Matt Taylor and his shirt
I have a lot more to say about the furor over Matt Taylor’s shirt, but I don’t have time for a longer post at the moment, although I might write one later.
But for now I’ll just say that I agree with this guy (except for the fact that I didn’t watch the clip; but I’ve followed the story):
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.
Boris Johnson, the author, is presently the mayor of London, by the way. He’s a conservative who replaced the abominable Ken Livingstone, and Johnson has a very interesting history, to say the least.
But I digress.
One thing Johnson leaves out—but I’m a blogger, so I can say it—is that the firestorm against Taylor was orchestrated by feminist women and those of either gender (or should I say “any gender”?) who sympathize with them. Let it also be said that I, who am old enough to remember the actual discrimination women used to sometimes face in the workplace, am in favor of the non-discriminatory goal of feminism (although not the preference for woman that constitutes an overreach) but am almost completely alienated from the rest of its agenda.
And I am also well aware of the left’s enormous role in feminism, both historically and presently. That’s why it’s no accident that Boris Johnson’s three analogies were from Communist countries. That totalitarian thought-control impulse is strong among those feminists who would have there be nothing in the world that runs counter to their vision of what it should be, and who are feeling their own power more and more.
Dude could’ve laughed off the dolts and started a new clothing line. The professionally offended need to get a life.
I used to work on the Air Force missile test range (Cape Canaveral Air Force Station) and I probably wouldn’t wear a shirt like that to work even in casual Florida. However, if somebody commented on my clothing I would politely tell them to stuff it. Mr. Taylor needs to develop some gonads. I thought the same thing with Larry Summers. Larry summers did a great grovel and whine and you see what it got him.
Ray, you’d be surprised how the academicians now dress in my department. Not so much non-PC as Taylor but we’re all a bunch of slobs nowadays.
My husband said, “get me one of those will ya?”
Or better yet let’s dress up KC Hickox in one !
“Mr. Taylor needs to develop some gonads. I thought the same thing with Larry Summers, . . . .”
And we have a winner!
People like Rose Eveleth do what they do because they get the knee-jerk reactions they expect to get (groveling and capitulation). It’s all about power and it’s time that their intended victims deny them that.
I offer that the most acceptable response to Eveleth and her ilk is quite simply: “I couldn’t care less about your opinion of my shirt. If something as simple as my shirt ruins the comet landing for you, it should be a topic for your next meeting with your therapist.”
P.S. I just happen to have a tie not unlike Taylor’s shirt. Over the years I have won some money with it in “ugly tie” contests. It’s the only piece of clothing I own that has ever produced a monetary return. After #shirtstorm I think I should start wearing it instead of entering it into a competition.
As with the case of the Ebola Ms. Kaci, popular sentiment is with Boris Johnson on this, and not with Tweeters like the insufferable Rose Eveleth.
Small comfort for Dr. Taylor, though.
“Small comfort for Dr. Taylor, though.”
Ann,
But IMO that is precisely Dr. Taylor’s problem. To the extent that we live our lives to elicit the approval of others, we are never truly free or independent. I’m not talking anarchy here, just the common sense ability to stand on one’s own feet instead of relying on the approval of others.
Sometimes one simply needs to be able to tell one’s critics to “go get bent.” Dr. Taylor’s problem (IMO) is not tht he didn’t do that, but that he seems incapable of ever doing that.
Isn’t the remedy for Twitter abuse not to be on Twitter?
Hello? Anyone there McFly?
Mike,
The problem is not Twitter, where the abuse initially occurs, but when the Twitter feed is picked up by the media (whether MSM or website) and promulgated. That’s when it’s unjustifiably magnified.
I don’t fault Dr. Taylor for not standing up to this. From all I’ve read, he’s basically a nerdy guy who probably doesn’t have a clue about the “offense” he committed. I think what got to him was that he’d caused the spotlight to be taken away from his team’s remarkable achievement. Much the way athletes cry when they’re the cause of a loss.
I read today that the shirt was a gift from a friend – a woman friend.
Meh.
1. Grown man wears loud shirt on teehee.
2. Some people criticise clothing choice on Twitter.
3. Grown man makes sobbing apology on air.
Not exactly the Gulag.
