6 ms·

Was Feynman sexist? A quick googling finds nothing.

foldr 10y ago
It actually turns up a lot of article about Feynman and sexism. E.g. this one: http://mathematigal.com/home/2014/7/14/feynman-is-not-my-hero http://mathematigal.com/home/2014/7/14/feynman-is-not-my-her...
- Asooka 10y ago
  That's rather unfortunate. If I may propose an alternative treatment of Feynman though: simply forget that he was sexist and instead claim he was very progressive and helped female colleaguea all the time. People already want to be like Feynman, so if we simply turn Feynman's historical image into what we want people to be like we would accomplish more than by telling people that their heroes are evil.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    That's a pretty evil suggestion, but it may just work.
    - Asooka 10y ago
      Of course it would. Think of say Abraham "I would never tell a lie" Lincoln. Who chased after a woman in the freezing snow to give her back her 20p. Our heroes always been moulded into idealised versions of themselves, a sort of mythological figures. You probably think it's evil because it seems like historic revisionism, i.e. what Stalin, Kim, etc. have done. I think it's justified to tell small white lies like this, like "Feynman respected women", if it helps people be better towards each other.
      - logfromblammo 10y ago
        Did you ever read that chapter of Surely You're Joking where Feynman hanged himself from a tree for seven days to learn the secrets of subatomic physics? That's where Feynman diagrams came from.~
  - Chinjut 10y ago
    Haha, uh, that would be… one bizarre way to go about things. Nah, I'd rather have the truth, yet work to nonetheless have people be good. Many heroes are flawed; let's emulate their positive qualities, and avoid their negative ones, without failing to acknowledge them or outright covering them up.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >we would accomplish more than by telling people that their heroes are evil. Not to mention that being sexist is not evil, just bad manners (or that there's no such thing as "evil", it's a theological concept).
    - foldr 10y ago
      Discriminating against someone because of their gender is wrong, not just bad manners. "It's not wrong because nothing is truly wrong" is surely an excuse of last resort. I don't see anyone on here bringing that point up when people are complaining about NSA surveillance or some other hacker cause célèbre.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >Discriminating against someone because of their gender is wrong, not just bad manners. Depends on the discrimination. Costing them a job opportunity is wrong. Telling them "hey, make me some tea" is bad manners -- same as if you asked a lower ranking male employee whose job is not it, that. >"It's not wrong because nothing is truly wrong" is surely an excuse of last resort. It's also an excuse nobody made. Wrong != evil. People are not cartoonish figures who are either holy or evil. >I don't see anyone on here bringing that point up when people are complaining about NSA surveillance or some other hacker cause célèbre. I'm not sure of the relevance. NSA surveillance is totalitarian. Asking female colleagues to "make you coffee" is impolite.
        foldr 10y ago
        >Telling them "hey, make me some tea" is bad manners -- same as if you asked a lower ranking male employee whose job is not it, that. No, treating your women colleagues as if they are inferior merely because they are women is wrong. It is not merely bad manners, any more than racism or xenophobia are merely bad manners. >It's also an excuse nobody made. Are you just referring to the fact that I used the word 'wrong' instead of the word 'evil'? If so, just substitute 'evil' for 'wrong' in my previous comment.
  - cwilkes 10y ago
    > he was very progressive and helped female colleaguea all the time. If there were only some sort of diagram to describe this many worlds idea
  - Maken 10y ago
    Wouldn't it be better to explain them nobody is perfect?
- leereeves 10y ago
  Is there anything in that article about Feynman except an unsubstantiated claim made during divorce proceedings?
  - teddyh 10y ago
    Apparently not. Also, I seem to remember reading that similar claims were routinely made at the time in order for the divorce to be approved by the court. I.e. nobody was trying to make claims of abuse, they were simply trying to ensure the divorce was approved, and both parties agreed to make whatever exaggerated or false claims that could be seen as reasonable grounds for divorce. Anyway, that’s what I remember. I could of course be wrong about this particular case.
  - foldr 10y ago
    What's your standard for "substantiated"? We're only going to have reports of what people said about him.
coldtea 10y ago
>Was Feynman sexist? In the same way, and probably much less, that any male was in a totally different era of the 60s and 70s...
- xorcist 10y ago
  The above described behaviour was at the very least extremely bad manners .. even in the 60s/70s.
  - eeeficus 10y ago
    Why is asking people for something is bad manners? Especially as you put it "extremely bad manners"?
    - foldr 10y ago
      I suggest that you try asking random women in the office to bring you soup and see how that goes.
      - oblio 10y ago
        Heh, for an even better reaction he should try asking random men in the office to bring him soup. Depending on his workplace, things could become physical :D
- tps5 10y ago
  I know plenty of men who lived through that era (and one man who was born 4 years after Feynman) who are not in the slightest bit sexist. Or are at least far too polite to show it. Feynman was clearly a bit of a prick. It also appears that he behaved rudely toward women [0]. In my opinion, the fact that there were some (significant) negative aspects of his personality doesn't take anything away from what he accomplished, or from the (significant) positive aspects of his personality. [0] http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine/ http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine...
jandrese 10y ago
Having read his book the answer is yes, but not exceedingly so for a man of his time. His chapters on wooing dancing girls is not for someone with especially delicate sensibilities. But remember this is during the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Sexism was the norm, in fact it was considered good for society in upper class circles. It's unfair to be hard on a man for simply living in a different age.
- kamaal 10y ago
  >>It's unfair to be hard on a man for simply living in a different age. Unfortunately this how most current day news, trends and discussions are shaping out to be. Pretty much a lot of things considered bad now, were once perfectly acceptable. Another annoying things these days are people who pick up some kind of negative thing about a famous personality and use that to discredit their whole life's work. Like talking something negative about Gandhi, and then use that ruse to make it look like his whole life was a waste.
  - leephillips 10y ago
    All you say is true in general. But Gandhi, while apotheosized in the West, is not so universally admired in India. Many people celebrated his assassination. A great many Indians, at the time and now, think that he set back Indian independence significantly, and that, to the extent that his economic ideas were adopted, they retarded the development of the nation.
  - hwillis 10y ago
    I think that in cases like that you are the one being reductionist, not the other way around. Bringing up the flaws of people like Ghandi, MLK, Feynman, Hawking etc is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, even a responsible thing to do. Great men are still imperfect and their problems do not discredit them. In a way its dangerous to not bring up their flaws; say MLK jr. defended the rights of people of color but was against gay rights. It is wrong to idolize him utterly, because then his views can legitimize views we think are wrong now. I don't think any reasonable person tries to tear down great men and women by bringing up their flaws. I think they are just trying to recognize the real person, rather than the ideal. Their life does not reduce to one mistake just because we talk about it happening.

