"After Tim Hunt: another science is possible"

"Yet more people join the debate and perhaps understandably position themselves as a calm "reasonable" and “balanced” position (though not always checking whether or not the scales they’re checking the balance on are rigged). There are calls to “be positive” and offer “practical advice”, not mock or complain. A new truth is constructed, one where roles gradually return to where they lay before. Those who had initially expressed outrage are now looked down upon, called unreasonable, hotheaded, bitter, even hysterical, put (back) in their place. Were invited to feel sympathy with the person they’d labeled an oppressor, possibly even told to see them as oppressed. The self-pity of privilege is paraded in front of us, a weird pastiche of genuine oppression...

We should question those who let sympathy for men who've briefly suffered the pain of being called sexist somehow erase sympathy for women who have, throughout their lives, dealt with sexism. Yes it hurts to be called sexist. It hurts more to suffer sexism, not least because it is, for many, an everyday tedium, not just a weirdly disorienting one-off...

Another science is possible, though. The "bottom half" of science might be easily dismissed, but the internet is allowing them to talk to each other in ways the rigid hierarchies of science traditionally have not. Change might not be fast, but it’s coming."
https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/alice-bell/after-tim-hunt-another-science-is-possible