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[MC_Hify]

This whole thing reminds me of the Seinfeld puffy shirt episode. Here.

 

[BocoDragon]

You... understand that you're offering up pretty much a textbook victim-blaming argument here, right?

You can cram it into that model if you want. But don't you see how treating each and every call of sexism equally is a bad thing for society? Some of them are off base. You weaken the focus of the laser if you just let all claims in without a challenge.

The people who challenge this "shirt" issue as being a sexist issue are making healthy contributions to the debate. Hopefully we don't think they are all agents of defending the sexist status quo. It's wise to challenge claims of sexism when they are on the fringe of objectivity (such as what shirt a man wears), even if they ultimately pass the smell test of being a true sexist issue and spark a society progressing debate.

I also have to think it's interesting to bring the word "victim" into this thread. I guess the victim is all women everywhere, with this one man as the accidental perpetuator of exclusion? I could just as well say that he is the victim of an ideologically driven mob....

And by the way, I am considered by many in my circle to be a radical feminist. This is not concern trolling.... I really do want feminism to be effective. Sometimes I just feel the mob of activism can get carried away and my bullshit detector compels me to argue against the madness (as I emotionally feel it), and I think others get turned off by it too.

 

[SuperBonk]

At this point the bigger factor keeping the discussion alive is the people who insist that it's offensive that he apologized at all.

I don't know if anyone is actually offended that he apologized. Seems like the discussion is more about pointing the institutionalized sexism in STEM fields versus the internet's ability to handle these issues.

I generally believe that shaming isn't really an effective way of exposing inappropriate behavior, much less so on the internet. But at least this thread has provided a lot of information on why women have been driven away from STEM. So I'm kind of glad the discussion is still alive.

 

[Forkball]

Girl: you should wear this cheesy ass shirt I made on TV.
Guy: Yeah LOL

*life destroyed*

 

[Lazyslob]

Based on following this on twitter, pretty much all of the important people who were bothered by this in the first place (i.e. Taylor's peers and colleagues in the sciences) were satisfied immediately with the apology and were glad for the opportunity to get back to talking about the mission. At this point the bigger factor keeping the discussion alive is the people who insist that it's offensive that he apologized at all.

personally i dont find the shirt offensive. okay well it is offensive in how tacky it is but i dont think it should distract people on whats going on or what they achieved! and in all honestly he really doesnt owe anyone an apology because he actually did nothing wrong.

 

[charlequin]

You can cram it into that model if you want.

I don't think there's a lot of cramming required to get from "women who talk about how they think things are sexist are the reason MRAs do fucked up things" to "victim-blaming." You drew the line of causality here.

But don't you see how treating each and every call of sexism equally is a bad thing for society?

I feel like I need to break out the Jim Carrey gif. I think my reaction to this (a pretty bright guy made a boneheaded mistake but since he apologized we can all move on) and to, say, anything #gamergate does (round up the people involved and label them so no one in society ever listens to them again) are pretty dramatically different!

 

[Neo C.]

Elly Prizeman >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Rose Eveleth

And let's focus on science, gawddamnit!

 

[Lord Panda]

A bit unprofessional wearing something like that to work, let alone representing your organisation with in front of the media. Poor judgment on his part.

 

[lednerg]

If you read my posts in this thread you'll notice that the only things I ever say about his personal character are positive and that I don't think there's any reason to hold anything against him whatsoever given his apology, so, uh, I think you're a bit off-base here?

I'm obviously talking about "Shirtstorm", particularly those out there implying that he is a sexist jerk or what have you. There's a blowback to this kind of overreaction people are having. It makes the idea of feminism into something not all that serious. The whole GamerGate situation has already done enough of that as it is.

 

[FFP2]

That shirt is ugly but people are over-reacting to it a bit much.

 

[A Link to the Past]

One of the worst things about this is that people are defending him in such a way that they argue that people should be paying attention to his accomplishments, and that it erases his allegedly sexist t-shirt.

 

[BocoDragon]

I don't think there's a lot of cramming required to get from "women who talk about how they think things are sexist are the reason MRAs do fucked up things" to "victim-blaming." You drew the line of causality here.



I feel like I need to break out the Jim Carrey gif. I think my reaction to this (a pretty bright guy made a boneheaded mistake but since he apologized we can all move on) and to, say, anything #gamergate does (round up the people involved and label them so no one in society ever listens to them again) are pretty dramatically different!

I had a similar Jim Carrey reaction to your post (victim blaming... huh?)