foldr 10y ago

It actually turns up a lot of article about Feynman and sexism. E.g. this one: http://mathematigal.com/home/2014/7/14/feynman-is-not-my-hero http://mathematigal.com/home/2014/7/14/feynman-is-not-my-her...

Asooka 10y ago
That's rather unfortunate. If I may propose an alternative treatment of Feynman though: simply forget that he was sexist and instead claim he was very progressive and helped female colleaguea all the time. People already want to be like Feynman, so if we simply turn Feynman's historical image into what we want people to be like we would accomplish more than by telling people that their heroes are evil.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  That's a pretty evil suggestion, but it may just work.
  - Asooka 10y ago
    Of course it would. Think of say Abraham "I would never tell a lie" Lincoln. Who chased after a woman in the freezing snow to give her back her 20p. Our heroes always been moulded into idealised versions of themselves, a sort of mythological figures. You probably think it's evil because it seems like historic revisionism, i.e. what Stalin, Kim, etc. have done. I think it's justified to tell small white lies like this, like "Feynman respected women", if it helps people be better towards each other.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Did you ever read that chapter of Surely You're Joking where Feynman hanged himself from a tree for seven days to learn the secrets of subatomic physics? That's where Feynman diagrams came from.~
- Chinjut 10y ago
  Haha, uh, that would be… one bizarre way to go about things. Nah, I'd rather have the truth, yet work to nonetheless have people be good. Many heroes are flawed; let's emulate their positive qualities, and avoid their negative ones, without failing to acknowledge them or outright covering them up.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >we would accomplish more than by telling people that their heroes are evil. Not to mention that being sexist is not evil, just bad manners (or that there's no such thing as "evil", it's a theological concept).
  - foldr 10y ago
    Discriminating against someone because of their gender is wrong, not just bad manners. "It's not wrong because nothing is truly wrong" is surely an excuse of last resort. I don't see anyone on here bringing that point up when people are complaining about NSA surveillance or some other hacker cause célèbre.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >Discriminating against someone because of their gender is wrong, not just bad manners. Depends on the discrimination. Costing them a job opportunity is wrong. Telling them "hey, make me some tea" is bad manners -- same as if you asked a lower ranking male employee whose job is not it, that. >"It's not wrong because nothing is truly wrong" is surely an excuse of last resort. It's also an excuse nobody made. Wrong != evil. People are not cartoonish figures who are either holy or evil. >I don't see anyone on here bringing that point up when people are complaining about NSA surveillance or some other hacker cause célèbre. I'm not sure of the relevance. NSA surveillance is totalitarian. Asking female colleagues to "make you coffee" is impolite.
      - foldr 10y ago
        >Telling them "hey, make me some tea" is bad manners -- same as if you asked a lower ranking male employee whose job is not it, that. No, treating your women colleagues as if they are inferior merely because they are women is wrong. It is not merely bad manners, any more than racism or xenophobia are merely bad manners. >It's also an excuse nobody made. Are you just referring to the fact that I used the word 'wrong' instead of the word 'evil'? If so, just substitute 'evil' for 'wrong' in my previous comment.
- cwilkes 10y ago
  > he was very progressive and helped female colleaguea all the time. If there were only some sort of diagram to describe this many worlds idea
- Maken 10y ago
  Wouldn't it be better to explain them nobody is perfect?
leereeves 10y ago
Is there anything in that article about Feynman except an unsubstantiated claim made during divorce proceedings?
- teddyh 10y ago
  Apparently not. Also, I seem to remember reading that similar claims were routinely made at the time in order for the divorce to be approved by the court. I.e. nobody was trying to make claims of abuse, they were simply trying to ensure the divorce was approved, and both parties agreed to make whatever exaggerated or false claims that could be seen as reasonable grounds for divorce. Anyway, that’s what I remember. I could of course be wrong about this particular case.
- foldr 10y ago
  What's your standard for "substantiated"? We're only going to have reports of what people said about him.

