Image Source: Machmit (Machmit), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What Was the Accusation?
Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Sir Tim Hunt faced widespread criticism in June 2015 after making remarks about women scientists during a luncheon at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea. Hunt told the audience about his “trouble with girls” in laboratories, saying that men and women fall in love with one another and that women cry when criticized. Contemporary reports also said Hunt suggested that separate laboratories for men and women might be preferable. The remarks quickly circulated through social media and international news coverage and were condemned as sexist and as reinforcing stereotypes about women in science.
Hunt, who shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning regulation of the cell cycle, apologized in a BBC Radio 4 interview. He characterized his remarks as an unsuccessful attempt at light-hearted irony and said making them had been “a very stupid thing to do.” At the same time, his response was not an unqualified retraction. Hunt said that he had genuinely experienced romantic relationships in laboratory settings as disruptive and maintained that scientists needed to be able to criticize ideas without emotional reactions interfering with scientific discussion.
The controversy therefore involved both Hunt’s original remarks and the adequacy of his image-repair response. He repeatedly expressed regret for causing offense and said he had not intended to demean women, but he also defended part of the underlying personal experience behind his comments. The Royal Society publicly distanced itself from the remarks and emphasized the importance of women’s full participation in science. Hunt subsequently resigned from his honorary professorship in the Faculty of Life Sciences at University College London. Later reporting and debate disputed aspects of the context and reception of Hunt’s original remarks, including the extent to which they were intended and understood as self-deprecating humor.
Key Apologia Strategies
Mortification, Good Intentions, Differentiation, Bolstering
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Transcript
Excerpts from Sir Tim Hunt’s BBC Radio 4 interview and contemporaneous apology, June 10, 2015:
“I’m very sorry that what I thought were light hearted ironic remarks were taken so seriously, and I’m very sorry if people took offence. I certainly did not mean to demean women, but rather be honest about my own shortcomings.”
“It’s terribly important that you can criticise people’s ideas without criticising them and if they burst into tears it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth. Anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.”
“It is true … 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.”
“I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult. I’m really, really sorry I caused any offence, that’s awful. I certainly didn’t mean that. I just meant to be honest.”