But now I see that you saw my reference to MRAs and mentally jumped to their internet bullying history, and interpreted my post as "feminists bringing it on themselves" or something like that. I did not mean to imply any argument like that.

I invoked MRAs (regrettably) to give a shorthand for the large swath of society which is alienated from feminist theory and goals - many of whom are actually moderate and rational (so, generally not as extreme as MRAs). And I believe they are alienated from feminism because the extremes of feminism are taken for the main of feminism. Every extreme claim of sexism is treated with the utmost of concern.... when a lot of moderate people roll their eyes at this. A lot of normal people tonight are looking at this shirt issue and thinking "this is extreme".

In my mind, good feminism would be able to call "I want to see the receipts" on certain claims of sexism. You don't want to dismiss claims, but its right to challenge them when it's as fringey as the content of a man's shirt.

 

[nicanica]

I don't see why we can't say not to focus on his accomplishments. He helped move the human experience forward and will be a foot note in the history of space travel. His shirt was on tv for 10 minutes and you can't overlook the fact that there are cartoon women on it.

People's blinding need to complain about being offended has never been more apparent to me in all the years of my life.

 

[Amalthea]

It's both sexist and mindblowing ugly. The colors, the paintbrush-style. Eugh.

 

[PdotMichael]

I just realized that Twitter is basically the internet version of your crazy neighboor who is offended by everything you do.

 

[Member876]

Man, I understand this one from POV and from another POV I don't. I have a rockabilly co-worker and she is big fan of the whole 50s pin-up culture, I know she wouldn't take offense from Matt's shirt. So why can one voice decide this is offensive when there are other voices saying it isn't?

I think this sort of issues should be handled individually. If workplace has no dress code then people should be able to wear any kind of clothing they desire. Obviously if person's clothing is creating hostile working environment HR should draw a line. In this case we should ask Matt's co-workers if they find the shirt offensive and if they did, then we should investigate why HR didn't intervene. There is also possibility that Matt's co-workers didn't find his shirt offensive at all.

 

[BocoDragon]

Man, I understand this one from POV and from another POV I don't. I have a rockabilly co-worker and she is big fan of the whole 50s pin-up culture, I know she wouldn't take offense from Matt's shirt. So why can one voice decide this is offensive when there are other voices saying it isn't?

I think this sort of issues should be handled individually. If workplace has no dress code then people should be able to wear any kind of clothing they desire. Obviously if person's clothing is creating hostile working environment HR should draw a line. In this case we should ask Matt's co-workers if they find the shirt offensive and if they did, then we should investigate why HR didn't intervene. There is also possibility that Matt's co-workers didn't find his shirt offensive at all.

It seems to be less about his particular work environment and more about how women feel welcome in STEM as a whole.

 

[Honey Bunny]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/m...few-women-in-science.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I've read what Mumei wrote, but this article is much more along the lines of the way I see it. This shirt is not the problem that is keeping women out of STEM, it's a much larger issue of devaluing women as math and science focused individuals. The way it is discouraged in girls in primary school. The "old boys club" mentality of "men do it better" and that women are only successful because of some unseen man that must have done the work for them. That is a much more realistic (and difficult) hurdle for women to jump. Men who wear cartoon women shirts or the like aren't the reason (IMHO) that women are kept out of STEM. At all. I'd be curious what Kathrin Altwegg had to say about this, tbh.

Agree. No person who wants to dedicate their young life to math and science will be put off by a shirt. This changes nothing. I'm looking forward to a future of equal representation in STEM where everyone can wear whatever damn clothes they like because we'll have all realized that wasn't a problem.

 

[Member876]

It seems to be less about his particular work environment and more about how women feel welcome in STEM as a whole.

Yeah, I can see why wearing shirt like that can be off putting for many women and contribute to larger social issues in STEM fields. On the other hand it could be that for many women it's just a shirt or a shirt that reprisents some guy's admiration to a small sub-culture.

I guess dress code is something that would fix this particular problem. Works for NASA.

These issues are some times hard for me to understand. Especially since I'm straight, white male under age of 60. I try to but myself in another person's shoes but I still get mixed signals.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

Elly Prizeman >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Rose Eveleth

And let's focus on science, gawddamnit!

I hope Rose Eveleth's asshole-ish behaviour follows her for the rest of her career.

