LONDON
— A Nobel laureate has resigned as honorary professor at University
College London after saying that female scientists should be segregated
from male colleagues because women cry when criticized and are a
romantic distraction in the laboratory.
The comments by Tim Hunt, 72, a biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for groundbreaking work on cell
division, added fuel to a global cultural debate about discrimination
against women in science.
“Let
me tell you about my trouble with girls,” Mr. Hunt said Monday at the
World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea. “Three things
happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall
in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”
The comments, which were greeted with stony silence by the audience at the conference, gained wide attention after they were first noted on Twitter by Connie St Louis, the director of the science journalism program at City University London.
She wrote, “Really does this Nobel Laureate think we are still in Victorian times???”
Women and men from science and from other fields were quick to join her in denouncing Mr. Hunt.
Prof. Sophie Scott of University College London, who researches the neuroscience of voices, speech and laughter, wrote on Twitter, “I am in the office, but I can’t do my science work as I saw a photograph of #TimHunt and now I’m in love, dammit.”
Kate Devlin, a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, added in a Twitter post of her own,
“Dear department: please note l will be unable to chair the 10am
meeting this morning because I am too busy swooning and crying.
#TimHunt.”
Other women responded to the comments by posting photographs of themselves working as scientists, some in playful poses, with the hashtag #distractinglysexy.
Mr. Hunt later issued what some on social media called a “nonapology apology.” He told BBC Radio that he was “really, really sorry” for causing any offense, even as he stood by some of what he had said.
“I
did mean the part about having trouble with girls,” he said. “I have
fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen
in love with me, and it’s very disruptive to the science because it’s
terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.”
And he elaborated on his comments that women are prone to cry when criticized.
“It’s
terribly important that you can criticize people’s ideas without
criticizing them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to
hold back from getting at the absolute truth,” he said. “Science is
about nothing but getting at the truth, and anything that gets in the
way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.”
University College London said in a statement that Mr. Hunt, who was knighted in 2006, had resigned his post in the faculty of life sciences on Wednesday.
The
Royal Society, where Mr. Hunt is a fellow, also sought to distance
itself from the comments as some critics called for him to be removed
from its rolls.
Mr. Hunt’s comments reflected the larger debate about the challenges facing women in science, with research
suggesting that they struggle with widespread sexism and gender bias.
Referring to Mr. Hunt’s remarks, an article in the newspaper The Independent in Britain noted, “With lab rats like him, is it any wonder there’s a shortage of women in science?”
Mr. Hunt is not the first high-profile figure to face criticism over comments about women in science. In 2006, Lawrence H. Summers resigned
as president of Harvard University after he suggested in a speech that
“intrinsic aptitude” could explain the relative dearth of women
excelling in science and mathematics.
Other
Nobel winners have faced a backlash for comments about women, including
the novelist V.S. Naipaul, who said in 2011 that he regarded female
writers as inferior.
“I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not,” he was quoted as saying by The Guardian newspaper, adding that he thought the work was “unequal to me.”
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