Evolving wrote:And all of us on this side of the argument (in this thread) have been at pains to stress that.
I for one never got the impression that any of the people I have been arguing with, had any issue about what Matt Taylor personally thinks of women.
My gripe has been with the people who maintain that the shirt symbolizes a systemic view on women as nothing but sex objects (or that such views are particularly over represented in STEM fields), or that wearing the shirt reinforces this misconception. I think the only point that has some merit is the last one, that the shirt might reinforce this view. But then instead of complaining about the shirt, I think it should be explained that it is in point of fact
not what these people take it to be.
It seems to me this perceived symbolism is forcefully extracted through some highly unwarranted extrapolations. I get the impression that things are being assumed about what naked or scantily clad women symbolise in general, combined with the well-known fact that there is male-favoring inequalities in things like leadership positions and financial rewards/salary(and more). But this is where I think the complaint about the shirt disconnects from reality, because it is taken as some sort of symptom of this latter problem.
As I wrote earlier in the thread, in hindsight it is rationally undeniable that wearing the shirt was a bad PR decision given the response it has produced, but ultimately I think the fault lies with the people who became outraged or turned off by it, because in my view they have a skewed picture of reality with respect to what such a shirt symbolizes.
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