 

[wsippel]

Yeah, I can see why wearing shirt like that can be off putting for many women and contribute to larger social issues in STEM fields. On the other hand it could be that for many women it's just a shirt or a shirt that reprisents some guy's admiration to a small sub-culture.

I guess dress code is something that would fix this particular problem. Works for NASA.

We don't really do that dress code/ uniform nonsense much in Europe. Actually, looking at the picture, the uniforms go hand in hand with the huge ass US flag in the background - and we don't to that, either.

 

[Member876]

We don't really do that dress code/ uniform nonsense much in Europe. Actually, looking at the picture, the uniforms go hand in hand with the huge ass US flag in the background - and we don't to that, either.

Yup, and I certainly hope the uniform nonsense doesn't catch up here. That's why these sort of things should be handle individually. Workplaces should be able to create atmosphere where women and men are comfortable to take their issues to HR if they feel some aspects are creating hostile/uncomfortable/unwelcoming working envoirment.

 

[Thug Waffle]

if a female scientist wore a tacky buttondown with half-naked male models all over it, would i be obligated to give a single fuck?

 

[wsippel]

Yup, and I certainly hope the uniform nonsense doesn't catch up here. That's why these sort of things should be handle individually. Workplaces should be able to create atmosphere where women and men are comfortable to take their issues to HR if they feel some aspects are creating hostile/uncomfortable/unwelcoming working envoirment.

A lot of the posters in this thread fail to realize that ESA is European, not a US institution. European space agencies, and public research institutes in Europe in general, have an unusually large percentage of female employees. 30% of the employees at DLR are women for example (I actually know a few in person, and I'm pretty sure not one of them gave a fuck about that shirt), and the percentage of female scientists there is higher than the percentage of female scientists in a give discipline in general. Instead of wasting time on useless superficial nonsense like dress codes, they actively (and successfully) promote and foster women in STEM.

 

[JDSN]

if a female scientist wore a tacky buttondown with half-naked male models all over it, would i be obligated to give a single fuck?

Only in a universe where it could have the same meaning as what Matt did on ours, luckily that isnt the case.

 

[RedShift]

Yep, I think I've just about had it with the whole internet outrage culture thing.

I can't believe some people are so desperate to be offended they can't see a tacky shirt without starting a harassment campaign.

 

[Bulbo Urethral Baggins]

A lot of the posters in this thread fail to realize that ESA is European, not a US institution. European space agencies, and public research institutes in Europe in general, have an unusually large percentage of female employees. 30% of the employees at DLR are women for example (I actually know a few in person, and I'm pretty sure not one of them gave a fuck about that shirt), and the percentage of female scientists there is higher than the percentage of female scientists in a give discipline in general. Instead of wasting time on useless superficial nonsense like dress codes, they actively (and successfully) try to promote and foster women in STEM.

I take this as a thinly veiled attack on US science in general.
Anecdotal, but I've worked in science for many years and I've noticed that women earning PhDs in the U.S. outnumber men now. I can't even remember the last time I've seen a male U.S. born citizen as a post doc.
It doesn't even seem close in my field (health sciences). I'm going to look for hard numbers and come back.

Edit: Ok. Not sure how hard these numbers are, but according to the 'Council of Graduate Schools', women earning PhD's in Health Sciences in the US outnumber men by a 70% to 30% margin. I'm actually surprised it's not larger. I would have guessed 90/10.
In physical sciences, it's opposite. It's 30% female, 70% male.

 

[wildfire]

This is the risk you face when becoming a public persona.

 

[BocoDragon]

This is the risk you face when becoming a public persona.

I was just talking with a friend today about how much of a curse fame would be.

Money? Good. Adoration? Good. Success and self actualization? Good.

But fame? A million people debating you and your choice of clothing? Telling you how it's bad or wrong or hurts society and women? Sounds like a kind of hell. You can't win.

 

[Gustav]

Another step closer to Demolition Man.

 

[Log4Girlz]

if a female scientist wore a tacky buttondown with half-naked male models all over it, would i be obligated to give a single fuck?

If anything its men held to unfair standards of beauty and constant sexualization. He wore that shirt as a response to the oppressive matriarchy that has held back men for millenia.

Fight the power.

 

[berzeli]

I hope Rose Eveleth's asshole-ish behaviour follows her for the rest of her career.

Why?

I just don't understand why she is so vilified by a lot of posters in this thread, she used a modicum of snark to criticise what she deemed to be a poor choice on part of Matt Taylor whom agrees with her. You're the ones with this insane response (that includes death threats) to her who are making this a bigger deal than what it is, not her.

