FACED with an audience mainly of women, did Professor Alessandro Strumia hesitate for a nanosecond before beginning a presentation he knew might wreck his career? Did he look at the scientists before him, gathered in Geneva to discuss the problems of gender in high energy physics, and pause?
How many sips did he take from his water glass as he launched into a broadside against women’s scientific abilities, declaring that “physics was invented and built by men”, and insisting that women’s brains and interests render them incapable of understanding and advancing it in the way only men can?
I ask because it takes a certain reckless courage or zealotry to come out with such offensive comments. To tell women that the notion of them being the equal of male physicists is the consequence of “cultural Marxism” and indoctrination is startlingly aggressive. This was no accidental slip off the straight and narrow path of political correctness. Strumia’s remarks were incendiary, intentionally so; the response of someone at the end of his rope, knowing he would swing for it.
Nor, in the ensuing stramash (Strumiash?) has he been remotely apologetic. Suspended from Cern, the European Organization for Nuclear Research where he works, the 48-year-old lecturer from the University of Pisa took his punishment as further evidence of the fundamental problem.
It is his contention that the world of physics is becoming sexist against men, and that women are being promoted to positions ahead of better qualified males. Of his suspension he said: “This is what happens every time somebody wants to speak about this. All these people have been destroyed.” Now, it could be that in some places there has been positive discrimination in appointing women. Given their near invisibility in the higher echelons of science for much of the last century, this might have been deemed necessary, not only to show that women were eminently capable of doing the job but also pour encourager les autres.
If that is or has ever been the case, it is obviously a far from perfect solution to a historic imbalance. Yet as the importance of gender equality is finally being recognised across all professions and spheres – as is the need to eliminate discrimination of any sort – there are situations where employers must work harder to ensure eligible candidates are encouraged to apply.
If a female applicant for a physicist’s vacancy has a less impressive CV than a man, it might be worth taking into account the insidious, age-long institutional or societal prejudices that explain that discrepancy. Rather than perpetuate the vicious cycle by pushing women always to the margins, a few judicious appointments could help adjust the scales.
Is this what has motivated Strumia’s torrent of disdain? Possibly. He certainly believes men are being sidelined. Yet, since he holds a personal grievance over having once been beaten to a post by a woman, it suggests his rage comes less from rigorous assessment of the employment record in his specialism, and more from pique, a piece of grit that has produced a gallstone, not a pearl. You can picture him since that blow to his pride, nursing his wrath until finally this week it exploded into flame.
There are so many disturbing elements to Strumia’s outburst it’s hard to know where to begin. The fervour with which he spoke is clearly the product of fury, of one who feels under threat. His language is like that of white supremacists who believe black brains are different, and thus inherently inferior to white. Or of fascists and sectarians who look down on those of other ethnicities and beliefs as lesser beings.
Even more shocking, though, is that this denouncement of his fellow physicists comes at a time when we thought the battle had long since been won. Women and science is one of the oldest zones of conflict in the gender wars. It took centuries for us to be allowed to study medicine, let alone physics, and even then outstanding doctors like Elsie Inglis were sometimes treated by their superiors as if they were hospital porters rather than highly qualified surgeons. Today, the relatively low number of women in top medical roles reinforces the impression that discrimination in this arena persists.
That is the most unsettling aspect of Strumia’s anger. His comments suggest that acceptance of women in science is far from universal. Despite swift reprisals by Cern, and widespread condemnation among the physics community, his words hint at pockets of resistance and denial. His nasty little speech has revealed the unsavoury truth that attitudes from the days of Galileo are still alive, in a generation that should know better. Bad enough to encounter ignorant or octogenarian sexists. How much worse when those who discredit women are not only bright, but were born into a world where women are wholly emancipated. Not only do we have the vote but we can gain degrees and understand what makes the Hadron Collider tick – though admittedly that’s easier than fathoming men like Strumia.
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