It is interesting that none of these things could have happened when I worked in science twenty years ago. Twenty years ago someone would have found him a jacket to wear on air. Also, he would not have been wearing a shirt in the workplace that contravenes every dress code in the multiverse. Then of course, there was no twitter, so the critical comments of those at home would not have been amplified and fed back. Thirdly, and finally, men didn’t cry. Especially men in science. They may have been aware that in theory water could come out of the eyes, but it had not happened to them or to any man they knew.
I don’t like Taylor’s shirt and I think it was unprofessional of him to wear it at such an event, but for him to be reduced to tears by the ensuing debacle? A reasonable apology for something this minor, if he were inclined to apologize, might have been something like, “Yes, I’m sorry about that–it wasn’t my intention to make anybody uncomfortable.” But I’ve watched the clip, and that was not the reaction of a man who’d been persuaded by reasoned criticism to admit that he’d made a faux pas.
(As a side note, one of the criticisms leveled at the shirt went something along the lines of, “Clothing like that doesn’t make women feel welcome in STEM.” Since when are men required to clothe themselves in a way that will make women feel welcome? Sounds sexist to me.)
Was Taylor’s violation of decorum extraordinary or habitual? Why didn’t Feltman have a private discussion with him to address her concerns? In my experience, this is how normal human beings settle their differences. That said, I wonder what the Euros think about this confrontation with American liberalism.
LisaM:
Competing factions. Feminists intersect but are not equal to women. Someone correctly characterized feminism as a political movement that invites equal scrutiny. Feminists should welcome full, not selective equality.
As for women and men, we have equal rights limited by our merits and the natural order. Neither women nor men have rights exclusive of the other. Well, not until Roe vs Wade and the pro-choice movement granted women an extra-legal and moral right to commit and contract for abortion of human life for causes other than self-defense. Followed by affirmative action or institutional discrimination, dehumanization of men, etc.
Anyway, the issue is not the shirt (it is unprofessional and inappropriate for the context). It’s not women’s rights. It is overbearing and ruthless feminists, who as neo-neocon noted, are both females and males seeking to create artificial leverage. The shirt has become a symbol of women and men seeking equal (not feminist and other special interest) rights. I wouldn’t have chosen it, but circumstances are what they are. Thanks Feltman.
This amazing feat was an outer space incredible happening kind of like adventures in the Sci-Fi books I used to read when I was a young adult and I ate that stuff up. Most all of the illustrations in that great old 1950’s – 60’s Sci-Fi included half naked busty women fighting off warlords and space monsters and those women were good at doing their ficticious jobs.
Dr. Taylor’s choice of shirts was fitting for those of us who dreamed of going into space and then enjoyed it when our country put the first man on the moon. Vintage Sci-Fi was made of the stuff he choose to wear on the greatest day of his life and I have have seen more skin and worse stuff on women’s magazines in the check out line at the grocery store. What a sorry assed way to mess up a scientific milestone in the history of man and woman kind.
It was probably a gift from his mother — in an attempt to terminate his bachelorhood.
Alternately it was a gift from his significant other — in an attempt to terminate his bachelorhood.
It’s almost certainly silk, and an import to boot.
That the good doctor is socially clueless is to be expected.
His massive tattoo collection makes me wonder, for it’s strikingly out of character in nerd-world. British culture really has changed.
That’s a great piece by Boris Johnson that Neo linked to. I especially liked that he went into detail about the kind of work Taylor and his team did:
Ten years, and then along comes the PC brigade and makes him cry “because he felt he had sinned.”
Johnson’s ending is spot on: “Dr Taylor deserves the applause of our country, and those who bash him should hang their own heads and apologise.”
Instead, though, what we get is Rose Eveleth smugly tweeting two days ago: “Glad to hear @mggtTaylor recognized his mistake & apologized (live stream isn’t working for me) and we can both move along with our lives.”
Where on the *autism spectrum* does Dr Taylor reside ????
Time to put Feminism in the trunk of the car and drive it into the swamp like they did in Psycho.
My good friends, Dr. Taylor and a lot of folks like him live in a different zip code from me and thee. I just retired last year after going back to work to get health insurance to time me over to 65 and then I did some extra because I enjoyed the work and the young 20 and 30 year olds I was working with.
They were smart highly trained and skilled people and some of them, both men and women had some of the strangest tattoos covering their whole arms down to the wrist. My employer was an international large company and mostly they wanted employees to be able to wear long sleeves and high collars when we had company visiting our high security area but other wise they were mostly interested in job performance and quality of work.
