[stevenbedrick]

Rather than thinking about it as a "counterpoint," I think it's an excellent illustration of the fact that people are complicated, and are capable of simultaneously being sexist pigs in some ways and progressive and gifted educators in others.

Something that I think really complicates these kinds of discussions is our propensity to think of people in zero-sum and reductionist ways. Examples: "I don't care if you landed a spacecraft on a comet, you're still a sexist pig!", "I don't care what a sexist pig you are, you landed a spacecraft on a comet!".

The one does not somehow "cancel out" or "make up for" the other; both facts ("sexist pig", "landed spacecraft on comet"[1]) can exist and be considered simultaneously. We contain multitudes, etc.- something that the female engineer quoted clearly understood. She made no bones about the fact that she found certain aspects of Feynman's behavior toward her offensive, but was also clear that there were other aspects that she found admirable. This is how socially mature human beings think and talk about one another, IMHO.

1: Or, in the case of Feynman, "had horrifically retrograde and damaging opinions about women's roles in society" and "was ahead of many of his peers in some respects".

[Retric]

I think the contradiction is most _ist people think group X in less capable of some activity. So, someone that says you’re an intelligent and capable person, but cultural norms let me dump demeaning task Y on you is not really the same thing. The closest neutral example I can think of is how the new person in a group is often dumped on.