Monday, July 6, 2015

It's always easier to keep your head down. Write about these subjects, as I'm doing now, and you run the risk of being called a sexist or a racist or whatever. But surely we have to take a stand. The next time you see a mob gibbering and shrieking and demanding someone's dismissal, don't hunker down. Speak up. Someone has to, for Heaven's sake.



Professor Sir Tim Hunt had won every honor in his field, from Fellowship of the Royal Society to the Nobel Prize. But last month, the pioneering biochemist was dismissed from his post at University College, London (UCL). Why? Because, speaking at a lunch to celebrate female scientists in Seoul, he had introduced his remarks with a clumsy joke about finding it hard to work with women in the laboratory because he fell in love with them and they cried.