coldtea 10y ago

>Was Feynman sexist? In the same way, and probably much less, that any male was in a totally different era of the 60s and 70s...

xorcist 10y ago
The above described behaviour was at the very least extremely bad manners .. even in the 60s/70s.
- eeeficus 10y ago
  Why is asking people for something is bad manners? Especially as you put it "extremely bad manners"?
  - foldr 10y ago
    I suggest that you try asking random women in the office to bring you soup and see how that goes.
    - oblio 10y ago
      Heh, for an even better reaction he should try asking random men in the office to bring him soup. Depending on his workplace, things could become physical :D
tps5 10y ago
I know plenty of men who lived through that era (and one man who was born 4 years after Feynman) who are not in the slightest bit sexist. Or are at least far too polite to show it. Feynman was clearly a bit of a prick. It also appears that he behaved rudely toward women [0]. In my opinion, the fact that there were some (significant) negative aspects of his personality doesn't take anything away from what he accomplished, or from the (significant) positive aspects of his personality. [0] http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine/ http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine...

jandrese 10y ago

Having read his book the answer is yes, but not exceedingly so for a man of his time. His chapters on wooing dancing girls is not for someone with especially delicate sensibilities. But remember this is during the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Sexism was the norm, in fact it was considered good for society in upper class circles. It's unfair to be hard on a man for simply living in a different age.

kamaal 10y ago
>>It's unfair to be hard on a man for simply living in a different age. Unfortunately this how most current day news, trends and discussions are shaping out to be. Pretty much a lot of things considered bad now, were once perfectly acceptable. Another annoying things these days are people who pick up some kind of negative thing about a famous personality and use that to discredit their whole life's work. Like talking something negative about Gandhi, and then use that ruse to make it look like his whole life was a waste.
- leephillips 10y ago
  All you say is true in general. But Gandhi, while apotheosized in the West, is not so universally admired in India. Many people celebrated his assassination. A great many Indians, at the time and now, think that he set back Indian independence significantly, and that, to the extent that his economic ideas were adopted, they retarded the development of the nation.
- hwillis 10y ago
  I think that in cases like that you are the one being reductionist, not the other way around. Bringing up the flaws of people like Ghandi, MLK, Feynman, Hawking etc is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, even a responsible thing to do. Great men are still imperfect and their problems do not discredit them. In a way its dangerous to not bring up their flaws; say MLK jr. defended the rights of people of color but was against gay rights. It is wrong to idolize him utterly, because then his views can legitimize views we think are wrong now. I don't think any reasonable person tries to tear down great men and women by bringing up their flaws. I think they are just trying to recognize the real person, rather than the ideal. Their life does not reduce to one mistake just because we talk about it happening.