Disgraced Nobel laureate: 'I have been hung out to dry'
Nobel prize-winning biologist Tim Hunt is finding out there can be consequences for making sexist comments in public forums. Days after Hunt said at a conference that women were distracting in the lab what with their constant sex appeal and crying, he was forced to resign from his job at the University College London and other positions he held.
"I have been hung out to dry," Hunt told The Observer in an interview Saturday. "I have been stripped of all the things I was doing in science. I have no further influence."
His wife, Mary Collins, defended his character, as have other women colleagues of his. For his part, Hunt has called his comments a joke:
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Meanwhile, women in science are responding to Hunt by showing him just how distractingly sexy they tend to look on the job. Julie Kliegman
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
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