Matt Taylor's shirt

[Euron Greyjoy]

"Those darn feminists if only they'd use logic and reason like us men!"

Yeah can we fucking not.

I'm not saying women cant use logic and reason, just feminists. They construe arguments in ways to paint themselves the victims with no one else to blame, except the boogeyman that is the patriarchy. 

...reeeeally. You're resorting to fucking rape apologia to make your case. Well, you've certainly made the case that there are bigger issues than microaggressions, though I doubt it was in the way you intended.

Seriously microagressions?




I have a simple question for you lot. Is Matt Taylor a victim of harassment or not? If not why? Is it because hes a white male?

[Slywyn]

If you're going to use images like that I'm not going to have anything to do with you or your arguments.

[Euron Greyjoy]

The truth hurts doesn't it? Your whole movement revolves around being a victim to both "microagressions" and "macroagressions". Face it other then the right to vote and making it illegal for a husband to rape his wife, feminism hasn't accomplished anything of significance. A movement that should of died a long time ago, but it's kept alive because victim hood is so alluring. I mean why work or try to do something, when you're being oppressed?

[Blythe]

Time for a cooldown. Thread locked.

[Blythe]

All righty, thread re-opened. 

[blue bunny sparkle]

I found this interesting...

It is a pornographers view on the issue.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/a-pornographer-and-atheist-explains-why-the-science-guys-shirt-crash-landed/

[Ephiral]

Unfortunately, don't expect that to be terribly convincing. The sort of people involved in the backlash wrote Greta off as One Of Them years ago.

[Steampunkette]

I wish we had a cheering emoticon. That post would get, like, 30 of them.

[Deamonbane]

I just have to say that it seems like this Greta Christina seems to have missed the point of the discussion entirely...

[Ephiral]

Nnnnot really; she's stating exactly why people have a problem with the shirt: Because it is yet another subtle little message telling women that their value is in their appearance.

[Doomsday]

Is it just me, or is there no relevance to the gender of the shirt's creator? Women internalize misogyny too, and that whole argument boils down to "I have a black friend!"

[Steampunkette]

Yup!

[Shjade]

Is it just me, or is there no relevance to the gender of the shirt's creator? Women internalize misogyny too, and that whole argument boils down to "I have a black friend!"

You don't even need to include the contentious "internalized misogyny" part. It's enough to point out that the creator's gender is irrelevant.

[alextaylor]

There's some culture clash here. I've worked with some high tech before and the culture there is... different. The higher you go, the weirder the culture seems to be. I can see something like the ESA being really weird. Maybe the weirdness is toned down a bit because it's government funded, but still, it's different. There's like some kind of competition going on where the crazier you look, the more talent you'll attract.

There's a few oddities in nerd culture. Nerd culture judges people purely by actions. Tech teams tend to be small and tight knit, with little competition or office politics because there's a huge problem to be solved out there. Coworkers are often close friends.

Companies literally do have formal meetings where people are dressed in their bikinis or shorts. Literally. (Ok there's no bikinis in that video, but that company does have poolside meetings)

The idea of getting fired for what you say on camera or what you wear is ludicrous. It could take years to replace talent like Matt Taylor. People actually compete with each other and throw wilder parties, build steampunk themed offices, etc just so they can poach the best talent.

"Suits" is an derogatory term. Nerds often wear the worst clothes they can, as if to make a point. Project managers may conduct interviews wearing pajamas. Zuckerberg gives speeches and meets everyone wearing the same shirt. It's inverse in that the more informal your clothes are, the more respect you get.

Informal clothing acts as some kind of stupidity filter. I'm not saying this just to be offensive - it's a paraphrasing of what multimillion dollar technopreneurs like Paul Graham and Vishen Lakhiani themselves said.

[Ephiral]

Yes, this shirt is a manifestation of aspects of tech culture. The problem is that one of those aspects is that people are not judged purely on merit as you claim - and one of the non-merit things they are judged upon is their perceived gender. Girls are told that technical fields are the domain of boys, that they can't excel there. Women are made to constantly justify their presence, and given less access to needed resources. Women have to deal with sexual harassment and dismissive attitudes toward their attempts to handle it. Women's ideas and achievements are routinely ignored, downplayed, or outright stolen. And these things are a) making women feel unwelcome or incapable to the point that they either leave the field or fail to join it in the first place, and b) making it harder for women who do make a career of it to actually make valuable contributions. This is not speculation - this is what women in these fields are telling us, and what research is showing us.

