In space, no one can hear you nagging

[Legbiter]

Bullying him to tears seems to have backfired for the SJW's/feminists.  

Better not to land a spaceship on a comet than let men wear sexist clothing.

So how are things going for feminism? Well, last week they took one of the great achievements of human history -- landing a probe from Earth on a comet hundreds of millions of miles away -- and made it all about the clothes.

Yes, that's right. After years of effort, the European Space Agency's lander Philae landed on a comet 300 million miles away. At first, people were excited. Then some women noticed that one of the space scientists, Matt Taylor, was wearing a shirt, made for him by a female "close pal," featuring comic-book depictions of semi-naked women. And suddenly, the triumph of the comet landing was drowned out by shouts of feminist outrage about . . . what people were wearing. It was one small shirt for a man, one giant leap backward for womankind.

The Atlantic's Rose Eveleth tweeted, "No no women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt." Astrophysicist Katie Mack commented: "I don't care what scientists wear. But a shirt featuring women in lingerie isn't appropriate for a broadcast if you care about women in STEM." And from there, the online feminist lynch mob took off until Taylor was forced to deliver a tearful apology on-camera.

It seems to me that if you care about women in STEM, maybe you shouldn't want to communicate the notion that they're so delicate that they can't handle pictures of comic-book women. Will we stock our Mars spacecraft with fainting-couches?

Not everyone was so censorious. As one female space professional wrote: "Don't these women and their male cohorts understand that *they* are doing the damage to what/whom they claim to defend!?"

No, they don't. Or, if they do, their reservations are overcome by the desire to feel important and powerful at others' expense. Thus what should have been the greatest day in a man's life -- accomplishing something never before done in the history of humanity -- was instead derailed by people with their own axes to grind. As Chloe Price observed: "Imagine the ...storm if the scientist had been a woman and everyone focused solely on her clothes and not her achievements."

Yes, feminists have been telling us for years that women can wear whatever they want, and for men to comment in any way is sexism. But that's obviously a double standard, since they evidently feel no compunction whatsoever in criticizing what men wear. News flash: Geeks don't dress like Don Draper

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/11/15/shirt-comet-girls-feminism-column/19083607/

[Martinus]

From now on I shall comment solely on the outfits worn by female scientists on TV, not on what they have to say.

[crazy canuck]

Doesnt apply to this guy though.  This wasnt about him.  Nobody actually cares about him. This was about the project he is representing.

Doesn't escape my point that the clothes have zero relevance.

You can worry about clothes or you can worry about important stuff like whether you're doing your job or whether your product will work as intended.

Then I dont understand your point.  Part of doing his job was appearing on TV to explain to the world what what was happening.  When he did that he wasnt just speaking for himself.  If he was just speaking for himself he would not have been on TV.  As a representative of the project he should have had a basic level of professionalism to properly represent the project even if he is a person who ordinarily cant think about more than one thing at a time.

[crazy canuck]

I think you can actually worry about both. It doesn't take much time to put on some reasonable clothes, and the idea that somehow that decision, which takes all of 15 seconds, is interfering with his high minded scientisting is a bit silly.

And when you show up on national TV, part of your job is representing yourself, your company, and even your profession.

There have been interesting studies done on mental bandwidth, and it seems to indicate that there is a real upper limit on how much we can process/think about at a given time.  We can get good at things so that they take up less bandwidth, but the amount of bandwidth we have is capped.  Worrying/thinking about one thing will mean something else won't be getting attention, and nobody can truly multi-task at all well.  This feeds into the classic absent minded professor stereotype.  I'm guessing this guy never even thought about "what do you wear on TV", so it probably would take a fair bit of bandwidth to even start.  Personally I'm happy there are people who don't waste their time thinking about stupid crap like that.

It takes mental bandwidth to dress?  Thank goodness he actually had clothes on then.

