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by DiogenesKynikos 478 days ago
Most of these complaints about Feynman come down to one story he told. People who come away thinking Feynman is a misogynist generally miss the point of the story. Feynman talks about how when he was young, an older friend told him he could pick up women by being a jerk. He tried it, and it worked, but he felt bad about himself afterwards and decided not to do it any more.

Some people look at that story and say, "Look at what a jerk Feynman was to the lady in the story!" And then they completely ignore the part where Feynman says that even though the method was effective, he didn't feel right using it.

1 comments

There's also the fact that he did "life drawing" of a number of his students, which is completely unacceptable today, and wasn't exactly approved of at the time.

I've certainly felt like I've taken a bit more of an effort to clarify that I'm impressed with Feynman's clarity of teaching, rather than any of his other hijinx, which are often amusing, but not outstanding like his academic work.