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#DistractinglySexy Twitter campaign skewers Nobel laureate's "trouble with girls"

by Miranda Nelson on June 12th, 2015 at 12:05 PM
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      Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Tim Hunt has a problem with women.

      During a speech at the World Conference of Science in South Korea earlier this week, Hunt advocated for single-sex laboratories because of his "trouble with girls".

      "Three things happen when they are in the lab," said the 72-year-old man. "You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.”

      Tim Hunt, distracted scientist.
      Masur/Wikipedia

      In repsonse, Vagenda Magazine put out a call for women in STEM to post photos revealing how #distractinglysexy they are when they are doing science.

      They did not disappoint.

      Ladies, you're amazing and I wish I could hug every last one of you.

      I would also like to hug this guy:

      In an interview with the BBC, Hunt attempted to apologize for his remarks:

      "I did mean the part about having trouble with girls," he said. "It is true that people -- I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it's very disruptive to the science because it's terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field. I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult. I'm really, really sorry I caused any offense, that's awful. I certainly didn't mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually."

      On June 10, University College London confirmed that Hunt has resigned from his position as an honourary professor there.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      Shame

      Jun 12, 2015 at 12:49pm

      Shame on you. Don't you know that women only say they want honesty? Would you also agree with a woman when she asks if the dress makes their ass look fat? Of course it does, but men dare not say it. That's the way women are.

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