So yes, it's part of the culture of STEM fields. And that is a huge problem.

[Kythia]

Yeah, I think that's a huge part of the problem.  Tech culture has constructed this egalitarian narrative around itself - we don't care what you look like just how you work - that is totally false but is serving as something of a "shield" for anyone really addressing the problem.  "Maybe its just not the sort of place where people get hung up on shirts" is simply not a relevant defence, and it's meaning that the field can get away with stuff to a greater or lesser extent that would rightly be viewed as totally unacceptable in any other place.

[Nachtmahr]

So, I'm just going to dive in to essentially give my personal opinion because.. Well, as inappropriate as some of these posts are, I really can't make it any worse.

I think people need to calm the heck down. I think it's absolutely outrageous that this interviewer gets to spew crap like what she did at an event like the one she attended. If people want to debate it afterwards - Go ahead! But all of this 'Rape Culture'-nonsense that's being blown out of proportion every, about how men can rape-by-proxy purely because of the fact that they possess a penis, or look at women.. My god.

It saddens me to see that something that is so vile and abhorrent in our world can be boiled down by these self-titled 'feminists' to something that happens all the time to everyone as long as they happen to be alive. I'm sorry, but no one is fighting a battle for equality at this point - These days it's all about tipping the scales in direction or the other. The 'hardcore feminist' groups out there aren't about being on equal footing, they want to be viewed as superior.

Now, all of this being said, it's a shirt. I don't really think he wore it to make any kind of 'micro aggression' or to take a jab at women altogether. In fact, I think the fact that the focus of this whole campaign is 'what is he wearing! OMG!' is sickening. Congratulations woman: In trying to stave of stereotyping you literally just went 'God, look at his clothes!'. Bravo.

If you really wanted to fight the way women are portrayed these days, why not picket Nicki Minaj rather than this guy?

[Kythia]

I would suggest, Nachtmahr, that if you've read this whole thread and still hold that opinion there's likely to be little to nothing anyone can do to convince you otherwise.

As an exercise, though, what would it take to convince you you were mistaken here?  Is there a phrasing or a proof that would work?

[Ephiral]

I think people need to calm the heck down. I think it's absolutely outrageous that this interviewer gets to spew crap like what she did at an event like the one she attended. If people want to debate it afterwards - Go ahead! But all of this 'Rape Culture'-nonsense that's being blown out of proportion every, about how men can rape-by-proxy purely because of the fact that they possess a penis, or look at women.. My god.

That... that isn't even remotely what 'rape culture' means, and you're not even pretending to argue against anyone in this thread.

EDIT to be a bit less snarky and more informative: "Rape culture" refers to a culture that enables and supports rapists by sweeping vile, abhorrent shit under the rug as "boys will be boys" or "she was asking for it" or "but he's a pillar of the community, he couldn't have done that" or "men don't get raped" or "prisoners deserve it". (These are all real and extremely common arguments.) Or by making men feel entitled to sex if they just do X. Or by reducing women to sex objects and passive prizes for men to acquire. Or by treating it as perfectly acceptable to say "I hope you get raped!", but beyond the pale to say "Guys, don't do that." This is not nonsense; it's real, documented, and happening right now.

"Rape culture" as used in the feminist mainstream absolutely, categorically does not include "all men are rapists" or "all penis-havers are rapists" or "all penis-havers are men" or "looking at a woman is rape". Are there extremists who hold these views? Yes - a tiny minority at the extreme edge of the bell curve that other feminists are fighting against. Painting this crap as the viewpoint of all feminists - against what every single person around you is saying - is frankly deceptive bullshit.

It saddens me to see that something that is so vile and abhorrent in our world can be boiled down by these self-titled 'feminists' to something that happens all the time to everyone as long as they happen to be alive. I'm sorry, but no one is fighting a battle for equality at this point - These days it's all about tipping the scales in direction or the other. The 'hardcore feminist' groups out there aren't about being on equal footing, they want to be viewed as superior.

That's a very pretty strawman you've built there. Are you sure you have to beat the crap out of it?

Now, all of this being said, it's a shirt. I don't really think he wore it to make any kind of 'micro aggression' or to take a jab at women altogether. In fact, I think the fact that the focus of this whole campaign is 'what is he wearing! OMG!' is sickening. Congratulations woman: In trying to stave of stereotyping you literally just went 'God, look at his clothes!'. Bravo.

