SfN 2012: Professors behaving badly

I don’t actually know Dario Maestripieri although I have read some of his scientific work now and again over the years. His areas of interest include primate social behavior as well as mating systems and reproductive strategies. Apparently his interest extends to the human primate.

Professor Maestripieri has posted a rather idiotic observation about the Society for Neuroscience meeting and his apparent disappointment in the lack oI eye-candy available for his personal enjoyment. Now yes, he posted this on Facebook which is nominally private-ish. But clearly he has enough “friends” that someone was offended and saw fit to screen capture and send it around.

There is a very simple response here. Don’t do this. It’s sexist, juvenile, offensive and stupid. For a senior scientist it is yet another contribution to the othering of women in science. In his lab, in his subfield, in his University and in his academic societies. We should not tolerate this crap.

Professor Maestripieri needs to apologize for this in a very public way and take responsibility for his actions. You know, not with a nonpology of “I’m sorry you were offended” but with an “I shouldn’t have done that” type of response.

UPDATE: I have now heard this tale from about a half dozen independent directions. Several people expressed thanks to me and mentioned their channel on the info hesitated to publicize for fear of some sort of retaliation. Well, the cat is well and truly out of the bag and there are multiple lines of revelation on this. If you are one of the original sources, you have company. I thank you all for bringing this behavior to light.

As always, feel free to sock up in the comments, use something other than your usual in the email field though.

See Janet’s post here.

And Isis’ post.

And Jezebel.