London Mayor: Feminist “red mist” of terror descended on comet scientist
“It was like something from the show trials of Stalin”
Last Friday Kemberlee covered the feminist attack on Dr. Matt Taylor, the brilliant British scientist who helped achieve the seemingly unachievable, landing a scientific probe on a comet hundreds of millions of miles away, 5 Reasons “feminists” can’t complain about comet scientist’s “sexist” shirt.
How dedicated was Taylor to his work? He had a large tattoo regarding the project on his right front thigh:
That’s how much this project meant to him.
Taylor was attacked not for the tattoo, but because Taylor wore a shirt — given to him by a female friend — which had cartoon characters of pretty women on it. Not naked women. Not women engaging in sex acts. Just pretty women in “sexy” outfits.
Thanks for ruining the cool comet landing for me asshole.
— Rose Eveleth (@roseveleth) November 12, 2014
Here is the shirt in close-up (it’s sold out since the controversy):
Gunner Girls Shirt Sells Out http://t.co/UuOwBAOahm @nro @mggtTaylor @EllyPrizeman @roseveleth #shirtstorm #shirtgate pic.twitter.com/5BdMVEYT0C
— Tim Cavanaugh (@bigtimcavanaugh) November 16, 2014
You can see it easily in this photo, but on the video you have to really be looking for trouble to find it. The camera is pretty far away, and Taylor is only a relatively small part of the overall report.
The woman who complained obviously was looking for something to complain about, and she made it all about her own personal insecurities as a female scientist.
For that sin, Taylor was attacked at his moment of glory. Taylor was reduced to tears while offering an apology on live stream TV.
There has been a lot of pushback against the perpetrators who attacked Taylor, some of it serious, some of it humorous, and some of it vicious as often takes place on the internet.
Prof. Glenn Reynolds wrote a great column at USA Today about the incident, 1 small shirt for a man, 1 giant leap backward for women:
So how are things going for feminism? Well, last week, some feminists 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 Philaelanded 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.
Not surprisingly, Reynolds then came under attack by the shirt-police:
Good lord, @instapundit is an asshole. http://t.co/5d1CWxAL6v
— Seth Mnookin (@sethmnookin) November 16, 2014
The attack on Reynolds went beyond hurling the term “asshole,”, but also false accusations of “doxxing” (outing personal information) about the woman who initiated the attack on Taylor. Only after substantial pushback to that smear did they somewhat back down, as documented at Twitchy (here and here).
.@Myrmecos You lie. @instapundit @roseveleth
— jon gabriel (@exjon) November 16, 2014
.@docfreeride @jrireland1 @0ryuge @roseveleth You are making factually false and defamatory statements about me. Please stop.
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) November 15, 2014
Now the Mayor of London is speaking out, writing a column in The Telegraph, Dr Matt Taylor’s shirt made me cry, too – with rage at his abusers (h/t Jazz Shaw at Hot Air):
This mission is a colossal achievement. Millions of us have been watching Philae’s heart-stopping journey. Everyone in this country should be proud of Dr Taylor and his colleagues, and he has every right to let his feelings show.
Except, of course, that he wasn’t crying with relief. He wasn’t weeping with sheer excitement at this interstellar rendezvous. I am afraid he was crying because he felt he had sinned. He was overcome with guilt and shame for wearing what some people decided was an “inappropriate” shirt on television. “I have made a big mistake,” he said brokenly. “I have offended people and I am sorry about this.”
I watched that clip of Dr Taylor’s apology – at the moment of his supreme professional triumph – and I felt the red mist come down. It was like something from the show trials of Stalin, or from the sobbing testimony of the enemies of Kim Il-sung, before they were taken away and shot. It was like a scene from Mao’s cultural revolution when weeping intellectuals were forced to confess their crimes against the people.
Why was he forced into this humiliation? Because he was subjected to an unrelenting tweetstorm of abuse. He was bombarded across the internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate, orchestrated by lobby groups and politically correct media organisations.
And so I want, naturally, to defend this blameless man. And as for all those who have monstered him and convicted him in the kangaroo court of the web – they should all be ashamed of themselves.
