Could you possibly copy the comment here? I tried to find it in Facebook's "awesome" comment paging system, but I don't know how far through the 9000 comments I have to scroll back. (I assume the URL you posted is supposed to jump me to it, but it doesn't work for non-facebook users like me.)
“I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in!” she wrote. “I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring, and I’m glad that many of those inspired shared their gratitude with you.”
Hubeny also offered advice to help women deal with sexism at work, no matter their field.
“If you allow yourself to enjoy the beautiful things that really matter, if you don’t let social or peer pressure dissuade you from pursuing a field which appeals to you, then no pettiness or childishness or boorishness that you encounter can harm you so much,” she wrote.
Veronika Hubeny: I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in! I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated and heartwarmed contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring and I’m glad that many of those inspired shared their gratitude with you.
I guess that, being the subject of the incident, it might be worthwhile to offer my perspective, which to my surprise is rather more atypical than I had hitherto realized, but which I hope might perhaps provide some encouragement to all those who feel put off by the present situation — especially to those who feel drawn to science yet dissuaded from following their hearts’ calling. (For posterity I also feel compelled to correct a point about the physics — as a physicist I can’t help myself wink emoticon;-) — but since I realize that that was entirely beside the point of the post, I’ll only do so at the very end…)
You may be amazed to hear it, but during this panel session I genuinely did not feel affronted or discriminated by the moderator’s behavior. It seemed more amusing to see him try posing a question in a way that at the same time tried answering it. It’s true that this made the question a bit of a moving target for me (and therefore harder to address coherently), but I don’t a-priori assume that the incident was rooted in sexism. Maybe I’m too naive, but I simply gave him the benefit of doubt that he was so excited by the newly-learned idea of the duality that he couldn’t resist, and that the same might have occurred had the panelist been a male instead of me. So it didn’t bother me.
In fact, even though in my entire academic career I was in an environment where women were in striking minority (and as a student often the only woman in the class), I never felt discriminated against or thwarted in my calling. The feeling was rather one of camaraderie: the challenges to unravel the deepest mysteries of the universe, the thrill in understanding another tiny bit of this grand puzzle, and the sheer wonder at how beautifully the physics hangs together, put us all in the same boat, so to speak. In retrospect I think I was fortunate in being amongst like-minded physicists who were not only great but gracious and earnest in their love of science. But when I eventually did start coming across others who were not of the same caliber, they somehow seemed insignificant.
I had early on decided that I like physics so much that I’d be quite willing to give up quite a bit of other comforts for it, but perhaps having made that decision and bracing oneself, then made the actual “discomforts” not only more bearable, but genuinely less discomforting. I think the subjective severity of a lot of these issues can be greatly influenced by one’s mindset, one’s psychology. If you allow yourself to enjoy the beautiful things that really matter, if you don’t let social or peer pressure dissuade you from pursuing a field which appeals to you, then no pettiness or childishness or boorishness that you encounter can harm you so much.
Please understand that I’m not trying to say that sexism in science is a myth. It is real and we should all aspire to diminish it. But I am trying to say that it need not pose as much of an impediment as you might fear and that you might be in more control over its influence yourself than you might think. Just as you put up with long lines to see a great show, or with sore feet or mosquitos to have a great hike etc., the annoyance of otherwise abominable behavior diminishes in the larger perspective of doing something you really enjoy.
OK, so now to the physics (sorry):
First, what you refer to as the “two theories of string theory that seem to contradict one another” are actually two ‘dual’ descriptions of the same physics, which while curiously different in rather amazing ways, are completely consistent with each other (one using the language of string theory, the other of a field theory).
Second, I cannot take credit for inventing this holographic (so-called AdS/CFT) correspondence — I have worked on understanding how it works at a deeper level, but the AdS/CFT was originated by Juan Maldacena in 1997.
Once again, let me stress my appreciation, Marilee, of how you bravely stood up for your principles and values! Well done!
What an amazingly balanced and collected comment. Acknowledges and thanks the person for her intervention while exposing her view and her experience and how she did not feel threatened or a victim of sexism in this incident or in her life, all the same acknowledging it's a very much real problem that should be diminished.
She sounds like a very nice and humble lady in addition to an excellent physicist.
