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Dr Taylor
is the Project Scientist of this, the ‘Rosetta Mission’, but what caused him to
trend on Twitter wasn’t this fact. It was his shirt.
The shirt,
a gaudy display covered in scantily-clad women in seductive positions,
immediately caused some commentary, and understandably so.
Science as
an industry does not have a reputation for being friendly to women. In fact, the
constant sexism a woman pursuing a career in science not only might face, but
can expect to face, is a major reason
why so few women choose to take that road.
Many women who do work in science often speak out about the bias and even hostility
against them that they feel regularly from the scientific community.
Within this
context of the “boys club – no girls allowed” problem that already exists in
this industry, it should be unsurprising that a prominent scientist people
respect and admire for his incredible accomplishments choosing to wear a shirt
on which women are sexually objectified decoration
was seen as a bad move.
It’s
already incredibly hard for women who want to be valued for their scientific
achievements and not shoved into the role of background decoration because of
their gender, so imagery that reinforces the idea that a woman’s role in
society is to be a sex object just makes this worse.
"Let men
get on with the science, dear, you just stand there looking pretty."
All that said, I don’t
think Dr Matt Taylor put on the shirt with the purpose to alienate women in
mind. The shirt was designed by a friend. He was probably trying to do
something nice for her.
And that’s
the thing. Even the most well-meaning person can mistakenly hurt, offend, or
contribute to the further oppression of others. And that’s fine, as long as we are open to learning how our
thoughtless actions sometimes contribute to a larger problem that others, less
lucky than ourselves, are struggling with.
Dr Taylor
apologized for the incident, which is extremely decent of him and more than
enough for me, but he isn't really the one to blame for the real problem.
He could
have certainly been more aware of the reasons why wearing that shirt in that
context was such a colossally bad idea, but the real problem is no one around him seemed to realize this
as well. The fact that it
didn't even occur to them that many women would find the shirt offensive and
alienating is what is so worrying.
If one
person had been more aware, and had let Dr Taylor know the potential
message before he decided to wear the shirt on TV, this whole thing might have
been avoided. But it
happened. And the scientific community should be able to learn from it, grow
from it, and move on. Unfortunately it’s not being allowed to.
Instead,
there’s the inevitable and unavoidable rush to paint anyone who had a problem
with the shirt worn in this context as an unruly hate-mob. Even though the
criticism has largely been unaggressive, measured, thoughtful, and focussed on
the problem rather than the person, the fact that the criticism exists at all
is seen as unacceptable.
Compare the
reaction to the shirt with the reaction to a woman daring to make a negative
comment about the shirt. The difference is phenomenal.
Dr Matt
Taylor was told his shirt was
offensive and ugly. Rose Eveleth was told that she is worthless, valueless, a moron, a cow, that she belongs in
the kitchen, that she is ugly, and that she should die.
People are
having an over-sensitive reaction here, but it’s not the feminists. It’s the
people who can’t handle any mention of
sexism at all, ever, and who ironically seem to break out in sexist
behaviour whenever it happens.
Women are
being told that we are absolutely not
allowed to have a problem with the shirt, that we are absolutely not allowed to criticize it, and that we must shut up because our concerns don’t matter. Criticism of the shirt is
being treated as some unforgivable crime, comparable to rape and death threats.
This is just ridiculous.
I
understand the feeling behind: “The guy wore the shirt, get over it.” I only
ask that you consider this: Some people voiced a problem with the shirt. Get
over it.
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