Yes, I suppose some might say that his Hawaii shirt was a bit garish, a bit of an eyeful. But the man is not a priest, for heaven’s sake. He is a space scientist with a fine collection of tattoos, and if you are an extrovert space scientist, that is the kind of shirt that you are allowed to wear.
As for the design of the garment, I have studied it as closely as the photos will allow, and I can’t see what all the fuss is about. I suppose there are women with long flowing hair and a certain amount of décolletage. But let’s not mince our words: there are no nipples; there are no buttocks; there is not even an exposed midriff, as far as I can see….
I think his critics should go to the National Gallery and look at the Rokeby Venus by Velázquez. Or look at the stuff by Rubens. Are we saying that these glorious images should be torn from the walls?….
There must be room in our world for eccentricity, even if it offends the prudes, and room for the vague other-worldliness that often goes with genius.
Was it a bad week for feminism? Depends on how you define feminism.
If feminism now amounts to female scientists taking down male scientists because of their own insecurities and hypersensitivities, then yes, it was a bad week.
But it also was a good week for confident, emotionally secure women who don’t feel the need to denigrate others in order to achieve self-worth. Many of those women — who I would argue represent the true feminist ideal — defended Taylor.
http://youtu.be/bFdsq96Aa98?t=1m51s
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Comments
These agitators are no different than the race baiters. All of them need to be laughed at to their faces, ridiculed for their insecurities and asshattery, then told in no uncertain terms to STFU.
Instead of showing up at the press conference and blubbering like John Boehner, Taylor should have hired two hookers to show up with him and then proceeded to get a three-way lap dance in front of the cameras.
News Flash! You have NO right not to be offended!
Dude. Trigger warning…!!!
SO much microaggression…
“…feminist red mist of terror…”
Ummm. Unfortunate visual evoked by that…
Uh, yeah I think that’s what the Wendy Davis supporters had in mind when they came to protest the special session which eventually passed the abortion law in Texas. Thankfully the DPS stopped them.
Perhaps if his shirt had depicted women with mousey, gray-streaked flowing locks, unshaven armpits and legs, no makeup…that shirt would have sold out in record time as well, wouldn’t it?
Why did I just have a vision of a bunch of feral cats pissing all over a couch?
Just imagine the outrage if he had been holding a cup of Starbucks coffee (is that Lady Godiva in their logo?)!
If Dr Taylor had worn a shirt with a bunch of half naked cartoon men wearing little leather shorts, would the feminists be bitching?
Modern Feminism is really just a first world female supremacy movement.
Oh, they can chant “equality” until the cows come home but at the end of the day for what are they actually striving? Look closely at their arguments – they always boil down to creating a utopia where women have no responsibility, experience no negative consequences, and where every male is a potential rapist – even 5-year-old boys.
I often wonder how these self proclaimed fragile flowers would handle an encounter with genuine sexism.
You know who that shirt ALSO drives crazy…??? Islamists. Funny to think of femi-nazis and the guys who would kill them in a heartbeat agreeing on what offends them.
Twenty years ago, I worked with men like Dr. Taylor in aerospace R&D. ‘Twas men like him who gave everything to bring Apollo 13 home nearly 45 years ago. My father, who also worked in aerospace then, often tells of when the Apollo 13 ‘anomaly’ occurred, several of our aerospace engineers and scientists dropped everything and flew to KSC to assist. Their combined expertise and brilliance turned what could have been a complete disaster and loss of life into what Gene Kranz called “our finest hour”.
This is feminism’s darkest hour.
A stunning achievement by brilliant men, sullied by women who think with their vagina.
Dr. Taylor, you rock. 😉
Instapundit retweeted me a few times on this subject. Like this one:
https://twitter.com/starrfin/status/533801231320223744
Good will come from this whole episode.
Just like with Sputnik, an entire generation will be inspired and motivated.
Think of the army of young girls who will now want to become women’s studies professors.
I wouldn’t compare it to Stalinist show trials, that’s just lacking any sense of proportion.
