Of course, I personally hope that one day (when he's a little less busy) Taylor will say a bit more on the subject, and show that he understands why the shirt wasn't okay. Science is not a welcoming place for women, even today, and the only people who can truly make it more welcoming are the men who run the show. If a stellar scientist walks into work -- and then says hello to the whole world -- wearing a sexist shirt, what kind of message are we sending to future scientists?She wants him to say why the shirt wasn't okay. That's just dragging out the apology, making it into more of an abject ritual. She already knows the reason why it's not okay, but just wants to hear him recite the reason that he's already had his face rubbed in to the point where he's sniveling. What I want him to talk about is what we don't know: Why did he think it was okay... not just okay, but a good idea? I don't know what else Mr. Taylor has in his closet, but what was that like — knowing it was the day of the landing, when eyes would be on you — to look at your array of clothing and to have it dawn on your big brain that this is the best costume for the day. I'd like a verbal depiction of that mental process, perhaps in the style of Little Edie:
That's from one of my favorite movies, "Grey Gardens." Another favorite movie of mine is "The Fly," the 1986 one with Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle. Brundle's a brilliant scientist — a tad odd, but brilliant. And in one of the lesser scenes — lesser, but memorable — he has to explain his clothes to his girlfriend Ronnie (Geena Davis):
Ronnie: Do you ever change your clothes?So, now, I'm picturing Matt Taylor's closet — his Einstein-informed closet — packed end to end with shirts garishly patterned with cartoonishly bosom-y women. Come on, Matt, stop your sobbing and say something interesting.
Seth Brundle: What?
Ronnie: Your clothes. You're always wearing the same clothes.
Seth Brundle: No, these are clean. I change my clothes every day.
Ronnie: [looking in his closet] Five sets of exactly the same clothes?
Seth Brundle: Learned it from Einstein. This way I don't have to expend my thought on what I have to wear next, I just grab the next set on the rack.
The best song for the day:
"Do you have a shirt that you really love, one that you feel so groovy in?"
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219 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 219 of 219Women: "Although we adore them individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid."
Mrs Banks from Mary Poppins had it exactly backwards.
I wonder if I can observe 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko with my 15"?
@Trashhauler: that's what I thought when I read Althouse's statement. Clothing is important to her. She thinks about the statement she is making by her choice of apparel. She shouldn't assume everybody is like her.
These shirts repel nutjob "feminists'? I'll take a dozen. - Iowahawk
"Decent people don't vehement pose as The Decent People."
What a crock. Your snide response implies one can never criticize bullies as indecent.
The people posing here are the ones who took to twitter demanding apologies.
@trashhauler. Yes. I made the same point. Althouse has no cogent response so she will ignore the point. She has no evidence at all he was making a "major" statement and there is evidence he wasn't.
There is no evidence that his coworkers were bothered either.
Speaking of not dressing decently, Althouse appears on the web with her hair uncovered. How would she react to a bunch of mullahs she never met demanding she apologize?
Stop making sense Ken B.
"So, now, I'm picturing Matt Taylor's closet — his Einstein-informed closet — packed end to end with shirts garishly patterned with cartoonishly bosom-y women. Come on, Matt, stop your sobbing and say something interesting. "
That says it all...Picturing the closet, not the lander, not the comet, not the sheer marvel of the feat. Just the clothes. How womanly.
"How would she react to a bunch of mullahs she never met demanding she apologize?"
Wait. Someone demanded that Matt Taylor apologize? I must have missed the demand part.
And your idea certainly is no model of masculinity or reason. It's petulant and childish.
What part of "fuck off" is too hard to understand?
As men we are less than interested in a feminist's opinion of what it means to be a man.
You are right Meade. Eveleth and her ilk did not issue an explicit demand. What they did was worse. An escalating crescendo of abuse that --SURPRISE-- was reigned in when he apologized. Reigned in but not ended; there are still demands -- OOPS SORRY there I go again -- threatening posts suggesting he still needs a little more humiliation and vitriol unless he performs more penance.
Now functionally I see that as a demand, just as "nice window you got there, be a shame if anyone broke it" is functionally a demand. But right you are, no-one said "I demand". My bad.
Grackle said...