[CountDeMoney]

Part of doing his job was appearing on TV to explain to the world what what was happening.  When he did that he wasnt just speaking for himself.  If he was just speaking for himself he would not have been on TV.  As a representative of the project he should have had a basic level of professionalism to properly represent the project even if he is a person who ordinarily cant think about more than one thing at a time.

Losing cause, CC.  You're not going to get anywhere with this crowd regarding basic rules of dressing professionally when it comes to representing something other than themselves.   Most Languishites only have one pair of flip-flops, in a neutral color suitable for weddings, funerals and job interviews. 

[Ed Anger]

The formal nose ring.

[dps]

Doesnt apply to this guy though.  This wasnt about him.  Nobody actually cares about him. This was about the project he is representing.

Doesn't escape my point that the clothes have zero relevance.

You can worry about clothes or you can worry about important stuff like whether you're doing your job or whether your product will work as intended.

Then I dont understand your point.  Part of doing his job was appearing on TV to explain to the world what what was happening.  When he did that he wasnt just speaking for himself.  If he was just speaking for himself he would not have been on TV.  As a representative of the project he should have had a basic level of professionalism to properly represent the project even if he is a person who ordinarily cant think about more than one thing at a time.

He's a scientist, not a lawyer or school administrator or the manager of your local Walmart.  "Professionalism" for him isn't the same thing as it is for you.

They should have hired some PR people to do the publicity stuff.

[sbr]

I can't believe it is that hard to not wear a shirt with nekkid women on it.

[frunk]

It takes mental bandwidth to dress?  Thank goodness he actually had clothes on then.

Everything you do takes mental bandwidth.  Very little gets done with muscle memory alone.

[crazy canuck]

It takes mental bandwidth to dress?  Thank goodness he actually had clothes on then.

Everything you do takes mental bandwidth.  Very little gets done with muscle memory alone.

Yeah, like eating (he managed to keep himself fed); getting to work (somehow his one track mind managed that) and it looks like he even managed to shower and groom himself now and then.  Is it too much to ask that he manage to dress himself properly or is he really that mentally compromised.

[Berkut]

He apparently ran out of mental bandwidth thinking about arm sleeve tatoos and naked comic book chick shirts, and just didn't have enough to close the loop with "Maybe I could wear something to cover these infantile tatoos and maybe that can be something without naked women on it".

But we can all be thankful he was able to divert enough from landing spaceships on comets to get the tatoos and shirt done at least.

[Maximus]

Yeah, like eating (he managed to keep himself fed); getting to work (somehow his one track mind managed that) and it looks like he even managed to shower and groom himself now and then.  Is it too much to ask that he manage to dress himself properly or is he really that mentally compromised.

He was dressed properly. He just wasn't dressed to your arbitrary standards.

[Martinus]

Is the argument that he was dressed inappropriately because he was not wearing a suit and a tie, or that he was dressed inappropriately because he had pictures of half-naked women on his shirt? These seem to me like two completely different issues.

[dps]

Is the argument that he was dressed inappropriately because he was not wearing a suit and a tie, or that he was dressed inappropriately because he had pictures of half-naked women on his shirt? These seem to me like two completely different issues.

The feminists who were complaining about it were complaining about his wearing of a shirt with pictures of scantily-clad women on it.  The Jerks of Languish(tm)  are complaining that he should have worn a suit and tie.

[Jacob]

I think gratuitous semi-naked chick imagery are inappropriate in the workplace, and that their casual acceptance can contribute to a hostile environment. So I (to the surprise of few here, I'm sure) stand with the feminists on this.

That said, the dude wearing that shirt is not the biggest deal in the world, though the high profile of the media coverage did make it a bigger deal than it otherwise would have been. My take on the guy is that he's probably into some sort of rockabilly/ hot-rod/ psychobilly scene where cheesecake pin-up imagery is part of the scene, and he just didn't think about it.

In short, I think it's legit to complain about the shirt in the context it was worn, but I don't hold it against the guy particularly harshly.

As for wearing a suit and tie - I don't think that's necessary (much as I like them), though having that as a default would have avoiding the guy embarrassing himself like that.