I am absolutely certain he didn't intend to send the message he did. But here's the thing: intent is not magic. Harmful actions aren't transmuted into harmless ones because you didn't mean it like that. And frankly, the rest of this paragraph is a distraction: You're saying there is absolutely no occasion on which it's appropriate to question someone's clothing choice in a professional setting on international TV as a representative of a large and underappreciated group? Ever?

[Cassandra LeMay]

I may not be making any friends on either side of the debate with this, but...

I think this whole debate - in as much as it is still about Matt Taylor's shirt - is pretty pointless. A discussion about women in the STEM field and the general culture in that field could be very worthwhile, but when it comes to "the shirt" in a narrower sense no amount of talking here will lead to anything.

Here's why I think so:

Microagression certainly exists. We all know that small things can up to negative consequences from such time-honored phrases as "the straw that broke the camel's back" or "the drop that made the barrel overflow". Those sayings wouldn't exist if we were not all at least a little aware that a lot of small things can add up to something the individual thing could never have caused by itself.

That said, the key problem becomes figuring out what is part of a "continuum" of microagressions. And there we run into the problem of subjectivity. Unless we all operate under the same, generally-agreed definitions of what is sexist or misogynist we have to rely on subjective definitions, simply because we lack an objective definition.

Unless someone comes up with a parallel Earth were Mr. Taylor wore a different shirt and we compare data on women in the STEM fields (all other things being equal) in 5 or 10 years, it is impossible to say if, or what, the consequences of his actions will be.

As long as no one can demonstrate a clear correlation between a certain action and a certain result arguing "but it is, and it will lead to..." is as valid or invalid as arguing "no, it's not, so what's the problem?", because we just don't know for certain.

The opinion "what Matt Taylor did will put off women from entering the STEM field" is a valid opinion.
The opinion "it doesn't matter at all" is a valid opinion.
The opinion "it's sexist, but it might not make a difference" is a valid opinion.

All those opinions are valid, for they are based on subjective criteria of the one stating that opinion.

That they are valid does not mean they are all right, but arguing against someone's opinion by just putting up a contrary opinion and saying "you are wrong" never did much good.

This could go on till we are all blue in the face without leading to anything.

Isn't it time to take a step back and just acknowledge that the other side is not wrong from where they sit? I see a lot of statements here that can neither be verified or falsified with any certainty. Maybe it's time to frame at least some of the posts here more as opinions, and less as immutable facts?

[Ephiral]

Well. Those of us arguing that it was a problem? The position I've been seeing, and the one I espouse, is "This shirt will probably not discourage women from entering STEM in and of itself, but it is certainly symptomatic of the much larger cultural issue STEM has with women - and that does. This is why it was a problem and why it was appropriate to call him out on it." I, for one, would be very glad to see the discussion transition away from the shirt and toward the general problem it is representative of.

But then you get people like Nachtmahr or Euron Greyjoy, who drag it back to "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION WHAT HE WORE IT'S JUST A SHIRT", so we get stuck at the stage of saying "It's not just about this one action, it's about the much broader context of that action."

[Caehlim]

I think this whole debate - in as much as it is still about Matt Taylor's shirt - is pretty pointless. A discussion about women in the STEM field and the general culture in that field could be very worthwhile, but when it comes to "the shirt" in a narrower sense no amount of talking here will lead to anything.

I think a discussion of the shirt could potentially be valuable, but other than blue bunny sparkles' link, I haven't really seen one of those happen yet.

So far the conversation still seems stuck on whether it's okay to talk about a shirt and we haven't gotten past that yet to actually discuss anything about that shirt in particular.

[consortium11]

Nnnnot really; she's stating exactly why people have a problem with the shirt: Because it is yet another subtle little message telling women that their value is in their appearance.

As opposed to the message that it doesn't matter what you do, you'll just be judged on your appearance instead?

Or the message that wearing something someone disapproves of is three times more important than doing your job to the best of your ability?



There's been a lot written on this between the news thread and this one since I last commented... enough that even by my lengthy standards it would be a bit unwieldy to go point for point. Instead let me pick out some "highlights":

1) I've seen people repeatedly try to dismiss Matt Taylor as a "PR guy". That strikes me as exceptionally disrespectful. He's a bona fide, died-in-the-wool scientist with a PHD in space physics, over 70 publications and has been the project scientist for space missions previous to this one (notably the Cluster II). He's pretty much literally in charge of science when it comes to the Rosetta mission... calling him a PR guy strikes me as just another attempt to reduce the importance of science.

