1] Sigh. “My trouble with girls…” If you are going to omit words so as to change history to fit your delusional narrative, we are done here. He said “three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticize them, they cry.” The latter two statements are sexist stereotypes he is generalizing to all women, whom he further demeans by calling them “girls” (which though acceptable in colloquial discourse, is not acceptable when the point you are making is that women are too immature to handle criticism or workplace crushes and relationships). Indeed, even if you take the first as a generalization about men falling in love, that is an example of benevolent sexism (the belief that men should not “make girls cry” and therefore criticizing them becomes “a problem,” because of girls, which is an example of sexist assumptions about gendered chivalry).

2] He lost no salary. I’ve repeated this several times. Get out of your delusional bubble and start accepting facts instead of your paranoid fantasy. He was not fired from any position that paid him anything. He wasn’t fired from any research position. He wasn’t fired from any teaching position. He was fired (or preemptively resigned depending on whose narrative is correct) from a position that had no function but to represent the honor and values of the institution (a single job which he spectacularly failed at) and he was fired (or resigned depending on whose narrative is correct) from a position in which he served on a committee for assigning awards to scientists (in which an expressed bias against women scientists as being in his mind immature disqualified him…a bias he reaffirmed several times upon subsequent interview; he wasn’t joking about it, he was “kidding on the square”, which even as a joke is just as bad), and he was fired (or resigned depending on whose narrative is correct) from another non-paying committee at the European Research Council (which made decisions about funding research proposals, where again a bias against women is disqualifying). All three jobs he failed to perform and has expressed beliefs that entail he cannot perform them as the jobs require. That’s grounds for firing. That’s how the world works.

1) He said , ‘MY trouble….’ & ‘I fall in love….’ before those words you seem to ‘like’ so much! ( I hope you will leave out the ‘crying’ as he apologised and said he didn’t mean it)
So according to you, ‘Men and women are not smart enough to know the meaning of life’ is gender neutral. But ‘Men & women are not mature enough to work together in labs ‘ is sexist ! Sorry…. I am not convinced!
2) I am afraid you refuse to see the ‘dismissal’ beyond utilitarian terms of loss of salary & position. Is’nt it more of a matter of ‘human dignity’ rather than ‘elitist bullshit?

“The salient point of the usage, both historically and metaphorically, is that an accusation is false.” — The baggage, however, is that it is as serious as murder and historically the murder of women, the ultimate manifestation of misogyny. That’s why it’s appalling to use such hyperbolic language at all, and the more so in this context. As I’ve explained several times now.

“It’s true that if Hunt and his wife were elitists, that’s how they’d behave. But you still haven’t demonstrated that Hunt and his wife are elitists.” — I linked to an article in which that is exactly how they behaved. Therefore, by modus ponens, your own reasoning entails you agree they are elitists. Assuming you mean “if and only if Hunt and his wife were elitists,” but you must have, since you didn’t state any alternative.

“To me it looks like his wife was expressing indignation at the shabby way they were treated by people they’d thought they’d had a human relationship with.” — How they were treated is only shabby from the POV of an elitist. As I’ve explained several times now.

“I think the danger people are worried about is a “spiral of silence” effect, institutional conformity, etc.” — And gay marriage will lead to marrying children and pets and roadway signs. Slippery slope is a fallacy. You would never have made that argument if Hunt said “the trouble with Negroes is…” That you don’t see them as the same illustrates how pernicious sexism is: that you think when women are treated with the exact same insults as black people, it’s no big deal and should have no consequences, but when it’s blacks (or Jews or Native Americans or the disabled etc. etc.) you’d see at once it’s appalling and grounds for dismissal from positions requiring the holder to express the opposite values. Meditate on why that is.

“[T]here’s something fishy about “feminism” today, and that we ought not to give it a free pass just because of the cachet of the term from its noble achievements of the past.” — There is nothing here about giving feminism a free pass. Least of all because feminism isn’t a person nor a monolith. I’ve already covered this. Catch up on current events.

“[I]ntellectual totalitarianism” = “[that which is] based on identity politics.” — Demonstrating you don’t know what either phrase means.

“Because it seems to have lost sight of individualism as the basis for liberalism.” — No it hasn’t. The importance of individuality and individual differences and individual responsibility and decision-making and facing the consequences of your own individual actions is so frequently discussed and promoted in contemporary feminist writing, I can only conclude you haven’t read any of it. Individualism entails you must accept the consequences of your personal choices. Therefore individualism entails Hunt should accept that his actions have consequences. He doesn’t get a pass from causality.

“If gender equality before the law is established (as it largely is – note that you yourself point out that the institutions Hunt belonged to have gender equality as a principle) and you find that women aren’t represented in equal numbers in x profession, and you think that’s a problem which betokens some subtle form of institutional gender bias that’s yet to be rooted out, then it may be the case that you’ve lost sight of individualism and you’re thinking in terms of groups and abstractions and you are filtering human beings through that classification.” — Nonsense. Bias is a scientifically demonstrated fact: women who are in fact the equals of men are not treated equally in hiring and compensation (I have cited numerous studies conclusively proving this, e.g. when identical resumes are sent to committees with a single thing changed: the gender of the applicant). So this isn’t about ignoring individual accomplishment. It’s about getting people to ignore gender bias so they can recognize individual accomplishment.

“Unequal outcomes may be the result of residual institutional bias, but if they are that ought to be separately determinable; on the other hand, an unequal outcome may just show that women aren’t interested.” — That myth has been empirically refuted numerous times. You cannot be up on feminist literature and not know that.