>I never felt discriminated against or thwarted in my calling
This just goes to prove my stance whenever the whole women in STEM fields debate is brought up. You have two kinds of women, those who are out there doing science, building things and being badasses (The likes of Veronika and Julia Evans, ones I consider as role-models) and then you have women that have questionable technical skills who keep whining about sexism and lack of women in tech. Veronica wasn't concerned with the perceived sexism and was interested in physics, Marilee, a specimen of the second category, gave herself a pat on the shoulder for standing up to Veronica.
> and then you have women that have questionable technical skills who keep whining about sexism
I noted this as a pattern - if you complain about sexism then you put shadow over your technical skills. You have to choose between being seen as capable and between pointing out unfairness if you think it happens.
Also, Veronika Hubeny said that there is sexism in science. She did not had negative feelings about this panel. It is possible to watch the video and come to different interpretation as she did. Just like it is possible to see the video of someone accused of sexism and conclude it was not sexism. The latter is quite common occurence on these forums.
The real world is just not as simple as your bimodal stance.
First off, sexist environments do exist. So that alone should invalidate how you think of this as either competence versus whining. Also, there are varying degrees of sexism, including places where it is not present at all. How can we know this? Zipf's law. Or by just doing a thought experiment, which I'll leave out here (just think about the simplest possible workplace).
On the issue of technical skills, everyone is incompetent at something. Even if you are highly technically skilled in your chosen field, these days almost every field has overlap, including new and emerging areas of overlap, with other fields including new fields. There are also new techniques being developed all the time. Everyone is learning on the job, and that's as it should be. Does that mean it's OK to whine about non-existent sexism? No, but does it mean that sexism does not exist? Also no. And if it does, it should be called out, regardless of whether someone is a Nobel laureate or a student.
Going to the extreme, if you're not at all skilled in any field but are just learning, that doesn't mean that speaking up about sexism is just whining about imagined problems in every case.
I have no doubt that some of what you're talking about is going on. But my point is it just doesn't begin to explain the whole picture.
> Veronica wasn't concerned with the perceived sexism
Citation needed. If you read her comment carefully she acknowledges there is sexism in science but says that it should not put off people from pursuing what they love. And in this case she said she just gave the host the benefit of the doubt, since his attitude could be interpreted in multiple ways.
> Marilee, a specimen of the second category, gave herself a pat on the shoulder for standing up to Veronica.
That's an asshole thing to say, and your comment makes it look like it's a full-blown trait, not a one-time accident. Out of a whole theater who noticed the incident, she was the only one who had the balls to stand up. You may disagree that it was sexism (can't be proven either way, you can't know the host's state of mind at that time), but you can't in good conscience disagree that it wasn't right, and it's a good thing someone said something.
And yes, the way you phrased your comment clearly implies that there are two categories of people, the doers and the whiners; it reeks of assholery. There are people who do a lot and "whine" a lot; just because you're good at something doesn't mean you should bury your head in the sand when you see something wrong.
Men of "questionable technical skills" have a whole raft of culturally acceptable crutches at their disposal, including dominance behavior, Machiavellian strategies towards conflict, etc. A lot of these antisocial behaviors have come to define "good leadership" even in the past few decades, so I find it completely laughable to draw equality to calling out sexism. Even IF sexism charges were completely unfounded & a crutch, so what, men have gotten away with highway robbery by comparison.
These two things aren't mutually exclusive. You can do both (even though granted there are lots of people out there in the latter category). You can obviously be an excellent physicist and argue against unjust situations at the same time, and also you don't have to be an expert in a field in order to recognize and protest extant sexism.
Veronika stated quite clearly that sexism in STEM is an issue. Julia Evans has wrote in bulk regarding issues she has experienced and ways she is trying to get more women in STEM.
Who is to say that those people who's bulk of effort is spent programming, designing, or doing other technical activities don't appreciate the work other's do on a more full time basis to improve issues they see?
>You may be amazed to hear it, but during this panel session I genuinely did not feel affronted or discriminated by the moderator’s behavior. It seemed more amusing to see him try posing a question in a way that at the same time tried answering it. It’s true that this made the question a bit of a moving target for me (and therefore harder to address coherently), but I don’t a-priori assume that the incident was rooted in sexism. Maybe I’m too naive, but I simply gave him the benefit of doubt that he was so excited by the newly-learned idea of the duality that he couldn’t resist, and that the same might have occurred had the panelist been a male instead of me. So it didn’t bother me.