2) A hypothetical Kythia mentioned earlier (where she would go to work in her bra and panties) doesn't hold up at all for me. If that comparison was legitimate then the complaint would be that men were feeling pressured into wearing aloha shirts if they wanted to get ahead in science. Even loosened slightly it would be that women were feeling pressured to wear aloha shirts (such as this one for example).

3) The amero-centracism of this debate is also quite striking. People are frequently bringing up demographics, sources and studies looking at STEM subjects/jobs in the US... which is nice and all but somewhat strange considering that this was a mission by the European Space Agency. As far as I can see there are three people from the US deeply involved in the mission all of whom were focused on the jet propulsion element. Demographics from Europe (and especially continental Europe) would be far more appropriate.

4) Likewise most of those demographics tend to bundle the various STEM disciplines into one and treat them as a whole rather than as individual disciplines that likely have their own cultures and approaches. To give a simple example over the last 10 years the retention and progression rate for women in astronomy (so from graduate student to assistant professor and from post doc to assistant professor) is statistically indistinguishable from that of men. As such it would appear that any discussion of micro-aggressions with regards to astronomy would have to focus entirely on what happens to people before they actually get involved in the field.

5) Steampunkette's discussion of microaggressions as things that force one to resign rather than an out-and-out firing also has a legal name; constructive dismissal and is an actionable cause in pretty much all European and American jurisdictions I'm aware of (if occasionally under a different name). I'm yet to find any example of a successful constructive dismissal case being brought against the ESA (or, considering the ESA's international status, against a member state for not offering recourse) with the closest thing being some technical claims under Germany's "unfair dismissal" laws where men argued they counted as employees because of the length of time they worked as part of a agency.

6) I'm still yet to see a proper answer about why the shirt constitutes a micro-aggression and thus is bad but his beard (remembering that some people consider beards sexist) or tattoos (remembering that some people find tattoos blasphemous) do not. Or him wearing aloha shirts in general which some people consider cultural appropriation/racism? Don't these all constitute micro-aggressions as they will make some people less likely to take up a career in STEM? Can we get a list of approved words/clothing/hairstyles/facial hair/stance/manner that won't put anyone off getting involved in an area and thus not constitute a micro-aggression? It wasn't that long ago that Zuckerburg was accused of being sexist because he always wore grey t-shirts.

7) On the concept of micro-aggressions again, using the idea that a micro-aggression constitutes something that while not necessarily particularly serious in-and-of itself and without necessarily having a negative intent behind it makes people uneasy or unhappy or underappreciated or insulted etc etc when taken in the wider context and in this specific case refers to women being less likely to take up STEM disciplines to begin with or remain in them once they've taken the first few steps, wouldn't informing women that they're less likely to be hired and, if they are, likely to get paid less also constitute a micro-aggression? If not, why not... surely telling someone that they're going to paid less than their colleagues if they even get hired at all is going to make them less likely to pursue a career in that area? Likewise isn't offering almost no coverage of the women involved in the project (many of whom had vital roles) but focusing on the men likewise a micro-aggression? I look at the Verge's coverage (source of the "I don't care..." article) and see that they never once mentioned any of the female scientists involved let alone got a quote from them. Kathrin Altwegg works on the team, has had around 20 articles specifically relating to the Rosetta mission published and gave a TED talk on the subject recently... the amount of coverage she received in the mainstream feminist press so deeply concerned about women not having prominent roles in STEM? Pretty much miniscule. Isn't the fact that their achievements are unlikely to be lauded by those who are seemingly supposed to support them going to put people off?

8) To go back to the awful Verge article for a moment am I the only one who sees something rather unpleasant about the fact that one can say that the entire mission is "one small step for man, three steps back for humankind" while also tagging it "men who lack a fleck of perspective about what's happening in the world"?