“As a Bayesian, you can’t rule that out, you have to figure it in.” — As a Bayesian I have to pay attention to the science and empirical case studies. And they demonstrate there is no significant difference in women’s interest when women aren’t pipelined by sexist education systems, and that even when they are a significant amount of the differential outcome is still caused by sexist decisions and behavior and not women’s disinterest. Again, there are countless studies proving this. Catch up to modern science.

No. Because you aren’t stating a sexist stereotype about women.

1] He said the trouble with girls (as a general class of people) was that they fall in love, can’t work productively in result (and therefore would work better if segregated from men), and cry when criticized. That’s a false generalization corresponding to a sexist stereotype of women. That’s what sexism is. It doesn’t matter what else he said. That’s sexist. If all he said was “I can’t work with women because I keep falling in love with them” (implication: he isn’t mature enough to handle a workplace crush or romance) he wouldn’t be a sexist, he’d just be incompetent.

2] To think that being fired from a job you spectacularly fail to perform is so “humiliating” that incompetent workers should be immune from dismissal when they fail to perform their job is elitist bullshit.

The salient point of the usage, both historically and metaphorically, is that an accusation is false. The metaphorical use would be that just as “Witch!” was false historically of women, (so it is proposed) accusation A is false of person x now. I don’t see how that’s in any way demeaning to feminists – unless you assume that anything someone who calls themselves a “feminist” says must be true.

“[…] elites care more about the trivia of their status, than on the actual effects their behavior and choices have on thousands of people of lower status. And to not even notice that, but to express indignance and outrage at your trivial loss of social status and none at the far more substantial effects their words have on the rest of the world, is the very definition of arrogance.”

It’s true that if Hunt and his wife were elitists, that’s how they’d behave. But you still haven’t demonstrated that Hunt and his wife are elitists,.

To me it looks like his wife was expressing indignation at the shabby way they were treated by people they’d thought they’d had a human relationship with.

On the larger point (seeing as I guess we’re nearing the end of the time you allow comments, and this might not be published), I think the danger people are worried about is a “spiral of silence” effect, institutional conformity, etc. Also, that there’s something fishy about “feminism” today, and that we ought not to give it a free pass just because of the cachet of the term from its noble achievements of the past.

Just to clarify: I’m 56 years old; when I was 5 or 6, I rejected the Catholicism I was raised in on the grounds that the Catechism was obviously trying to indoctrinate me into thinking of women as inferior (made from a man’s rib) and I thought that was nonsense because the females around me didn’t seem notably inferior to the males, just different. That’s how feminist I am, natively. Bona fides established, I’m dubious that modern “feminism” is feminism at all, and I’m worried that it’s a doctrinaire form of intellectual totalitariansm. Why? Because it’s based on identity politics. Because it seems to have lost sight of individualism as the basis for liberalism. It’s precisely and only in terms of individualism that the pursuit of equality before the law makes any sense (people are manifestly unequal, equal treatment before the law means treating people equally as rational agents – at which level of abstraction everyone is in fact equal – in any judicial or institutional or societal context).

If gender equality before the law is established (as it largely is – note that you yourself point out that the institutions Hunt belonged to have gender equality as a principle) and you find that women aren’t represented in equal numbers in x profession, and you think that’s a problem which betokens some subtle form of institutional gender bias that’s yet to be rooted out, then it may be the case that you’ve lost sight of individualism and you’re thinking in terms of groups and abstractions and you are filtering human beings through that classification. Unequal outcomes may be the result of residual institutional bias, but if they are that ought to be separately determinable; on the other hand, an unequal outcome may just show that women aren’t interested. As a Bayesian, you can’t rule that out, you have to figure it in. And if they aren’t, that’s no business of yours – or even of any other man’s or woman’s. Humanity is not a topiary garden to be shaped just so. There’s a rabbit hole here; I beg of you, don’t go down it, have a serious re-think.

1] In case the first question is unclear, here is a scenario. Suppose I say , ‘We human beings as a species are not smart enough to know the meaning of life’. Just because half of these human beings happen to be females, will the above statement becomes misogynistic?

1] My specific question is, where is the gender bias here? Where is the implication that men and women are different, forget about their worthiness in science labs ? Where is the discrimination? His statement, right or wrong, is gender neutral to a ‘neutral reader’!

2] Just because a person is not getting a paycheck, can he be humiliated with out being lent an ear? I thought there are certain basic human rights common to the paid as well as unpaid! Yes the analogy holds. Only the gravity of punishment is different. A person who JOKED about his suicidal intentions is being murdered in cold blood!

(1) Demeaning is demeaning. He didn’t say some women. He said “girls” generically (already an insult in context). That he also thinks he is immature is irrelevant to the fact that thinking all women are immature is sexist. Adding that he also thinks he is immature is just worse. Who wants to hire an immature scientist or spokesperson or grant committee member?

(2) I don’t fathom why you think death can produce any analogy to being dismissed from a non-paying honorary position. We don’t execute people for sucking at their job. We fire them. Especially when they aren’t even being paid and aren’t actually doing anything except being a representative of our values, the one thing they just totally failed to do.

1) I am not arguing about Hunt’s merits and don’t want to do him any favor either. I request you to point it out to me where you found the ‘discrimination’ between Hunt & the women. If he meant to demean , he meant to demean both himself & the ladies. If it was meant as a joke, that joke was aimed at both of them.
2) ‘ If he doesn’t want to stand in their way he should have resigned’. Agreed and nobody would have challenged it. But how can one justify dismissing some body with out serving a ‘show cause’, on the grounds that the person wants to resign by himself. Can homicide be justified in the same premises that the victim had plans to commit suicide?