London Mayor Boris Johnson is defending a Nobel laureate who resigned from his jobs at two scientific organizations because of a remark many deemed as "sexist".
Johnson has called for scientist Sir Tim Hunt to be reinstated at the Royal Society and University College London, where he was asked to resign after his remark about women in the field of science prompted backlash online.
"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," Hunt said in a comment at a conference that many branded as sexist and which sparked furious reaction across the Internet.
The 72-year old Hunt, who became a Nobel prize winner in 2001 for his work on cell division, was forced to leave his jobs following people's negative reaction to his comment, albeit he apologized for his statement, saying it was meant to be humorous.
Johnson described the response to Hunt's remark as an overreaction, saying that it was not wrong to mention the gender differences between men and women. The mayor said that it is a scientific fact that women tend to cry more than men.
At an event in London, Johnson said that Hunt was a victim of "the ferocious stinging bees of the Twittersphere."
In an article he wrote for the Telegraph, the mayor said that it should not be an offense to point out gender difference. He cited that Ad Vingerhoets, a professor with the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology at the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and considered an expert on crying, has shown that women cry between 30 to 64 times per year while men cry only between six and 17 times for the same period. The expert likewise says the average time that women cry is six minutes while men, on the other hand, cry only between two to three minutes.
"The first question to ask, when someone is accused of saying something unacceptable - even in a semi-satirical way - is whether or not that statement is true, " Johnson wrote. "Is there any foundation to this casual assertion, that women cry more readily than men?"
The Conservative MP said that Hunt only did what he has been doing all his life and that is to point out natural phenomena that he has observed. The mayor also said that Hunt does not deserve to be pilloried and should be reinstated in his academic positions.
