[Steuard]

That's heartening to read! But still, it rather damns with faint praise, doesn't it? With its "in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary" and its "you may be able to get something out of it" and its observation that "we" have never been able to communicate with "the female mind".

Yes, he's presumably trying to be lighthearted and cute and speak in a way that might connect with reluctant colleagues. But it's still awfully condescending.

And yes, I know that Feynman was condescending to everyone who wasn't Feynman. Here, though, he continues a trend of being condescending toward women as a group. Just because he could recognize individual women as talented (his wife, too!) doesn't mean that he didn't have negative (and harmful) attitudes toward them on the whole. And I think that those harmful attitudes have become a more lasting part of his popular image than have the quotes you've shared here.

> "...and supporting women in science wasn't the popularity contest it is today."

This quote speaks volumes about your own perspective.

[nerd_stuff]

> This quote speaks volumes about your own perspective.

Does it? I was pointing out that today there are motives for publicly supporting women in the sciences that didn't exist in 1966. In that quote Feynman pushed things in a progressive direction in a different political atmosphere than we live in today.

[Kenji]

No, it does not and you're completely right nerd_stuff. With all the feminism going on these days, accepting women as equals does not seem to be enough anymore.

[13thLetter]

> Yes, he's presumably trying to be lighthearted and cute and speak in a way that might connect with reluctant colleagues. But it's still awfully condescending.

He said that literally sixty years ago. Is every historical figure who didn't have the good fortune to live in our modern era of tolerance to be disavowed?

[Steuard]

I don't think there's a single word in what I've written here that says "We must disavow Feynman!"

But Feynman is still held up as an ideal here in our modern era, for very good reasons. As such, it is both just and necessary for us to point out to the next generation the handful of areas where emulating him is not a good idea.

[13thLetter]

Is it necessary to bring it up every time he's mentioned anywhere, as has happened in this comments section?