“She blinded me with science!” Not just a Thomas Dolby song anymore, this is the heartfelt lamentation of Nobel Prize winner Sir Tim Hunt. Obviously it was in physiology or medicine and not a Peace prize, because this dude lacks people skills in a pretty significant way. It just might be the first time a scientist has exclusively credited women for chemistry in the lab. Normally such an assertion would be met with great fanfare, but there’s a catch.
Apparently girl scientists are too #distractinglysexy to be in a lab. For years, through school dress codes, girls have been informed in no uncertain terms that they are deterrents to education. Now, Sir Tim Hunt will have us know that even under the cover of a hazmat suit, we are also deterrents to science.
Usually when a man in a white coat starts a sentence with “The trouble with…” I expect a narrative about that classic Star Trek episode about tribbles. Not today. He finishes this sentence with “girls in science.” He didn’t work in a nursery school where “girls” might be engaged in science, he worked in a university where grown-ass women science.
These same women apparently pose a risk of sexual entanglement for Sir Tim Hunt, even though he appears to share the emotional depth of the petri dishes that furnish his workplace. I’m sure such involvement with Sir Tim Hunt would indeed be hazardous, what with his unremediated misogyny and all. While talented, brilliant, competent women can be exceptionally attractive, I fail to see the risk he poses as the subject of unrequited love given his prejudice likely insulates him from such blind worship.
The real question is why Sir Hunt is so entitled that he feels the structure of laboratories should be reconfigured to accommodate his obvious lack of professionalism. It’s not enough that women in science are responsible for ground-breaking scientific achievements, they are also charged with both the inflated egos and the goldfish like attention spans of those who can’t handle a little bit of estrogen with their Erlenmeyer flasks.
Sir Tim Hunt’s request is not just self-centred, it’s heterocentric. It assumes that female scientist are straight and therefore at risk of falling in love with him. It also assumes segregation removes the risk of romantic entanglement, as if gay men don’t engage in science at all. If attraction is such a hazard in a scientific setting, a more self-aware man would wonder how many gay scientists he might have inadvertently distracted over the course of his career when he himself was young and #distractinglysexy. But that’s not the kind of feedback he wants to hear, it appears.
Feedback is something else that has poor Sir Tim Hunt distracted – all the weeping women who just can’t handle criticism. If the insight of his most recent statements are indicative of the level of thought that goes into his feedback, I can understand how it might be difficult to take him seriously and respond appropriately. I would cry too if I had to work with this jackass.
While my G cups might accidentally knock over a test tube in close proximity, it is abundantly clear the only boob that doesn’t belong in a lab with other people is Sir Tim Hunt himself.