Tim Hunt là một giáo sư nổi tiếng, nay đã 72 tuổi, từng đoạt giải Nobel y khoa năm 2001, nhưng chỉ vì một câu nói vô duyên và kì thị giới tính mà nay bị mang tiếng xấu. Ông nói rằng nữ giới và nam giới nên cách li trong môi trường nghiên cứu khoa học, vì nữ giới hay yếu đuối, ướt át, và làm cho nam giới sao lãng công việc. Chỉ một câu nhận xét như thế mà làm dậy sóng dư luận, và nhiều người yêu cầu ông từ chức. Thật ra, ông cũng biết thân, nên đã từ chức giáo sư danh dự của University College London (UCL). Đúng là vạ miệng!
Trong một hội nghị về truyền thông khoa học (World Conference of Science Journalists) ở Hàn Quốc vào tuần qua, ông nói trước cử toạ rằng "Tôi muốn nói với các bạn vấn đề của các nàng. Ba điều xảy ra khi họ ở trong lab: bạn phải lòng với họ, họ phải lòng với bạn, và khi bị phê bình họ khóc". Theo những người có mặt trong hội nghị thì sau câu phát biểu đó, cả hội trường im lặng lạnh như đá, nhưng chỉ vài phút sau thì các trang mạng xã hội như twitter dậy sóng. Một giảng viên nữ thuộc Đại học City (London) viết rằng Tim Hunt nghĩ rằng chúng ta (ý nói nữ giới) vẫn sống trong thời đại Victoria. Đến thứ Tư tuần qua thì ông tự đệ đơn từ chức Giáo sư danh dự của UCL.
Trong một bài trên The Guardian, Tim Hunt có thanh minh câu nói đó. Ông thú nhận là có thốt lên câu đó, nhưng không có ý xấu. Tuy nhiên, ông nói thế nào thì lời nói đã thốt ra và đi vào "record". Tôi không rõ ông ấy nói đùa hay thật, vì nhà khoa học hay nói đùa trong hội nghị. Nhưng nếu đùa mà chọn chủ đề này là quá nhạy cảm. Đó là chưa nói chính ông cũng thú nhận là ông nổi tiếng là một gã ma cô trong khoa học. Những câu như thế chẳng giúp gì cho ông cả. Thật ra, trước đây cũng đã có hai người nổi tiếng khác bị vạ miệng vì đề cập đến nữ giới. Một người là hiệu trưởng Đại học Harvard mà sau này cũng từ chức. Một ông khác, cũng từng đoạt giải Nobel, so sánh các nhà báo nữ và nam khi viết về khoa học; ông này cũng bị chỉ trích dữ dội.
Tôi có vài nghiên cứu sinh là nữ, và cũng từng chứng kiến họ khóc. Kinh nghiệm làm tôi sốc là một em nghiên cứu sinh người Tàu tên là MC, một hôm em ấy nhận được lá thư từ chối từ ban biên tập với những phê bình khá nặng nề, rồi em ấy ... khóc. Lúc đó, tôi lúng túng không biết làm gì vì mình chưa chuẩn bị cho tình huống này. Vỗ vai thì không dám, nên tôi chỉ biết khuyên chung chung. Sau này, người ta bắt tôi phải đi học một khoá về cách quản lí nữ nhân viên. Nhưng tôi không đồng ý với ông Hunt là cần phải cách li họ với nam đồng nghiệp. Đúng là có những mối tình nảy nở trong lab, nhưng tôi thấy kết cục đều rất có hậu, chứ không làm sao lãng công việc.