It would have been infinitely better if he just didn't give a fuck what anyone thought about his shirt and said so. Here is what I am thinking "Who put men on the moon for the first time?" WHITE MEN!!!!! And here we are landing on the comet. You womenfolk want that moment? LAND ON A COMET ON YOUR OWN!!!!!!!!!!!
The above comments are not by me. Apparently someone else has respect for this bird and has also taken the name as a pseudonym. The real grackle, me, spells the name with all lower case. I've been posting comments on this blog since at least 2009 but this is the first time I've ever seen another grackle.
I am assuming, based on previous "feminist" outrage, that these women that are furious over this harmless shirt have not even commented over Kim Kardashian literally showing her ass.
" It's possible to wear jeans and a t-shirt and teach in law school."
Dear God, please tell me that you have never taught a law school class in jeans. Nothing says, "I don't care about my students" more than a pair of jeans. Aside from PhD candidate Physics TAs I have never had a decent teacher that wore a pair of jeans.
Jeans in a law lecture are far worse than shorts on a city street.
I wouldn't say it's your "bad," Ken.
I would suggest to Matt Taylor though that he suck it up and learn not to respond to every "demand" from every "bully" on the internet.
Perhaps you mean there's no formal dress code on campus, Professor. Mightn't sexy-lady shirts be a little outre for the law school faculty? I know of one learned fellow who was forced into emeritus status because of his penchant for rolling around naked on the grass. His behavior was widely regarded as a symptom. Nobody thought to chastise the man for violating the school's dress code.
What interests me here is a suggestion that we should want everyone to describe their innermost thoughts and feelings about their clothing. It calls to mind Foucault's argument in The History of Sexuality. Do we enjoy more sartorial freedom because we are encouraged to talk about our clothing choices? One might be forgiven for suspecting that the more vehemently we insist we're free to dress as we please, the more our intimate feelings about clothing are intruded upon, constricted, codified, and, in the case of grave transgressions, exposed to ritual public mockery.
I distinctly remember that when I first went to law school, my thought about fashion was: dress artistically. I was leaving art for law and felt bad about that. I only sought individual expression and loved the verbal aspects of the enterprise. I got into the law professor game as soon as I could, and I always pursued it with the feeling that it was an art. I was always working on artistic side projects, and this blog is by far the most successful one. I liked the teaching precisely because it wasn't about controlling other people but enabling them to find their own way.
Not to be taken as personal criticism, as you seem to have done well for yourself. But *this* is why there aren't more women in science, not the presence or absence of t-shirts. You looked for a job that allowed self expression, helped other people, used verbal skills, etc, and you settled on teaching at law school. Those are all good reasons, and they're all distinctly *female* reasons. Multiply that thought process by a million, and you get lots of female lawyers and not many female scientists.
The actual working environment of science does not have a large abundance of shirts like this, by the way. T-shirts and jeans are the order of the day, particularly since the experimentalists have to do work with their hands.
My guess as to the guy's thought process:
1) He's heavily tattooed, and probably takes some pride in this.
2) The women in the shirt aren't particularly risque, but they do strongly allude to women in tattoo art -- the style of drawing, the use of colors, the poses and themes.
3) The shirt was given to him by a close female friend, who presumably knows and approves of his tattoo hobby, because how could she not?
So he has a big day when a lot of hard work is coming into fruition, and he dresses flamboyantly in his tattoo shirt. The intended message is "I'm a little weird and today is a great day for me."
Haven't you noticed that the ground control people on these space missions tend to dress and style themselves really flamboyantly on the day of the big touchdown? There's usually at least one guy in the control room who gets his 15 minutes of fame for having a really amazing beard or mustache. From his perspective, the guy's wearing a hipper version of a Hawaiian shirt.
I think the guy was moved to tears simply because he feels really bad about letting down his team by directing all the attention to a stupid shirt. Athletes often cry in that kind of situation, don't they?
Plus, he's the son of a bricklayer, which means he's come very far in an England still burdened with heavy class distinctions. This takes a bit of the glow off that, too. And he's got a teenage daughter, who's probably embarrassed by all the this.
Also seems he probably has a closet full of ugly clothes--check out the T-shirt he was wearing when he got his latest tattoo.
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