These people were not from my zip code at all and on young Hispanic kid, with a goofy haircut and nutty small beard and really ugly tattoos I would have pick out of a line up even if I hadn’t seen him commit a crime. He turned out to be the most valuable person on our team and his ability to learn and even teach newcomers was incredible and he taught me another lesson in not judging a book by the cover.
A lot of young folks, especially brought up in different circumstances have no idea how to dress in a traditional manner and the fact that a shirt could be offensive probably never occurs to them, even in the case of young women who don’t wear enough clothes so they can show off their new tattoos in place I would prefer not seeing.
Anyway, please just chalk this guys shirt up to cultural differences and cut him some slack and appreciate his abilities.
“That totalitarian thought-control impulse is strong among those feminists who would have there be nothing in the world that runs counter to their vision of what it should be, and who are feeling their own power more and more.” neo
Arguably, there is no faction in American society more desirous of the emasculation of American men. Were they to fully succeed in turning American men into pajama boys, where would they look for protection from the barbarian, when they arrive at the gate? In foolish denial, they proclaim there to be no barbarians, only the misunderstood and abused. Reality will in time correct that misapprehension, as it always does.
Much of the fury that heterosexual rabid feminists exhibit is I believe, a reflection of deep unhappiness. They do their best to emasculate men and are left with nothing but contempt for those they partner with because you can’t respect someone who allows you to bully them.
Dr. Taylor was bullied and treated in the same manner that those Slut Walk “ladies” decry. Thought the narrative was that one could wear whatever they wanted and the rest of us are not allowed to react for fear of shaming them.
The poor guy must have felt sucker-punched, after 10 + years of hard work, and days without sleep, his accomplishment was dismissed because of his shirt. I’m not going to fault him for trying to just apologize and move on, but I would loved it to have been more biting, such as:
“I’m sorry *if* my shirt offended some people. Given what we had just accomplished it didn’t occur to me that people would be more interested in what I was wearing. I’m also sorry for making my dear friend, who made this shirt for me, the target of gendered criticism by people who fail to understand her art.”
I’d quip that Feminists want men to all wear non-offensive grey shirts, but they’re offended by those as well.
I thought the apology was reminiscent of the “show trials” under communism. That being said, I have never worked in a place where that shirt would’ve been allowed. Understandably, the bank where I worked would never have allowed that. But also when I worked at an independent research institution, a theater, synagogue, a design firm, a swimming pool… At all of them, had someone wearing that shirt shown up for work, to work in it, they would’ve been asked if they had a another shirt to change into, or sent home to change.
It’s an inappropriate article of apparel to be wearing in perhaps any work situation, except at the company that makes that shirt.
BTW, I totally agree with n.n. and tara above
Thing is: Matt Taylor was playing by the rules of Liberalism 2.0 which told us to “Do Your Own Thing”, “Be Different”, or “F___ Rules”. If this had been the 1980s, he would have been lauded as a flamboyant, cool scientist who bucked dull, conservative, professional dress codes.
What he didn’t realize was that SJWs, having won that war long ago, have moved on to Liberalism 3.0, one of the rules of which is that men shall not comment on nor even cast their gaze upon women, because by definition, that commentary and those gazes are misogynistic, patriarchal, oppressive, and ostracizing.
The only exception to that rule is when men join the protected classes to play the game “Who’s More Sensitive?”.
Men demonstrate their bona fides by finding new, previously overlooked grievances for the protected classes to enjoy, and this is the only way their participation in social endeavors can be condoned.
@ T: “The problem is not Twitter, where the abuse initially occurs, but when the Twitter feed is picked up by the media (whether MSM or website) and promulgated. That’s when it’s unjustifiably magnified.”
Same thing. Isn’t the remedy there not paying attention to the MSM?
I fault the geek here. He made a tearful apology. Why? He’s got no b*lls. He’s another coward metrosexual.
We gotta go Darwin on this one. Let him rot. Like Romney, he refused to take his own side in a fight.
Let the pack of wild dogs eat him then. He’s useless.
Mike Says:
November 17th, 2014 at 7:31 pm
I wonder whether he was threatened with firing by his PC employer, over the bad publicity. He obviously loves his job, and the thought of losing it over a shirt freaked him out. That would be sufficient to explain the tearful apology.
Only about the top 10% of humanity, or even the 3%, can take on hate from the entire world, for their values or goals.