Thật ra, những gì ông Hunt nói phản ảnh một vấn đề lớn hơn trong khoa học: bình đẳng nam nữ. Nói trắng ra là nữ giới chịu nhiều thiệt thòi trong khoa học hơn nam giới. Bạn thử tưởng tượng, một em nghiên cứu sinh 23-24 tuổi (tức trong độ tuổi lập gia đình), sau khi xong tiến sĩ ở tuổi 28 (ở VN xem là "già" rồi), và qua một giai đoạn hậu tiến sĩ thì đã quá 30 tuổi. Nhiều người đã có gia đình lúc đó. Sau giai đoạn hậu tiến sĩ, họ phải cạnh tranh với nam giới để được thăng tiến trong các nấc thang khoa bảng, nhưng cạnh tranh ở thế bất lợi hơn vì họ phải lo cho con cái và "đấng" ông chồng, và đủ thứ công việc không tên. Với vị thế như vậy, làm sao họ có thể cạnh tranh trong việc nghiên cứu, công bố, hội nghị, tạo uy danh so với nam giới? Do đó, không ngạc nhiên khi thấy trong số những người leo đến chức danh "giáo sư" rất ít nữ giới.
Đó là kinh nghiệm thực tế tôi thấy trong trường của tôi, và tôi nghĩ ở VN tình hình có khi còn tồi tệ hơn. Trong mấy lần phong chức danh giáo sư ở VN, tôi thấy số ứng viên nữ giới chỉ đếm đầu ngón tay. Càng lên cao bậc thang khoa bảng, nữ giới rơi rụng càng nhiều. Dĩ nhiên, không phải họ dở hay bất tài; sự thật là họ phải cạnh tranh trong tư thế có 1 tay (vì tay kia lo cho gia đình, con cái). Vấn đề là mình phải làm gì để nâng cao sự bình đẳng nam nữ trong khoa bảng. Ở vài nơi, người ta có hẳn chính sách để khuyến khích nữ giới tham gia khoa học và công nghệ, nhưng theo tôi biết thì vẫn chưa mấy thành công.
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| Tim Hunt with his wife Mary Collins at their home in Hertfordshire. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer Tim Hunt: ‘I’ve been hung out to dry. They haven’t even bothered to ask for my side of affairs’ In an exclusive interview Tim Hunt and his wife Professor Mary Collins tell how their lives fell apart after his quip about women in science went viral on Twitter As jokes go, Sir Tim Hunt’s brief standup routine about women in science last week must rank as one of the worst acts of academic self-harm in history. As he reveals to the Observer, reaction to his remarks about the alleged lachrymose tendencies of female researchers has virtually finished off the 72-year-old Nobel laureate’s career as a senior scientific adviser.
What he said was wrong, he acknowledges, but the price he and his wife have had to pay for his mistakes has been extreme and unfair. “I have been hung out to dry,” says Hunt.
His wife, Professor Mary Collins, one of Britain’s most senior immunologists, is similarly indignant. She believes that University College London – where both scientists had posts – has acted in “an utterly unacceptable” way in pressuring both researchers and in failing to support their causes.
Certainly the speed of the dispatch of Hunt – who won the 2001 Nobel prize in physiology for his work on cell division – from his various academic posts is startling. In many cases this was done without him even being asked for his version of events, he says. The story shows, if nothing else, that the world of science can be every bit as brutal as that of politics.
His treatment also demonstrates the innate cruelty of social media, and in particular the savage power of Twitter, which first revealed the scientist’s transgression. The tale also demonstrates how PR departments, in trying to protect the reputation of institutions, often do so at the expense of the individuals who work for or make up those bodies.
Hunt and Collins live in a whitewashed cottage in rural Hertfordshire. The main room is crammed, like the rest of the house, with books, mostly on science, cooking and gardening. There is an original signed Warhol picture on one wall and a pair of medieval prints that once belonged to Hunt’s father, Richard, an Oxford historian.
The house has a beautifully tended garden that overlooks rolling hills and which features some particularly healthy-looking quince trees.
“When Tim is not travelling for work, he does all the shopping and the cooking,” says Collins. “He is actually a great cook. Our daughters both prefer his meals to mine. And he is certainly not an old dinosaur. He just says silly things now and again.”
Sitting on a sofa with his wife, Hunt tries to explain why he made the remarks that got him into trouble while Collins groans in despair as he outlines his behaviour. Hunt had been invited to the world conference of science journalists in Seoul and had been asked to speak at a meeting about women in science. His brief remarks contained 39 words that have subsequently come to haunt him.
“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry,” he told delegates.
