ShivaX
1881
The conversation started at misogyny and never left it. Don’t know what group you’ve been watching but their core ideal never changed one bit. There was handwaving of ethics in journalism, but that was just code for “Zoe Quinn is a whore” and nothing more.
Edit: Also that shirt is bonkers. Who the hell wears something like that outdoors? It’s actually kinda awesome in a way, but holy shit would I not walk outside, much less go to work, much much less be fucking broadcast world wide in the thing.
I think it’s equally possible that he wore the shirt to draw further eyeballs to the project. Perhaps he remembered how much instant fame Bobak Ferdowski’s Mohawk hairstyle garnered during the Curiosity landing in 2012 and wanted to replicate that somehow.
If so, much failure on his part. Ferdowski showed the world that working in space exploration isn’t just for old white guys with pocket protectors. This guy kind of makes you wish it still was.
Although it was an unwise choice on behalf of the scientist for a news broadcast (who made the news here by being well on the spectrum rather than the shirt) there are t-shirts I see regularly that have sort of Maxim/FHM type glamour pics printed on them*, so lots of blokes wear these things, especially younger ones. I wouldn’t be seen dead in them of course, but no-one round here cares or they wouldn’t walk down the high street in them.
Essex isn’t the natural habitat of effete Gawker journos and the perpetually offended Guardianistas mind you. The type of hand-wringing political correctness you see from those publications would be met by a resounding “fuck off and mind your own business mate” by the average denizen.
edit: It was made by a female friend of his who is into vintage.
Her page is NSFW (no nudity, but NSFW)
Hah, note her location.
Chelmsford, Essex, UK
Yes, i know, the W in NSFW is the most applicable bit of this story. Moral of this story is: Shirt fine in Essex pub or High st. Not fine in a global broadcast.
edit2: and so that is the end of that. Another example of outrage merchant SJW twitterstorm bullshit originating out of Verge for the thread.
Ceterum censeo Vox esse delendam
Clickhole has been killing this beat
You are a piece of work. Thanks for demonstrating how fucking childish and absurd your position is.
Thus guy did something genuinely inappropriate, and he was correctly called out for it, and you think that’s bullshit? Go cry a salty river of manbaby tears… You are running your own very special outrage machine which Fox News would be goddamn proud of.
“called out”? Mass mobbing lead by the Atlantic tech correspondent* and hysterical bullshit in the Verge and other SJW publications are not “called out”, these weren’t a reasonable response to a shirt.
Whats wrong with a statement he shouldn’t wear it to work, and the shirt was inappropriate for the venue, you know, how we used to deal with things before the SJW media became ascendant?
*https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2Wvbk6CUAAVVua.jpg
peterb
1887
Did any real media outlet actually call the guy a “sexist pig”, or are you just making things up, now?
I have no idea who the rando in the other half of the photo you posted is. But I bet the quote you put above her is made up, also.
She is the journalist that kicked off furor about the shirt.
“When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.”
― Confucius
Making things up. The article stated:
In short, complaining how such an attitude in the workplace is harmful to everyone. I can only guess that selfie in a bathroom mirror was part of a televised interview about her job at the time (and was that really the same person? Every other picture I see of her looks WAY different).
… and I’m sure Goku is horribly insulted by the shirt in the other picture. I demand that she personally apologizes to him.
magnet
1890
All of the articles that originally complained about the shirt were respectful to the scientist. Part of the issue is that he is not just a scientist, and not just a scientist on TV, but a scientist on TV in the field of space exploration.
A big part of the reason that we spend millions on space exploration is that it’s supposed to inspire us in ways that, say, metallurgy cannot. So unlike other fields, turning an audience off to science in the course of your work basically amounts to a mission failure.
The only “mass hysteria” is the response to these articles, which again illustrate what happens when you engage in respectful but forceful criticism about how women are portrayed. It should come as no surprise that Milo and #GG have jumped on the #shirtstorm bandwagon. Because it’s not about misogyny at all, it’s about gamers …
peterb
1891
I see that you’re afraid to answer my question. Did any media outlet actually say what you put in quotes (assuming that was your image), or were you just making things up/republishing someone else who was making things up?
peterb
1892
First off, I really do feel bad for the scientist. He done fucked up, and knows it. The worst part for him is probably that he caused this foofaraw at the precise moment that his project was reaching its culmination.