The top 30% or top 40%…. they aren’t strong enough. Being hated by the entire human race, or even a significant portion of it, has certain effects on a socially conscious and conditioned live… I mean human.
It’s not a function of your IQ, social status, or job. Some people are mentally tough, others are not.
This is also linked to warriors and the ability to kill, personally, in battle for personal reasons rather than orders or lacking a choice. A person that can kill, repeatedly, is relatively fine with the hate of the world because killing people renders unto them the hate of the family members of the killed, after all. Some, like Stalin, have to keep killing people or otherwise the people with grudges against him will kill him. So he has to keep killing all the family members too. Very common in tribal warfare days or Genghis Khan era.
So not only do humans dislike killing other humans, there’s an element of survival attached to it. Kill too many, too few, or the wrong person, and society will cut you off at the knees. Humans understand this instinctively, even if they cannot describe it in words. The ability to Refuse the Authority of Society, is the same as killing oneself or surviving a life and death battle. That’s the level of mental fortitude required. How many people truly have passions and beliefs that motivate them strongly enough for them to kill the world to save themselves or kill themselves to save what they value in the world?
Btw, check out Lena Dun Ham’s parents and their art. Check how many playboys the Left holds, in the movie directors of the Santa whatever Vista killer’s father.
These don’t occur in a vacuum. The Left are bridging and dividing the human species into… something.
Suppose one can criticize without opposing? So criticize the shirt, but don’t oppose the man otherwise.
And don’t oppose equality of women, yet criticize feminism in all is abundant absurd absolutist antagonism.
SJWhores are like Obola viruses. You get a few in and then the entire organization, nation, tribe, and culture falls in the end.
How does that work? It works just like the Ebola virus, after all.
Science fiction writer Sarah A. Hoyt has a terrific post about this: No Space for Sewing Circles
There are over 700 comments, too.
The shirt pictured at the top of the post is the wrong one, though. The correct one is “New Gunner Girls” at the top left of this page, which you’ll note is sold out. That’s only happened in the last couple of days. Just coincidental, no doubt. Scroll down the page for “Galactic Gals”, which is the one pictured in the Hoyt post. I guess that one would have actually been more suitable for the occasion.
Alohaland.com is owned by a woman, incidentally.
While this shirt is commercially available, Dr. Taylor’s friend, Elly Prizeman, custom-made his as a gift. Presumably she was able to buy the printed material.
The feminists really stepped in it this time. Tons and tons of women have come to his defense online.
I’m not on Twitter, so I didn’t follow #shirtstorm in real time. I don’t know whether anybody noted that the scantily-clad ladies are all carrying guns, which would indicate that they are ready, willing, and able to take care of themselves.
Didn’t feminism used to be about empowering women?
Another thing that’s potentially very sad about this is that the good doctor may have worn the shirt to give his friend Elly a bit of publicity. I’m thinking this because just a couple of days before the “milk crate gizmo” (Boris Johnson’s words) landed on the comet, Taylor did a Q&A with the Wall Street Journal, during which he gave some free publicity to the guy who did his tattoos, and that guy just happens to be Elly’s husband.
I doubt it rickl. Men don’t cry over the possibility of losing a job.
The Left are never going to change. There is zero possibility of shaming them or stopping them. The only way to stop them is for the people they bully to ignore them or hit them back.
As long as “men” like this cry as soon as someone claims offense, then they will win. They had him pre-trained like a monkey to act this way.
Cheetah gets a banana. He can get lost. He’s a chimp of a man.
Mike,
“Isn’t the remedy there not paying attention to the MSM?”
In theory, yes, but as Yogi Berra supposedly said: “In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
He was subjected to a “tweetstorm”? Merciful heavens!
Like many respondents I wonder why it matters to him. For starters, never read tweets generated by twits. That goes a long way toward liberating you.
But, the bottom line is why would a guy wear a shirt like that if he did not have the guts to stand against the abuse? What was he thinking when he looked in the mirror? “Hey, I want to be an Iconic character, and offend a large segment of the easily offended–but, I want to do it without actually offending anyone to the point that they will criticize me.”
He could have won a lot of points with folks who, although detesting his ward robe choices, nevertheless admired his spunk. He blew it in every way.
These idiot broads are giving women a bad name. And Taylor should man up and tell them to get stuffed.
