get in the way of rational thought. Rational thought would recognize that it is unrealistic to segregate people based on their gender so it is more efficient to figure out a way to work around these differences and make a lab run properly like so many labs all over the world do. Rational would be recognizing this is not a gender issue, there are some gender specific related items but there are so many more that have nothing to do with gender.

[Ksandra]

All I've learned from this thread is we need to remove all the whiny bitches from the workforce.


Aka fire all the men.

[Tyrath]

Except "work around the opposite sex" is always "except men to work around female expectations".

If by female expectations you mean treating them equally and without prejudice based on stereotypes, then yeah.

[kuronosan]

I work in a lab with women.

This is not a problem. Guy is just an asshole.

Source: I'm a scientist.

[tyven]

You seem to be stuck on the bold part of your post when it clearly isn't completely rational. It isn't even close to rational. Rational would be recognizing the complexities of human behavior and not trying to over simplify it. That is thinking irrationally. That is letting your personal bias get in the way of rational thought. Rational thought would recognize that it is unrealistic to segregate people based on their gender so it is more efficient to figure out a way to work around these differences and make a lab run properly like so many labs all over the world do. Rational would be recognizing this is not a gender issue, there are some gender specific related items but there are so many more that have nothing to do with gender.

All I've learned from this thread is we need to remove all the whiny bitches from the workforce.


Aka fire all the men.

If by female expectations you mean treating them equally and without prejudice based on stereotypes, then yeah.

I work in a lab with women.

This is not a problem. Guy is just an asshole.

Source: I'm a scientist.

If I were mobile right now I would present each of you with fire, prayer hands, 100, and fist bump emojis


and BG would not display them.

[archibaldcrane]

If by female expectations you mean treating them equally and without prejudice based on stereotypes, then yeah.

Why are you trying to redefine traditional masculine workplace behavior?

None of what you just said is in the bible.

[Kuya]

Worked in a neuroscience lab as a lab tech. My PI was a woman, my supervisor was a woman, and my two co-workers were women. I didn't have a problem coping.

Thank goodness i was able to control my savage male instincts to physically assault anybody who ever disagreed with me or raping all the vajingos in the lab.

[Kuya]

Also, always funny to see hets propose gender segregation as a solution to their problems with the opposite sex. As if homosexuals and bisexuals didn't exist.

[Blubbartron]

Also, always funny to see hets propose gender segregation as a solution to their problems with the opposite sex. As if homosexuals and bisexuals didn't exist.

I didn't see him say anything like "science is only for men", implying that all women should be kept out of science. He seemed to be for having single-sex labs, to avoid complications. Unless you're talking about the potential for homosexual relationships, which exists, but is not nearly as great a likelihood as heterosexual relationships. They simply aren't a majority.

Keep up.

[Kuya]

What's the arbitrary number of "romantic disruptions" that are acceptable in a scientific work place?

[archibaldcrane]

Why not just have rules against fraternization if it's such a problem, and then punish the actual offenders?

[Kuya]

Why not just have rules against fraternization if it's such a problem, and then punish the actual offenders?

That wouldn't fit in with their stereotypes of women.

[Blubbartron]

What's the arbitrary number of "romantic disruptions" that are acceptable in a scientific work place?

As I've been trying to get across to people in this thread, unsuccessfully, it's really not a question of the morality of segregation or interpersonal bullshit. It's a pragmatic goal to produce better results, more efficiently, because scientific progress is the key to humanity's future. With that in mind, we try to minimize disruptions in the workplace. Disruptions aren't generally acceptable, ever, but they do happen, so we deal with them because we have to. But if we didn't have to deal with them, because they didn't happen in the first place, that's obviously better. Is that explained well enough?

[Kuya]

This has generally been a non-controversial issue anywhere else i've been. The guy is a sexist.

I'm not surprised that there are people here actually defending the stereotyping of women and then suggestion that segregated labs are the answer. And i'm sad that i'm not surprised that this kind of position is normal here.

How is it possible that the politics subforum actually got even worse?

[Andalusian girls]

it's about ethics in game journalism kuya