This is just some sort of damsel in distress demanding an apology for offending her sensibilities.
For what it’s worth, the offended snowflake “science journalist” was “doxxed” by the pimply dweebs at 4Chan’s /b/ board. I doubt many of them have even heard of Instapundit.
Feminist is one of my banned words! To think I used to fancy myself one back in the sixties.
Well, see, this demonstrates how words can come to mean nothing definitive.
The Other McCain has documented how “feminist theorists” are just crazy Marxist lesbians. And almost NOBODY who uses the term in daily parlance would subscribe to that. But they are the heads of “woman’s studies” departments all over the Western world.
The term”feminist’ has been perverted beyond telling since the 1960s. From ” I am woman, hear me roar ” to “I’m a fragile, unable little waif; please don’t be ‘mean’ to me”.
Another former ‘feminist’ and mother of four strong, capable and accomplished daughters…..and a son who recognizes the reality that real women can be strong, capable and accomplished and should be judged on their merits……not their uteri/ovaries !
I think uteri and ovaries, as you put it, are a quite important thing to judge. And actually to revere and honor.
If the strong, capable and accomplished woman in question doesn’t have functional ones, she won’t have the ability to bear children, therefore her superior qualities will have much less chance of being passed on. This being if you accept the theory that superior accomplishment is – mostly – indicative of superior genetics.
Bad thing for the propagation of humanity.
I think a minor correction is in order.
“If feminism now amounts to female scientists taking down male scientists.”
I think it was more feminists rath3r then female scientists. I don’t think the female scientisgts said much of anything.
agreed, women who are genuine scientists would appreciate and be thinking about the incredible scientific achievements and that would be the focus.
Only woman who don’t have the know-how to appreciate the science would be distracted by the superficiality of the clothing and make that the issue.
Sexist shirt? It’s not a Crumb/Zap comic or Kardashian booty. More of a True Crime cover or a early Hollywood poster. So what.
In the early 1990s I partnered with a guy on investigating the efficacy of so-called ‘ufologists’ and their investigations. This thread brought to my mind his rabid distaste for feminists, whom he felt had imposed victimhood on themselves and started complaining, a movement born of collective neuroses, then co-opted as a political tool. I found a quote of his that applies:
“The feminist movement as we have come to know it in recent decades is fundamentally a “con.” As it is considered treasonous to criticise a sister feminist, no standards of accuracy or honesty are ever enforced. Hyperbole and deceit thus become the formula for success, “peer review” playing no role in reining in misinformation. Any would-be feminist who raises scholarly objections to the rampant misinformation is branded an ‘enemy of women’ and is drummed out of the movement.”
― Robert Sheaffer
Pretty much nails it.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/392831/modern-feminism-appalling-stupidity-backed-hysterical-rage-david-french
Like so many other very fine and worthy movements, it is co-opted by dim bulbs of the Collective to become just another whine seller.
(See what I did there…???)
Who gave this moron with the microphone the power to destroy this poor guy’s career?
Answer: other morons.
“It was like something from the show trials of Stalin”
China’s Cultural Revolution featured public apologies of this nature on a regular basis.
The Left has simply adopted the same tactics for use over the internet.
I do have one more comment…..I know that Dr. Taylor must have been overcome with joy/relief and pride before he made his ‘apology’…..but why the HELL did he give this ninny the satisfaction of an apology ? Where is written that anyone has the right not to be offended !
One way to stop this PC nonsense is to trivialize and ignore it in the manner it merits.
Good point. Any good shrink would say we are responsible for our own feelings. We can just as easily choose NOT to be offended.
I remember years ago when I read a passage in John chapter 6, where it said the people “TOOK offense” with what Jesus said and many left him. So OFFENSE is something taken up, not given away. Life is SO much easier when choosing NOT to take up offense.
PC in my view, is the attempt to shift the responsibility for the feeling of offense, onto others. You would think the Mental Health profession would classify PC speak as a form of mental illness. PC speak subjects free speech to the rule of fear and will eventually reduce us to a race of mutes.