Richard Feynman, sexism and changing perceptions of a scientific icon(wavefunction.fieldofscience.com)
wavefunction.fieldofscience.com
Richard Feynman, sexism and changing perceptions of a scientific icon
http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2014/07/richard-feynman-sexism-and-changing.html
7 comments
Feynman's story here was that at dances/social events, when he said he was a professor, and that he had worked on the Manhatten Project, he was assumed to be lying. So he switched to avoiding saying those things, and implying he was a mature student instead (plausible since the war had delayed the education of many people).
> Sexism should be narrowly defined: discriminating professionally against someone due to their gender.
I'm not exactly supportive of the antidiscrimination movement, but that definition is a little narrow by any conventional standard. It seems fair to say that "women have no place in management" is a sexist viewpoint even if you personally are a freelance painter employing no one, and "as a girl, I want my roommate to be a girl" is just as sexist as "as a white, I want my roommate to be white" is racist, n'est-ce pas?
I'm not exactly supportive of the antidiscrimination movement, but that definition is a little narrow by any conventional standard. It seems fair to say that "women have no place in management" is a sexist viewpoint even if you personally are a freelance painter employing no one, and "as a girl, I want my roommate to be a girl" is just as sexist as "as a white, I want my roommate to be white" is racist, n'est-ce pas?
>"as a girl, I want my roommate to be a girl" is just as sexist as "as a white, I want my roommate to be white" is racist
Depends. Roommates as sharing a room or roommates as sharing an apartment?
Depends. Roommates as sharing a room or roommates as sharing an apartment?
About the same time tumblr started getting popular. The author uses reasoning that in reverse would be labelled slut shaming.
The author actually makes a pretty convincing case that Feynman wasn't, in fact, sexist. I asked for clarification here: http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2014/07/richard-feynm...
seriously wtf.. it was tldr but amongst anybody who reaches mythical/legendary status we know, implicitly, that the myth isnt the man. i remember learning about gene roddenberry and how he was kind of a pig towards women. but his philosophy was totally against that. i think, in the long run, his philosophy is what is more important. its what deserves being shared and praised, even if the man wasnt quite the living ideal. if we did the opposite, and somehow devalued his ideas because of his faults, i think that would be a tragedy. im not saying we should pretend the faults werent there, but im thinking, telling one of these stories is worth telling and the other, well.. there are probably better things to do
> the propensity to lie on the beach and watch girls.
Wow. That's unexcusable.
Wow. That's unexcusable.
This sort of radical feminism is getting more and more cancerous every day. Worse, it's beginning to infect popular culture.
I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a larger push by these people against natural human male behaviors in the near future.
I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a larger push by these people against natural human male behaviors in the near future.
Honestly we are already seeing a lot of that - including "ideas" like men can't be raped, you can't be racists towards white people, etc.
Don't ever start reading their blogs if you have any faith left in humanity.
For example I fear what will happen when the author of this blog (http://movethefuckoverbro.tumblr.com/) grows up.
reddits tumblrinaction is collecting plenty of posts from these blogs and making fun of them, which takes much of the sting away.
Don't ever start reading their blogs if you have any faith left in humanity.
For example I fear what will happen when the author of this blog (http://movethefuckoverbro.tumblr.com/) grows up.
reddits tumblrinaction is collecting plenty of posts from these blogs and making fun of them, which takes much of the sting away.
Radical feminism? I take it you didn't bother reading the rest of the article: The irony thus seems to be that, just like Feynman was fond of generating cherry picked anecdotes about himself, we seem to be fond of generating skewed, cherry picked anecdotes about him that accuse him of sexism.
The article ends with a couple of paragraphs talking about the author having a more complete, complex, and nuanced understanding of the person that is Feynman, rather than the myth. If having a more nuanced understanding of things is a 'cancerous infection of popular culture', then count me out.
The article ends with a couple of paragraphs talking about the author having a more complete, complex, and nuanced understanding of the person that is Feynman, rather than the myth. If having a more nuanced understanding of things is a 'cancerous infection of popular culture', then count me out.
There is a disturbing number of comments in this thread that have been made without reading the article in full. The article concludes that Feynman wasn't particularly sexist for his time, and there's evidence that he was more egalitarian than usual.
A lot of people are bailing on the article when they hit their trigger words - sad, because one of the fundamental points of the article is that the author is happier because he now has a more subtle, nuanced understanding of the issue at hand. Which is something that the commentors who stopped reading at their trigger words have clearly missed out on.
A lot of people are bailing on the article when they hit their trigger words - sad, because one of the fundamental points of the article is that the author is happier because he now has a more subtle, nuanced understanding of the issue at hand. Which is something that the commentors who stopped reading at their trigger words have clearly missed out on.
This post was killed by user flags.
So now tumblr is spreading to attack brilliant dead old physicists. I guess feminsts just can't get over the idea that some people like to have sex or that some people will use their considerable brain power to figure out how to get more sex.
dont talk shit about the man. the feynman
"""What startled me the most was the fact that when he was a young, boyish looking professor at Cornell, Feynman used to pretend to be a student so he could ask undergraduate women out. I suspect that this kind of behavior on the part of a contemporary professor would almost certainly lead to harsh disciplinary action, as it should. The behavior was clearly, egregiously wrong and when I read about it my view of Feynman definitely went down a notch, and a large notch at that."""
Obviously these weren't his students (or they would have recognized him of course), so there is no power differential or conflict of interest. An individual may or may not consider lying/exaggerating about your occupation/age to ask someone out creepy (or even cute), but "clearly, egregiously wrong" seems a bit extreme. Worse lies have been told for the same purposes. Nonetheless lying in your personal life should not "certainly lead to harsh disciplinary action" unless it is affecting your work or colleagues.
Sexism should be narrowly defined: discriminating professionally against someone due to their gender.
The author himself admits: As far as we know, there is no evidence that Feynman discriminated against women in his career
Thus, based on available evidence, Richard Feynman, eccentric, heterosexual playboy that he may have been, was not a sexist. QED.