“I stood up and went mad,” he admits. “I was very nervous and a bit confused but, yes, I made those remarks – which were inexcusable – but I made them in a totally jocular, ironic way. There was some polite applause and that was it, I thought. I thought everything was OK. No one accused me of being a sexist pig.”
Collins clutches her head as Hunt talks. “It was an unbelievably stupid thing to say,” she says. “You can see why it could be taken as offensive if you didn’t know Tim. But really it was just part of his upbringing. He went to a single-sex school in the 1960s. Nevertheless he is not sexist. I am a feminist, and I would not have put up with him if he were sexist.”
Hunt may have meant to be humorous, but his words were not taken as a joke by his audience. One or two began tweeting what he had said and within a few hours he had become the focus of a particularly vicious social media campaign. He was described on Twitter as “a clueless, sexist jerk”; “a misogynist dude scientist”; while one tweet demanded that the Royal Society “kick him out”.
The next morning, as he headed for Seoul airport, Hunt got an inkling of the storm that was gathering when BBC Radio 4’s Today programme texted requesting an interview. He recorded a clumsily worded phone message. “It wasn’t an interview. It was 1am British time and I was just asked to record a message. It was a mistake to do that as well. It just sounded wrong.”
After Today was broadcast, and while Hunt was still flying back, Collins was called by University College London. She is a professor and a former dean there, while Hunt was an honorary researcher.
“I was told by a senior that Tim had to resign immediately or be sacked – though I was told it would be treated as a low-key affair. Tim duly emailed his resignation when he got home. The university promptly announced his resignation on its website and started tweeting that they had got rid of him. Essentially, they had hung both of us out to dry. They certainly did not treat it as a low-key affair. I got no warning about the announcement and no offer of help, even though I have worked there for nearly 20 years. It has done me lasting damage. What they did was unacceptable.”
The story appeared in newspapers round the world under headlines that said that Hunt had been sacked by UCL for sexism. Worse was to follow. The European Research Council (ERC) – Hunt served on its science committee – decided to force him to stand down in view of his resignation from UCL. “That really hurt. I had spent years helping to set it up. I gave up working in the lab to help promote European science for the ERC.”
At the same time, their house was doorstepped by reporters, says Collins. “One of them said that his paper had found my ex-husband.
He said it was all very juicy and I needed to get a response in. I didn’t, but I still had a sleepless night. In fact, it wasn’t that juicy. It was a story of a woman, me, who divorced one man and then married another, Tim. But it was still horrible.”
In addition, bodies such as the Royal Society – of which Hunt is a fellow – were pressing for him to make a fuller apology for his remarks in Korea. Within two days, the pressure had become desperate for both scientists. “Tim sat on the sofa and started crying,” says Collins. “Then I started crying. We just held on to each other.”
By the end of the week, however, several female scientists and commentators had written or come forward to defend Hunt, including plant biologist Professor Ottoline Leyser, of Cambridge University and a fellow FRS.
“Tim taught me as an undergraduate and I have known him for years,” she told the Observer. “It is quite clear to me that he is not a sexist in any way. I don’t know why he said those silly things, but the way his remarks have been taken up implies that women in science are having a horrible time. That is not the case. I, for one, am having a wonderful time.”
Hunt was also supported by Dame Athene Donald, professor of experimental physics at Cambridge, who described Hunt’s sacking from the ERC as hugely sad.
“During the time I worked with him he was always immensely supportive of the ERC’s work around gender equality. His off-the-cuff remarks in Korea are clearly inappropriate and indefensible, but … he has worked tirelessly in support of young scientists of both genders.”
Hunt is under no illusions about the consequences. “I am finished,” he says. “I had hoped to do a lot more to help promote science in this country and in Europe, but I cannot see how that can happen. I have become toxic. I have been hung to dry by academic institutes who have not even bothered to ask me for my side of affairs.”
Nor has Collins fared well. “My relations with University College have been badly tarnished,” she adds. “They have let Tim and I down badly. They cared only for their reputation and not about wellbeing of their staff.”
For Hunt’s part, there is only one aspect of this grim affair that offers him any solace. “I think I may have more time for the garden now – especially the quince trees.”
Source: The Guardian (London, New England)
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