That shirt was funny: it was a perfect example of every s-f comic book I’ve ever seen, and therefore a perfect thing to wear when achieving such a feat.
It is also sold out from his friend’s online emporium. But more are on the way!
I hate Illinois Feminazis!
I agree with the feminists. If we want to truly elevate the status of women we should force every man to wear a shirt with pictures of Helen Thomas.
Technology can take the people out of the village but not the prehistoric village out of the people.
There is still an effort to maintain social conformity by gossipy nasty old biddies. Thanks to technology, media and academia have assumed this role of the malevolent, hectoring, lecturing, clucker. Academia is especially malicious toward any sort of apostasy and diversity.
Ankle biters are so nasty they should have their own circle in hell. How are these people any different form the cheerleaders who instigate lynchings and with hunts?
Sigh, sorry, should be “witch” hunts.
Bill Whittle once pointed out that, sometimes, you don’t find out until AFTER your ship has hit the iceberg… that the iceberg was hollow the whole time, and never a serious threat to you.
The perpetually-offended Ms. Eveleth got what she wanted — a grovelling apology from the direct object of her Tweeted wrath. But suppose she had not? Had she faced determined opposition, and a Dr. Taylor willing to stand proudly, would she have crumpled like a wet paper napkin? I’d like to think so.
Sooner or later, we’ll have to find out. Certainly these sorts of situation will not improve until someone takes a stand.
Exasperated:
Please! Nasty young biddies.
Daniel in Brookline: “Bill Whittle once pointed out that, sometimes, you don’t find out until AFTER your ship has hit the iceberg… that the iceberg was hollow the whole time, and never a serious threat to you. … Sooner or later, we’ll have to find out. Certainly these sorts of situation will not improve until someone takes a stand.”
That’s why you play the activist game.
As I’ve cited before, my favorite example is the recent Ivy League (specifically, Columbia University) ROTC movement. For 40 years, it was assumed that the Ivies that barred ROTC during the Vietnam War would never re-welcome them. After 9/11, a grassroots campus movement, led by pro-military student activists and joined by professors and alumni, challenged that assumption. The Ivy League pro-military activists won.
Let’s see: The planning went on for 10 years, then another 10-years of flight, during which time at any instant the project space vehicle may have been damaged or destroyed by a collision with any number of items, then you get there, and your little offshoot vehicle bounces and finally comes to rest in a spot where the solar power thingies are in shadow and thus the telemetry, the precious, long-sought and so tantalizingly near, the priceless data, consists of only a few hours of signal, instead of the massive data stream over solar-powered-time that had been planned for the project . . . Maybe the guy was already close to tears.
Much as I wish he had told the feminists that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in their philosophy, and that he would rather reach for the stars than wallow in the mud.
I have no problem with his shirt. I watched the news coverage with a heightened sense of enchantment, and then a haunted frustration at the loss of signal and a deep sympathy for those directly involved with the project.
But then, I majored in Math at UCLA, decades ago, when there must have been few other females in my classes–but I’m not sure, because that it wasn’t something I paid attention to.
It seems very clear to me, that those more interested in a man’s fashion choices than scientific accomplishments should go for a career in fashion rather than STEM. After slut walks, that shirt was quiet and nothing to comment about; unless the only people who can have a sexual interest in women are lesbians.
The apology was from a gentleman, who had no desire to hurt anyone’s feelings, even inadvertently. I have nothing to say as to how appropriate the shirt was at this workplace; that would be for his boss, and I long predate casual Fridays.
“And I am also well aware of the left’s enormous role in feminism, both historically and presently. ”
Neo:
What do you mean? Are you giving credit to the Left for the gains that women have made?
If a pin-up. whether on the wall, or a plane, or on a shirt, makes a woman feel unable to go into STEM, she doesn’t belong there. Thank God our mothers didn’t feel that way — Rosie smiled at all the Betty Grable pinups, picked up her rivet gun and went to work. Rosalind Russell would have just pushed Eveleth out of her way to cover a good story. Barbara Stanwyck would have said, “My dear, why don’t you do something useful and powder your nose.” Hepburn would have turned up her exquisite nose and ignored her, and Lauren Bacall would have said, “”Run along, honey. If I need you, I’ll just whistle.”
Apropo of N.N.’s comments — you’re allowed to tell a male employee his clothing is inappropriate; tell a woman her clothing is inappropriate and you’ve got a sexual harrassment suit on your hands.
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