“In June 2015, Sir Tim Hunt was reviled for arguing in favour of gender-segregated labs on the grounds that ‘girls’ cause men to fall in love with them, and cry when criticized. His comment cost the Nobel Prize winner his honorary professorship at UCL, and his position on the Royal Society’s Biological Sciences Awards Committee. More recently online, The Review argued that campaigning for women in STEM was unnecessary. Gender gaps in different professions, the editorial contends, can often be a matter of biology. Gender is a factor in determining why we study what we study, and blindly incentivizing students to pursue STEM subjects may distort the job market in the longer term.”
Why Campaign for Women in STEM?, by Jonathan Beyer, Mendeley, 2 December 2015
Apparently we still have a long way to go, baby. And this might be funny if it wasn’t so annoying. Cry when criticized? Biology-based gender gaps? Really? Huh.
