As you may have read, on Friday at CERN, at a workshop called "High Energy Theory and Gender", explicitly devoted to furthering "the development and implementation of action plans to support women & other minorities in physics"...
indico.cern.ch/event/714346/t…
indico.cern.ch/event/714346/t…
...a guy named Strumia went out of his way to use this platform, in a room full of early-career physicists, mostly women, to give a talk so full of antiquated, tired, repeatedly debunked cliches about sex & gender -- & such cartoonishly boneheaded versions of them...
-- that it almost seems like satire.
drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUh…
I was traveling & wasn't there, but others assure me that it was not satire.
drive.google.com/file/d/1c_NyUh…
I was traveling & wasn't there, but others assure me that it was not satire.
Shoddy, selective analysis of incomplete datasets with correlation-is-causation conclusions for which you'd fail an undergrad? Check.
Serious invocation of "IQ" (remember: he is apparently a physicist) as a legitimate value metric? Check.
Serious invocation of "IQ" (remember: he is apparently a physicist) as a legitimate value metric? Check.
Malevolent, dismissive what-about-ism w.r.t. "gender studies"? Check.
Casual mocking and dismissal of the lived experiences of women in science? Check.
Pre-emptive men-are-the-real-victims, PC-thought-police-are-after-me paranoia? Check.
Casual mocking and dismissal of the lived experiences of women in science? Check.
Pre-emptive men-are-the-real-victims, PC-thought-police-are-after-me paranoia? Check.
When it seems it can't get any worse than boilerplate MRA sexism & misogyny, it does. I'm not aware of this Strumia guy's politics, but he uses the phrase "cultural Marxism", which is often a fascistic, anti-semitic dog whistle:
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
psmag.com/education/jord…
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
psmag.com/education/jord…
The most disappointing & sobering part of this was that when I saw this I reacted with horror & my female colleagues were like, "Yes, this is bad, but we experience this all the time."
CERN has has released a good statement...
...& some will claim "both sides" & "we need to rebut not repress his claims". I can't believe we're still having this discussion after three years of Trumpism, but this is, at its core, the wrong reaction.
...& some will claim "both sides" & "we need to rebut not repress his claims". I can't believe we're still having this discussion after three years of Trumpism, but this is, at its core, the wrong reaction.
It's the same false dichotomy that exacerbates far right movements. There's no debate to be had between someone discussing ways to rectify clear gender inequities & someone who lies, obfuscates, rants & mocks as a means to deny that the problem even exists.
The problem does exist, full stop. Giving a platform to deniers lends legitimacy to their arguments &, worse, wastes time that could be devoted to discussing solutions. Ignoring them, deplatforming them, allowing them to claim "victim" & pushing forward w/the work is preferable.
There's a reason why, at conferences, we don't give "equal time" to both experimental LHC results & the guy presenting hand-written Einstein-was-wrong-CERN-is-opening-a-satan's-hellgate-wormhole-time-cube slides.
People like Strumia aren't "provocative"; they're misogynists & have nothing to add to the adult conversation about gender imbalances in science & how to address them except to act as concrete, dramatic demonstrations that the problem still persists & is worse than you think.
Stop falling victim to false dichotomies immediately. "Both sides" & "free speech" are seemingly comfortable intellectual positions, but the stakes have become much higher & we need to do better.
When a group of people being targeted for extermination & genocide have a meeting to discuss how to stop the genocide they don't invite the genocidaire because, "Let's hear him out!"
There's a BBC article about it today...
bbc.com/news/world-eur…
Also, there are some misconceptions going around: 1) This Strumia guy is not the "head of theory" at CERN. He's a visiting scientist, like thousands of people there.
bbc.com/news/world-eur…
Also, there are some misconceptions going around: 1) This Strumia guy is not the "head of theory" at CERN. He's a visiting scientist, like thousands of people there.
2) "CERN" didn't "invite Strumia to give this talk" at this workshop. There are a zillion workshops at CERN & their content is not policed or vetted by some central body.
This was a workshop on a topic, this Strumia guy titled his talk something cryptic that seemed to fit the topic, & then proceeded to give a fact-free misogynistic rant.
The most prominent question at the moment is whether Strumia has demonstrated that his presence at CERN constitutes a hostile work environment. I can't figure out any way that it doesn't.
