You're there to talk about science, right? Do you think that he's so gorgeous that you'll lose sleep over his lack of attraction to you, and that you will then be less able to concentrate on talking about science with those of your colleagues who, unlike him, have kept their feet out of their mouths while at the conference?
That's what I would have said to irate, female participants if I had been fortunate enough to be qualified to attend the Conference of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans about which a male scientist made what was perhaps a well-intentioned but definitely silly and careless Facebook post a few years ago. I have only read a cursory amount of information about the incident, but it seems to me that what should have happened was for him to erase the offensive message, apologize sincerely, and try to get through the conference as professionally as he could. From what I know of what did happen, there was an Internet explosion of condemnation by women.
I hadn't heard about the incident before today, when I started to do some reading about women who base their self-esteem on being sexually attractive. The incident was mentioned as being the sort of thing that makes it hard for women to feel good about themselves. I think that if you feel good about yourself for the right reasons, then what someone thinks of how you look does not have the power to send you off course emotionally, whether what the person thinks is positive or negative.
If he had said that women shouldn't be at the conference because women are categorically less intelligent than men, or that only beautiful women should be allowed at the conference, that would have been cause for more concern. Maybe what he meant was that he hopes that beautiful women aren't being kept out of science by men or by women who harass them because they are beautiful.
I don't choose excerpts or supporting information for code purposes.
Copyright L. Kochman, October 27, 2015 @ 1:44 p.m.
