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What's the missing context here? That he used an important public speaking opportunity to actually mock the women he was assigned to help, and we misunderstood

What's the missing context here? That he used an important public speaking opportunity to actually mock the women he was assigned to help, and we misunderstood it as a serious appeal? That he was being fake offensive because it would be funny or enlightening? This wasn't an opportunistic pun. Humor is rooted in one's worldview.

hnuser123456 5y ago
He also implies that if you're too good of a student, at least around him, he might fall in love with you and become a worse teacher, and he's just being honest about it. You could mock men for being bad at suppressing feelings equally from the same comment.
teddyh 5y ago
I don’t know anything about this specific case. It might be the exception which proves the rule. In general, I try to follow the HN guideline: “Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.”
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
I don't know any of the context here, but it seems to me that what the quote actually says is that the author admits that he is unable to function effectively with female colleagues, that there are other men like him, and that it's a problem that mustn't be allowed to hold women back from doing science.
- skystarman 5y ago
  It's interesting that everyone defending this old coot is just memory-holing the clearly misogynistic comment "if you a criticize a woman in the lab, they cry" and are choosing to only mention the comments that are more easily defensible as a "joke"
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    Please give some credit to other posters. The way I read this; when he says "you", it's the generic you: he's talking about the "chauvinist monsters" like himself, and it's in the context of three particular ways in which his own failings prevent him working with women. He forms and encourages inappropriate emotional relationships with his female colleagues and it affects his ability to give criticism of their work effectively. Now you have the right to read that a different way; but please respect that others are not just "memory-holing" misogynistic comments for some reason or another. I'm not defending him: he definitely has a problem with his attitude to women, it sounds like it might absolutely create a hostile workplace, and it's almost certainly inappropriate to be talking about the subject in such a light-hearted manner - but this is fundamentally a mea culpa rather than a criticism of women in science.
    - unishark 5y ago
      Yes I imagined his idea of "criticizing" amounted to abusively yelling at people. From what I've seen, the way people win Nobel prizes is by working their lab 24/7 like a slavedriver. I actually have seen psychopathic professors yell at female lab members until they cry. I knew one guy who complained about it. He apparently got much more productivity out of yelling at the guys. Pretty dark humor if it's a joke.
    - skystarman 5y ago
      "Now you have the right to read that a different way; but please respect that others are not just "memory-holing" misogynistic comments for some reason or another." Almost every single one of the posters defending this misogynistic behavior are just deliberately leaving out his most incendiary and misogynistic remark and instead focusing on comments he made that are less objectionable. Why do these people deserve "credit"? Am I suppose to believe only focusing on the least objectionable comments to paint him as some unfairly maligned martyr is just an accident?
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    I mean, who could prove him wrong? Maybe his idea of "criticizing" his fellow professionals involves a lot of yelling and throwing chairs around. There's certainly some people like that in the workplace.
Veen 5y ago
> What's the missing context here? The missing context is that many women he worked with defended him. That he has consistently worked with, hired, supported, and promoted women throughout his career. That he has done far more to benefit women in science and humanity generally than the whining Twitterati who denounced him ever will.
- emn13 5y ago
  It sometimes surprises me how people don't seem to see that while all of this is part of a healthy (and seemingly normal) societal change, that it's unfortunate that not just are oldfashioned behaviors shunned, but that merely talking about struggles with them is so taboo. Is society really going to adapt better because people lash out so uncompromisingly?

hnuser123456 5y ago

He also implies that if you're too good of a student, at least around him, he might fall in love with you and become a worse teacher, and he's just being honest about it. You could mock men for being bad at suppressing feelings equally from the same comment.

teddyh 5y ago

I don’t know anything about this specific case. It might be the exception which proves the rule. In general, I try to follow the HN guideline: “Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.”

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

I don't know any of the context here, but it seems to me that what the quote actually says is that the author admits that he is unable to function effectively with female colleagues, that there are other men like him, and that it's a problem that mustn't be allowed to hold women back from doing science.

skystarman 5y ago
It's interesting that everyone defending this old coot is just memory-holing the clearly misogynistic comment "if you a criticize a woman in the lab, they cry" and are choosing to only mention the comments that are more easily defensible as a "joke"
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  Please give some credit to other posters. The way I read this; when he says "you", it's the generic you: he's talking about the "chauvinist monsters" like himself, and it's in the context of three particular ways in which his own failings prevent him working with women. He forms and encourages inappropriate emotional relationships with his female colleagues and it affects his ability to give criticism of their work effectively. Now you have the right to read that a different way; but please respect that others are not just "memory-holing" misogynistic comments for some reason or another. I'm not defending him: he definitely has a problem with his attitude to women, it sounds like it might absolutely create a hostile workplace, and it's almost certainly inappropriate to be talking about the subject in such a light-hearted manner - but this is fundamentally a mea culpa rather than a criticism of women in science.
  - unishark 5y ago
    Yes I imagined his idea of "criticizing" amounted to abusively yelling at people. From what I've seen, the way people win Nobel prizes is by working their lab 24/7 like a slavedriver. I actually have seen psychopathic professors yell at female lab members until they cry. I knew one guy who complained about it. He apparently got much more productivity out of yelling at the guys. Pretty dark humor if it's a joke.
  - skystarman 5y ago
    "Now you have the right to read that a different way; but please respect that others are not just "memory-holing" misogynistic comments for some reason or another." Almost every single one of the posters defending this misogynistic behavior are just deliberately leaving out his most incendiary and misogynistic remark and instead focusing on comments he made that are less objectionable. Why do these people deserve "credit"? Am I suppose to believe only focusing on the least objectionable comments to paint him as some unfairly maligned martyr is just an accident?
- zozbot234 5y ago
  I mean, who could prove him wrong? Maybe his idea of "criticizing" his fellow professionals involves a lot of yelling and throwing chairs around. There's certainly some people like that in the workplace.

Veen 5y ago

> What's the missing context here? The missing context is that many women he worked with defended him. That he has consistently worked with, hired, supported, and promoted women throughout his career. That he has done far more to benefit women in science and humanity generally than the whining Twitterati who denounced him ever will.

emn13 5y ago
It sometimes surprises me how people don't seem to see that while all of this is part of a healthy (and seemingly normal) societal change, that it's unfortunate that not just are oldfashioned behaviors shunned, but that merely talking about struggles with them is so taboo. Is society really going to adapt better because people lash out so uncompromisingly?