 

[LostCaress]

i think it's aesthetically ugly and no one sane should wear it but if you just helped land something on a comet that's the kind of thing I want you to wear

 

[freddy]

Why?

I just don't understand why she is so vilified by a lot of posters in this thread, she used a modicum of snark to criticise what she deemed to be a poor choice on part of Matt Taylor whom agrees with her. You're the ones with this insane response (that includes death threats) to her who are making this a bigger deal than what it is, not her.[/B]

Link to the posters in this thread making death threats please.

 

[berzeli]

Link to the posters in this thread making death threats please.

I never said that anyone threatened her on Gaf? But they did on twitter and other websites. The amount of shit she got was way worse than what is in any way proportionate for critiquing a shirt.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

Why?

I just don't understand why she is so vilified by a lot of posters in this thread, she used a modicum of snark to criticise what she deemed to be a poor choice on part of Matt Taylor whom agrees with her. You're the ones with this insane response (that includes death threats) to her who are making this a bigger deal than what it is, not her.

Because she called him an asshole, approved of comments that called him a bearded idiot and insinuated that he was sexist. Simply because of the shirt he was wearing. When you hound people like that and instigate a hate campaign on this level then that makes you an asshole.

And no, I haven't threatened her life and I don't think my response is "insane".

I never said that anyone threatened her on Gaf? But they did on twitter and other websites. The amount of shit she got was way worse than what is in any way proportionate for critiquing a shirt.

Just because there are dickheads on the internet doesn't mean she gets a free pass.

I never said that anyone threatened her on Gaf?

Yes you did:

You're the ones with this insane response (that includes death threats) to her who are making this a bigger deal than what it is, not her.

 

[Walshicus]

Too many people are addicted to being offended. The world would be a far better place if they put their efforts into fixing the real, structural injustices facing certain races, genders and sexual orientations, of which there are many.

When it comes to the social side of the 'sexism' debate I've one rule of thumb; if your swap the gender of everyone involved in a story would anyone still care?

 

[andthebeatgoeson]

You can cram it into that model if you want. But don't you see how treating each and every call of sexism equally is a bad thing for society? Some of them are off base. You weaken the focus of the laser if you just let all claims in without a challenge.

The people who challenge this "shirt" issue as being a sexist issue are making healthy contributions to the debate. Hopefully we don't think they are all agents of defending the sexist status quo. It's wise to challenge claims of sexism when they are on the fringe of objectivity (such as what shirt a man wears), even if they ultimately pass the smell test of being a true sexist issue and spark a society progressing debate.

I also have to think it's interesting to bring the word "victim" into this thread. I guess the victim is all women everywhere, with this one man as the accidental perpetuator of exclusion? I could just as well say that he is the victim of an ideologically driven mob....

And by the way, I am considered by many in my circle to be a radical feminist. This is not concern trolling.... I really do want feminism to be effective. Sometimes I just feel the mob of activism can get carried away and my bullshit detector compels me to argue against the madness (as I emotionally feel it), and I think others get turned off by it too.

The I-know-a-black-guy defense weakens your argument.

I'm not sure discussions of sexism weaken over time. If you are looking for ways to quantify the relative merits of each case of sexism, you probably don't care. The shirt jumped out to me as bullshit but only because of the edifying aspects of these discussions on GAF. We have to appreciate how our thoughts evolve over time. It doesn't happen instantaneously; it takes multiple interactions and perspectives.

It takes examples like this for someone out there to start to understand how ingrained sexism is. People will respond differently and view it differently. To argue that responses should be tapered is to argue that we all should be the same. I don't think he should be fired but I can't be so arrogant to know what some other human has experienced and try to force them to have a different reaction.

This shirt guy has to be so oblivious that he thought that shirt was appropriate for the news conference for one of the biggest accomplishments in human history.

Do we think the personal whims and preferences are appropriate for every situation like this? It's a major step for science and he is lucky the response isn't worse. That shirt has no business being at that news conference.

 

[berzeli]

Because she called him an asshole, approved of comments that called him a bearded idiot and insinuated that he was sexist. Simply because of the shirt he was wearing. When you hound people like that and instigate a hate campaign on this level then that makes you an asshole.

Okay, but why do you hope that it should follow her for the rest of her career? How is that reasonable for what she did? I just find it so bizarre that people go from "what she did was disproportionate" to "that thing she did should haunt her forever" which also is disproportionate.

