Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 12/06/2015
Event: Valerie Beral: Tim Hunt "very supportive of women in the lab"
Credit: BBC Radio 4
People:
[06:00]
Mishal Husain: And - he said it was a bad joke, now he's lost his job. Has Professor Tim Hunt been unfairly treated? The BBC news is read by Chris Aldridge...
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[08:18]
Mishal Husain: It took about 24 hours from the moment the Nobel laureate Professor Tim Hunt's comments about women were reported to his resignation as an honorary professor at University College London - an immense price to pay for something that he said was meant to be ironic and light-hearted. At the event in South Korea, he had said that the trouble with girls was that they cried when their work was criticised, and argued in favour of single-sex laboratories, because of the difficulties with relationships in the lab.
Sir Tim Hunt: I did mean the part about having trouble with girls. I mean, it is true that people - I have fallen in love with people in the lab, and that 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 the lab, people are, sort of, on a level playing field. And I found that, um, you know, these emotional entanglements made life very difficult. I mean, I'm really, really sorry that I caused any offence - that's awful. I certainly didn't mean - I just meant to be honest, actually.
Mishal Husain: Was there an overreaction to what Professor Hunt said? He's lost his UCL position over it and been mocked on social media, with widespread use of the hashtag #distractinglysexy, often with women scientists posting pictures of themselves at work. The feminist journalist and activist Caroline Criado-Perez is with us in the studio, and in Oxford is Professor Dame Valerie Beral, Director of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford - good morning to you both.
Caroline Criado-Perez: Morning.
Valerie Beral: Good morning.
Mishal Husain: Professor Beral, what did you think of the reaction this week to what Professor Hunt said?
Valerie Beral: Well, I think it was really very, um, unfortunate. Professor Hunt is really - I've known him for a while, haven't really spoken to him for the last 20 years but he's a very kind and very eccentric, unworldly sort of man. And he said things that I think have just been misinterpreted. And I think - I also think, and I think that's very unfortunate - but I also think that some of the things he said are very relevant for women in science and should be thought about a bit more seriously and not joked about. And I would like to explain why.
Mishal Husain: Yes.
Valerie Beral: Um, the reason is, I mean, everybody knows there are few women in senior positions in science, that when you look, though, at university and even doing, sort of, just after university, doctoral students, there are as many women as men. And yet, as you go up the seniority, there are fewer and fewer women. And there's been research of a certain sort on that, and it's completely clear that one major reason is that women do not apply for senior jobs - women who are equally qualified as men will not apply.
And I think there's some, there's some truth in what - possibly truth, I mean, what I've said so far is factual - but I think that some of the things that Tim said have to be thought about, and I think that, um, even though he said them awkwardly and have been misinterpreted, I think, um, I think they are directly relevant to women. Because I think women find - I mean, it's very exciting to work in a lab out of university, with all these very bright people, doing interesting work. But things happen in that context, as he said, people fall in love, out of love, have affairs, criticise each other often very intensely.
And I think - and I think this is something I think we really should be thinking about quite seriously - that maybe women really find that sort of environment too difficult to cope with. Not intellectually - not intellectually, not work-wise but emotionally. I think women are much more likely to take criticism personally, think it's something wrong with themselves rather than with, you know, the work which may have been criticised, and I think this is a problem that we really should be thinking about.
Mishal Husain: And perhaps exactly that, the cause of - that you're talking about has been put back by women's fears being exacerbated by comments like this, because they'll worry even more about how they'll be perceived in the workplace.
Valerie Beral: Exactly - I think that really is, because I certainly know in my experience, you say to women, I try, "Apply for this, this job - you're good, apply for it", and they say "I don't want to, I don't want the hassle, I don't like the way things happen". And it's, it's that, and it's not necessarily - of cause there are sexists, and I don't think Tim Hunt is a sexist, of course there are sexists, there are all sorts of things that go on, but, but there is this, to me, a problem that women don't feel - they're too concerned about the way they're perceived, rather than the way their science is perceived -
Mishal Husain: Caroline - Caroline Criado-Perez, let's just go back to the reaction and particularly the reaction online, on social media, to what Professor Hunt said. Was it an overreaction, do you think?