...
> Please understand that I’m not trying to say that sexism in science is a myth. It is real and we should all aspire to diminish it. But I am trying to say that it need not pose as much of an impediment as you might fear and that you might be in more control over its influence yourself than you might think. Just as you put up with long lines to see a great show, or with sore feet or mosquitos to have a great hike etc., the annoyance of otherwise abominable behavior diminishes in the larger perspective of doing something you really enjoy.
I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in! I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated and heartwarmed contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring and I’m glad that many of those inspired shared their gratitude with you.
I guess that, being the subject of the incident, it might be worthwhile to offer my perspective, which to my surprise is rather more atypical than I had hitherto realized, but which I hope might perhaps provide some encouragement to all those who feel put off by the present situation — especially to those who feel drawn to science yet dissuaded from following their hearts’ calling. (For posterity I also feel compelled to correct a point about the physics — as a physicist I can’t help myself ;-) — but since I realize that that was entirely beside the point of the post, I’ll only do so at the very end…)
You may be amazed to hear it, but during this panel session I genuinely did not feel affronted or discriminated by the moderator’s behavior. It seemed more amusing to see him try posing a question in a way that at the same time tried answering it. It’s true that this made the question a bit of a moving target for me (and therefore harder to address coherently), but I don’t a-priori assume that the incident was rooted in sexism. Maybe I’m too naive, but I simply gave him the benefit of doubt that he was so excited by the newly-learned idea of the duality that he couldn’t resist, and that the same might have occurred had the panelist been a male instead of me. So it didn’t bother me.
In fact, even though in my entire academic career I was in an environment where women were in striking minority (and as a student often the only woman in the class), I never felt discriminated against or thwarted in my calling. The feeling was rather one of camaraderie: the challenges to unravel the deepest mysteries of the universe, the thrill in understanding another tiny bit of this grand puzzle, and the sheer wonder at how beautifully the physics hangs together, put us all in the same boat, so to speak. In retrospect I think I was fortunate in being amongst like-minded physicists who were not only great but gracious and earnest in their love of science. But when I eventually did start coming across others who were not of the same caliber, they somehow seemed insignificant.
I had early on decided that I like physics so much that I’d be quite willing to give up quite a bit of other comforts for it, but perhaps having made that decision and bracing oneself, then made the actual “discomforts” not only more bearable, but genuinely less discomforting. I think the subjective severity of a lot of these issues can be greatly influenced by one’s mindset, one’s psychology. If you allow yourself to enjoy the beautiful things that really matter, if you don’t let social or peer pressure dissuade you from pursuing a field which appeals to you, then no pettiness or childishness or boorishness that you encounter can harm you so much.
Please understand that I’m not trying to say that sexism in science is a myth. It is real and we should all aspire to diminish it. But I am trying to say that it need not pose as much of an impediment as you might fear and that you might be in more control over its influence yourself than you might think. Just as you put up with long lines to see a great show, or with sore feet or mosquitos to have a great hike etc., the annoyance of otherwise abominable behavior diminishes in the larger perspective of doing something you really enjoy.
OK, so now to the physics (sorry):
First, what you refer to as the “two theories of string theory that seem to contradict one another” are actually two ‘dual’ descriptions of the same physics, which while curiously different in rather amazing ways, are completely consistent with each other (one using the language of string theory, the other of a field theory).
Second, I cannot take credit for inventing this holographic (so-called AdS/CFT) correspondence — I have worked on understanding how it works at a deeper level, but the AdS/CFT was originated by Juan Maldacena in 1997.
Once again, let me stress my appreciation, Marilee, of how you bravely stood up for your principles and values! Well done!
ETA: From the Observer article: http://observer.com/2017/06/sexism-science-facebook-mansplai...
“I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in!” she wrote. “I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring, and I’m glad that many of those inspired shared their gratitude with you.”
Hubeny also offered advice to help women deal with sexism at work, no matter their field.
“If you allow yourself to enjoy the beautiful things that really matter, if you don’t let social or peer pressure dissuade you from pursuing a field which appeals to you, then no pettiness or childishness or boorishness that you encounter can harm you so much,” she wrote.