Also he seems to agree with her that what he did showed a lapse of reason in wearing that shirt, so maybe she isn't as clearly in the wrong that you have convinced yourself that she is.

Edit:

And no, I haven't threatened her life and I don't think my response is "insane".

Wanting someone to suffer for the rest of her career for being slightly rude when criticising attire is in my opinion an insanely disproportionate response.

Just because there are dickheads on the internet doesn't mean she gets a free pass.

... The fact that there are dickheads on the internet is why she hasn't gotten "a free pass", and a free pass from what? What is it that you think she deserves?



Edi2:

Yes you did:

I put your response together with the response she has gotten across the web, not specifically mentioning threats on gaf. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[wsippel]

I take this as a thinly veiled attack on US science in general.

It's not. What I'm saying is that NYT articles about the situation in the US and studies conducted there do not necessarily apply here.

 

[SpyGuy239]

What the hell? He shouldn't have to apologize for ANYTHING.

 

[Forkball]

Frankly I'm glad someone is standing up to European fashion. Look at this shit:

Everyone in this photo is a chemical engineer.

 

[markot]

What the hell? He shouldn't have to apologize for ANYTHING.

Maybe he wanted to? CAPITALISED.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

Okay, but why do you hope that it should follow her for the rest of her career? How is that reasonable for what she did? I just find it so bizarre that people go from "what she did was disproportionate" to "that thing she did should haunt her forever" which also is disproportionate.

"No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSv6ZBZtzRA&feature=youtu.be …"

She never did ask him. After that she called him an asshole and approved of comments that called him a bearded idiot. On top of that the verge decided to jump onboard and insinuate that he was a misogynist.

Assholes all around.

I sincerely do hope it affects her (and the verge authors) journalistic credibility.

 

[GTP_Daverytimes]

Glad to see he had the courage to apologize and recognize his mistake. It's slow progress towards making STEM more friendly towards women.

What mistake, Its a fucking shirt.

 

[berzeli]

She never did ask him. After that she called him an asshole and approved of comments that called him a bearded idiot. On top of that the verge decided to jump onboard and insinuate that he was a misogynist.

Assholes all around.

I sincerely do hope it effects her (and the verge authors) journalistic credibility.

What should she have asked him and when? "Sir, are you a misogynist?" She was criticising his choice of attire since she felt it wasn't appropriate.

And yet again seeing how Matt Taylor seemingly agrees with the criticism, why should she be severely punished for being slightly rude?

 

[Yrael]

I found another response to the "Academic Science Isn't Sexist" piece from the NY Times that was posted in here earlier - it's a "Let Me Fix That For You" annotated version!

From what I've read of this thread, this is highly relevant because a lot of people have a very shallow understanding of why this shirt is viewed as problematic. If you don't understand, hopefully this will help you:

It doesn’t require any special sociological training to read the barely veiled message being communicated to these talented and ambitious women: You don’t belong here. We tend to think of this sort of outright sex discrimination as being a thing of the past in Western, industrialized nations. The Sexual Paradox author Susan Pinker, for instance, writes of barriers to women as having been “stripped away.” Her book is peopled with women who, when asked if they’ve ever experienced ill-treatment because of their sex, scratch their heads and search the memory banks in vain for some anecdote that will show how they have had to struggle against the odds stacked against women. As we’ll see in a later chapter, blatant, intentional discrimination against women is far from being something merely to be read about in history books. But here we’re going to look at the subtle, off-putting, you don’t belong messages that churn about in the privacy of one’s own mind.

[…]

What psychological processes lie behind this turning away from masculine interests? One possibility is that, as we learned in an earlier chapter, when stereotypes of women become salient, women tend to incorporate those stereotypical traits into their current self-perception. They may then find it harder to imagine themselves as, say, a mechanical engineer. The belief that one will be able to fit in, to belong, may be more important than we realize - and may help to explain why some traditionally male occupations have been more readily entered by women than others. After all, the stereotype of a vet is not the same as that of an orthopedic surgeon, or a computer scientist, and these are different again from the stereotype of a builder or a lawyer. These different stereotypes may be more or less easily reconciled with a female identity. What, for example, springs to mind when you think of a computer scientist? A man, of course, but not just any man. You’re probably thinking of the sort of man who would not be an asset at a tea party. The sort of man who leaves a trail of soft-drink cans, junk-food wrappers, and tech magazines behind him as he makes his way to the sofa to watch Star Trek for the hundredth time. The sort of man whose pale complexion hints alarmingly of vitamin D deficiency. The sort of man, in short, who is a geek.