Caroline Criado-Perez: I actually thought the #distractinglysexy selfies were actually really funny, and I thought that was actually a very good way of dealing with that kind of comment, to not take it in this very serious manner but to just, frankly, show it up to be the ridiculous thing that it is, the idea that women wearing these goggles and wearing these huge boots and things should be somehow - because women have this mystique, and we can't help these, you know, turning these poor little men scientists into, sort of, puddles of desire.
Mishal Husain: But do you accept that by doing that, the effect of it was to ridicule him for something that he put his hands up and said "Look, I didn't mean to offend" - and he stood by some of what he said, but he did say he was sorry.
Caroline Criado-Perez: He did say he was sorry but ultimately I think he did, kind of, stand by everything he said. Ultimately, he sort of said "Well, actually women are, kind of, over-emotional and also, you know, there is this problem with relationships. Um, I - my concern is more with when we allow public reaction to dictate what happens outside of the internet, when we allow public - for want of a better word - online mobs to be able to dictate what a university is going to do, whether or not they're going to allow someone to stay in their position or not. I think certainly the comments that he made displayed a level of prejudice that I would be very worried if he were, for example, being in charge of grant applications or Ph.D applications, because if he really thinks that women are too emotional to be able to engage in science properly, then I would suggest that he would be too prejudiced to be objective about it.
Mishal Husain: Right, but I'm not clear from what you're saying whether you think it was right for him to resign from the position he held at UCL, or whether you think that was an overreaction, of taking the criticism online outside the online sphere.
Caroline Criado-Perez: Well, because I don't know exactly what the situation is in UCL, whether there's anything from beforehand that this was playing on, as well. If it was literally just because of these comments, no I don't think that resigning was absolutely the only thing that could be done, I think that we could have - they could have perhaps reviewed the decisions that he was taking and the positions where he had authority over women's careers. Um, I think that there is, there is - I do feel slightly concerned over a - the sort of progressive section of society that seems to leap from someone making a comment that we disagree with to immediately they are cast out and ostracised.
Mishal Husain: It's hounding.
Caroline Criado-Perez: It is hounding, and I do worry about - well, for two reasons. One is that, you know, the idea that it's just a couple of bad apples actually I think takes away from what is a structural problem, and I don't think it's just about getting rid of a few sexist men. Um, but also this idea that people can't learn and they can't change and that we can't educate people, and I think that's really what we need to be doing, is changing people's minds rather than just saying "You're no good, get out of here."
Mishal Husain: And Professor Beral, on the point about sexism in the workplace, particularly in science, you seem to be putting the emphasis on women having to change, to deal with it.
Valerie Beral: No, no, no, I think that is just one aspect, that women's, if you like, lack of confidence, insecurity, that does come through and it comes through not at the stage even when they're doing their Ph.D but later, and I think it is quite important and should be thought about. Of course, there's sexism and I would like to say that I've read a lot of things in the last 24 hours and the one thing you really cannot accuse Tim Hunt of being is sexist - he's very supportive of women in the lab. There's been a lot of um, online comments of how much he's liked and has always been supportive of women, and it's just - he said very odd things, which I absolutely agree sounded terrible, and he's stood by them in the sense of saying - of honesty, he's, sort of, scrupulously honest - he said "Yes, I did say that". He didn't say, um -
Mishal Husain: He was wrong.
Valerie Beral: You know, it was - but he didn't - but he just said "They're things that happened" and "That's what's happened to me" and "I confirm that's what's happened to me", and I think, I think anyone in any field where there are intense lots of bright young people working together - it could be in the City, it could be anywhere - have seen these sorts of things happen. And I just think women take, take these intense environments a bit too seriously, and if something goes wrong they take it too personally. I think but I'm not sure - I mean, I don't have evidence for that but I believe it may be so.
Mishal Husain: Professor Dame Valerie Beral and Caroline Criado-Perez, thank you both.
Caroline Criado-Perez: Thank you.