Comet Scientist Breaks Down in Tears Apologizing for ‘Sexist’ Shirt

Submitted by Mastodon on Sat, 2014-11-15 00:53

Story here.

'Matt Taylor is one of the European Space Agency scientists who helped land the Philae spacecraft on a comet this week, the first time such a feat has ever been accomplished. But all anyone seems to want to talk about is the shirt he chose to wear, featuring pictures of scantily-clad women, during an interview with Nature Newsteam.

After receiving a barrage of criticism for what many described as “sexist” attire, Taylor delivered a tearful, public apology during a live stream broadcast on Friday.

“The shirt I wore this week, I made a big mistake,” Taylor said, starting to break down as he spoke. “And I offended many people. And I’m very sorry about this.”

Reporting on the story for CNN, Brooke Baldwin said, “The guy helped land a robot on a comet, I think he could find a new shirt,” adding, “Let’s move on.”'

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Comments

Not much to do with MR as such. What it does do is point out the degree that some men have internalized the shame/guilt trip getting laid on men all the time these days. If he had just paused to ask himself or the interviewer before replying a couple questions such as like "What if I were female and wearing this, or male and wearing a shirt with men in various states of nakedness?" I'm pretty sure we'd have answers then.

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2014-11-19 06:48

The shirt in question was a reference to the old pulp science fiction covers. It was an obvious piece of nostalgia.
Science fiction is what launched so many of these people, men and women, into science.

Yes, he could have worn a shirt with old illustrations of robots.

But there are three problems with that:

First, the robot lobby would have been furious.

Second, robots were usually shown carrying off scantily clad women anyway.

Third, the robots were always shown completely naked.

Robots are a minority, but that doesn't mean we can abuse them via images, or any other way.

Come to think of it, that also applies to men.

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Submitted by chuck on Wed, 2014-11-19 07:32

The moments leading to this were very stressful.

And the moments after (the space probe has now died), equally stressful.

And the instant fame, also stressful.

I think he will come to regret the tears (and that will be good) He cried, I think, not because of any shame, but because of the stress. And he was exploited into tears.

He wore shirt. Like a boy who walked on the moon, he grabbed his comic book shirt and went forth. And now his creative spirit has been shamed.

At this rate, we'll never reach Mars. Our passionate (masculine) drive will be shamed into quiescent and innocuous collaboration.

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Submitted by ThomasI on Wed, 2014-11-19 08:56

This comes across as women using any excuse they can find to not go into science-related fields. If a shirt's gonna stop ya, you really don't want to do STEM.

I wonder how these same women feel about Muslims with grenades? If a shirt's a big deal, a grenade must be a really big deal. So much for women in combat.

It ain't sexism that's stopping women from going into science. It's women themselves.

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Submitted by el cid on Wed, 2014-11-19 13:25