9) This entire hooda fits rather nastily into a general anti-acedemia (or at least non-feminist-approved academia) and science undertone that's becoming more and more present in some social justice and feminist circles. You can see it here where wearing a shirt people disapprove of is three times more serious than landing on a comet, you can see it in the reaction to the study into Viking graves where people ignored the conclusions and methodology of the very report they used to support them because they seemingly knew better, you saw it in Rebecca Watson and PZ Meyers pulling every trick out of the climate change deniers handbook to attack an area of science they didn't like, you can see it in people pulling Jack Thompson's arguments out of the dustbin of history and repeating them nigh-on verbatim while occasionally changing the word "violent" to either "sexist" or "misogynist" and you can see it in students arguing that even if a paper's conclusion is right it should not be allowed because the conclusion is something they disagree with to go with pretty recent examples.

10) It also fits into the puritanical streak that modern feminism seems to have. Of course there's the sex positive/sex negative distinction but considering that feminist pressure is well on its way to turning the vast majority of BDSM play into sexual assault and rape it's a deeply worrying measure.

[Ephiral]

As opposed to the message that it doesn't matter what you do, you'll just be judged on your appearance instead?

Or the message that wearing something someone disapproves of is three times more important than doing your job to the best of your ability?

Yes, as opposed to that - the vast majority of feminist coverage of this (in fact, all of it that I've seen) has been "Fuck yeah, science! Look at this awesome thi-oh. Well, that's an issue that detracts from it. He shouldn't have done that. But fuck yeah probe on a comet!"

The coverage I've seen, not counting replies to the ridiculous backlash, has been at worst equally divided between the mission itself and the issue of the shirt. "Three times" strikes me as pretty damn disingenuous. And again, it's not about "wearing something someone disapproves of", it's about "sending harmful messages to an already-disadvantaged group."



1) He was in a PR role (and should have been conscious of this), but is a full-fledged contributing member of the team. No particular argument there, and I'm not sure where you saw it. (It's possible I'm overlooking or forgetting something here.)

2) Not my argument; Kythia can speak for herself and probably do a better job of it than I can.

3) and 4) Okay, let's look at broadly international stats on women in astronomy. Statistically indistinguishable from men, says you. Bullshit, says the IAU. Or perhaps you'd rather drill down to the level of the Rosetta team itself: Notice anything about the male:female ratio there?

5) "Constructive dismissal" is, to my understanding, something that an institution does as an unspoken but deliberate course of action. This is distinct from what Steampunkette is talking about, and thus a non-sequitur. Even if it weren't, "reasons sexual harassment and assault are vastly underreported" is its own topic - the short and relevant-to-this-discussion version is "no action in court does not mean nothing happened".

6) Be... because beards and tattoos (depending on the content of the tattoo, of course) don't objectify anyone? Are we really having this discussion?

7) No, because calling this shit out is how it stops, and because the people fighting it are also encouraging women in STEM. Perhaps you've heard of the Ada Initiative, for example? This is a blatant "sit down and shut up" argument against discussing sexism at all. Focusing on the men to the exclusion of the women? Yes, that's a problem - one that I'd rank above the shirt, to be honest, though they're on the same spectrum. Let's fix that, if only in a small way. (Please note that this, literally the only coverage of the project's women I could easily find, is also by someone citing the shirt as a problem issue.)

8) Yeah, that's hyperbolic, no argument there.

9) This is a Gish gallop. Which of the extremely large topics you've brought up here would you actually like to discuss in depth?

10) You... you realize that you opened this post by quoting a discussion about an article written by a kink-positive sex-positive feminist, right? Feminism and BDSM are not remotely enemies; the focus of mainstream feminism is on consent, not on what consensual activities are taking place. Further, even if this were an issue, it's completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

[Kythia]

2) Not sure what you mean here?  My comment was:

OK.  Imagine I went to work tomorrow in my underwear.  Men like looking at sexy women (lets take as read that I'm sexy), whats wrong with that?  I can choose what I wear, what's wrong with that?  Etc. 

One of the things wrong with it is the inferences one could draw about my workplace.  You'd see me in my knickers and bra alongside my male colleagues in jeans and t-shirts.  Questions would be asked - do I really want to dress like that or do I feel I have to to keep my job?  What about other women coming in to my workplace, would they have to/be expected to dress like that?  Etc.  The fact that my dressing like that was not only tolerated but we saw nothing wrong with putting it on our publicity materials would raise some questions about the atmosphere of the place, in short.

and you say that "doesn't hold up for you".  What is it that doesn't make sense/you disagree with?  Obviously I'm biased but I don't see anything controversial there.  Beorning asked, in essence, why men looking at sexy women at work might be problematic, I gave an example of when it could be.  I'm honestly bemused by what "doesn't hold up" about it.