But I don’t even we have to bring in the hand-wringing about space exploration and science. Who wears a shirt like that to work? Unless you’re, like, a bartender on a tropical island resort. I have a hard time getting behind any sort of rhetoric which implies that hey maybe don’t wear shirts with half-naked people on them in work contexts is some sort of Evil Misandry Conspiracy. That’s not “political correctness”, that’s common freaking sense.
The fact that you think that that article is “hysterical” means to me that you think ANY criticism no matter how mild or reasonable, as that article was, represents an aggressive attack by the evil feminist apparatus. You’re the one ginning up the outrage. Try to step back and get some goddamn perspective. Maybe try to apply some logic and rationality to the situation instead of retreating into the bunker every time somebody suggests that maybe wearing a shirt made of cheesecake is not appropriate for a professional environment, and maybe being friendlier to women would be in the better interest of the scientific community at large.
This recalls your outrage over “feminists” in the atheist community who were upset because prominent figures in that community basically covered for harrassers and abusers in their ranks, and you thought that represented a 3rd wave feminist attack. No, treating women as equals and taking sexual assaults against them seriously is not part of some feminist conspiracy. It’s what good people do and bad people dismiss.
Step into the daylight and open your mind or retreat into your Fox News (or whatever the shitty British equivalent is) cave and bunker down without a rational thought in your head to trouble you.
I understand and agree the shirt was problematic in the situation, but honestly… I might have done the same thing. I have a similar shirt and I don’t think it is in any way problematic in general. I’m sure the guy never gave it a single thought, and his work environment was probably so used to it that they never did either. I’m also fairly sure both understand and agree it was a problem now it’s been pointed out to them.
Faux pas certainly, but the media should probably be careful they don’t make more of it than it was. As playingwithknives & others show there’s a fine line between pointing something out, and manufacturing a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have a feeling there’s a shitton of GamerGaters ready and eager to manufacture some misogyny, or at least the appearance of it, in the rocket scientist profession.
While the article is somewhat even handed the headline certainly is not. I also find the outrage, in a way, is exclusionary as well, there is an element of it that implies that scientists can’t be tattooed punk rockers and I am definitely not a fan of that.
Malathor
1896
How about “Unbelievably Sexist”?
magnet
1897
As pointed out upthread, one of the Mars rover scientists sported a Mohawk on TV that would have fit in at any punk rock concert. Nobody objected.
Go on, give the full context. You know you don’t want to.
“A Philae Researcher Wore An Unbelievably Sexist Shirt”
Malathor
1898
And somehow that is not suggesting he is being “unbelievably sexist” by wearing an “unbelievably sexist” shirt?
Laugh.
Aleck
1899
As forge pointed out, the article isn’t so bad. The headline is awful. It reads: " I don’t care if you landed a spacecraft on a comet, your shirt is sexist and ostracizing. That’s one small step for man, three steps back for humankind."
To put wearing a thoughtless and potentially offensive shirt in anywhere near the same category as landing a spacecraft on a comet in terms of overall importance is an equivalence that boggles my mind. To say that the shirt offense outweighs the accomplishment of landing a spacecraft on a comet is appropriately characterized as “hysterical” on a good day. Bat-shit crazy is the more likely characterization on most days.
The shirt was tasteless and clearly offensive to some folks. To have dozens of articles and tweets pointing that out – and taking away from the accomplishment of a lifetime not only for this guy but for everyone on the team – has got to be awful (and the sort of thing that reduces people to tears). I think part of the problem here is the “dog pile” factor, where once one outlet runs with this story, there are lots of additional “me too” articles and it just becomes a big deal when it should never have been a big deal. It was stupid, he apologized, move on, because, hey, they landed a probe on a fucking comet and that is absolutely amazing.
LOL you notice how women getting death threats and shit is just internet trolls being trollish, but suddenly some nerds get confronted with accurate descriptions of their behavior and it’s a high tech lynching the likes of which that poor man will never recover from?
Oh, wait, nothing whatsoever happened to him?
Listen, children. If you’re so emotionally fragile you can’t handle getting called sexist(on the internet! Not even to your face!), maybe leave the “airbrushed pinup collage” shirt in your closet?
FFS for a group of super masculine alpha males who don’t brook no compromise with the effete mainstream SJW media, you lot sure whine like a bunch of little bitches.