Sapna Cheryan, a psychologist at Washington University, was interested in whether the geek image of computer science plays a role in putting off women. When she and her colleagues surveyed undergraduates about their interest in being a computer science major, they found, perhaps unsurprisingly given that computer science is male-dominated, that women were significantly less interested. Less obvious, however, was why they were less interested. Women felt that they were less similar to the typical computer science major. This influenced their sense that they belonged in computer science - again lower in women - and it was this lack of fit that drove their lack of interest in a computer science major.

However, and interest in Star Trek and an antisocial lifestyle may not, in fact, be unassailable correlates of talent in computer programming. Indeed, in its early days, computer programming was a job done principally by women and was regarded as an activity to which feminine talents were particularly well-suited. “Programming requires patience, persistence, and a capacity for detail and those are traits that many girls have” wrote one author of a career guide to computer programming in 1967. Women made many significant contributions to computer science development and, as one expert puts it, “[t]oday’s achievements in software are built on the shoulders of the first pioneering women programmers.” Cheryan suggests that “t was not until the 1980s that individual heroes in computer science, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs came to the scene, and the term ‘geek’ became associated with being technically minded. Movies such as Revenge of the Nerds and Real Genius, released during those years, crystallized the image of the ‘computer geek’ in the cultural consciousness.

If it is the geeky stereotype that is so off-putting to women, then a little repackaging of the field might be an effective way of drawing more women in. Cheryan and her colleagues tested this very idea. They recruited undergraduates to participate in “a study by the Career Development Center regarding interest in technical jobs and internships.” The students filled out a questionnaire about their interest in computer science in a small classroom within the William Gates building (which, as you will have guessed, houses the computer science department). The room, however, was set up in one of two ways for the unsuspecting participant. In one condition, the décor was what we might call geek chic: a Star Trek poster, geeky comics, video game boxes, junk food, electronic equipment, and technical books and magazines. The second arrangement was substantially less geeky: the poster was an art one, water bottles replaced the junk food, the magazines were general interest, and the computer books were aimed at a more general level. In the geeky room, men considered themselves significantly more interested in computer science than did women. But when the geek factor was removed from the surroundings, women showed equal interest to men. It seemed that a greater sense of belonging brought about this positive change. Simply by altering the décor, Cher-yan and colleagues were also able to increase women’s interest in, for example, joining a hypothetical Web-design company. The researchers note “the power of environments to signal to people whether or not they should enter a domain,” and suggest that changing the computer environment “can therefore inspire those who previously had little or not interest . . . to express a newfound interest in it."​

That is the problem with that shirt: It sends the same sort of exclusionary message to women as the geeky décor does.

Thanks for posting this. I think there was another book back in 2002 that showed something similar (Margolis and Fisher, "Unlocking the Clubhouse").

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/m...few-women-in-science.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I've read what Mumei wrote, but this article is much more along the lines of the way I see it. This shirt is not the problem that is keeping women out of STEM, it's a much larger issue of devaluing women as math and science focused individuals. The way it is discouraged in girls in primary school. The "old boys club" mentality of "men do it better" and that women are only successful because of some unseen man that must have done the work for them. That is a much more realistic (and difficult) hurdle for women to jump. Men who wear cartoon women shirts or the like aren't the reason (IMHO) that women are kept out of STEM. At all. I'd be curious what Kathrin Altwegg had to say about this, tbh.

It's a combination of factors, rather than one or two, that discourage women and girls from taking up careers in the technical field (the idea that men are naturally "better" at STEM, institutional bias, a sexist culture in the workplace, etc).


(Also, I'm getting increasingly tired of people claiming that everyone pointing out the reasons why the shirt is problematic is simply trying to be "outraged". I've spent a great deal of time enthusiastically following the mission's progress and telling my friends about the science behind it; I was not "outraged" by the T-shirt, but a little exasperated.)

 

[freddy]

I sincerely do hope it affects her (and the verge authors) journalistic credibility.

I think in Plante's case if you're at the bottom of the barrel getting lower is going to be tough.

 

[Arjen]

Yep, I think I've just about had it with the whole internet outrage culture thing.

I can't believe some people are so desperate to be offended they can't see a tacky shirt without starting a harassment campaign.

Same here. It's getting fucking insane.

 

[markot]

What mistake, Its a fucking shirt.

With nothing on it at all.