Political Correctness Outrage

"There will be situations and have been situations where, largely, men will see themselves as able to press themselves onto our women members."
"It would be a trite answer, but it's because we are biologically wired in a certain way, and there will be those who believe it is a reasonable thing to press themselves and their desires on others."
"We need to do everything we can to deal with any issues that stand in the way of someone coming forward [to report sexual misconduct]."
"I think what we've not been able to get across is that we've gotten much much better than we were years ago."
Chief of the Defence Staff General Tom Lawson, Ottawa

Chief of the National Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson prepares to appear at a House of Commons committee on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Wednesday, June 17, 2015. (Fred Chartrand / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

"At the most serious extreme, these reports of sexual violence highlighted the use of sex to enforce power relationships and to punish and ostracize a member of a unit."
"[A] hostile sexualized environment [exists in the military, from sexual innuendo to] dubious relationships [between women and their male superiors]."
Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps -- report on the Canadian Armed Forces' 'underlying sexual culture'

"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 criticize them, they cry."
Professor Sir Tim Hunt, British biologist, Nobel Laureate, 72

Sir Tim Hunt has been forced to resign his position at University College London over the female faux-pas -- Mail Online

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"The first step is to recognize that these emotional differences do indeed exist, and to be honest about them. Sir Tim Hunt was doing what he has done all his life -- pointing out a natural phenomenon he had observed He did not deserve to be pilloried, and should be reinstated forthwith to his academic positions."

Boris Johnson, London (a man of uncommon good sense)

That little bit of truth delivered with a dollop of wry humour by Sir Tim Hunt went, as they say, viral. Following the delivery of that statement and the infuriated reaction of the politically correct left that permeates academia and much of society today echoing feminist sensitivities, the good professor has suffered the indignity of having been stripped of honourary positions at University College London and the Royal Society. We simply cannot have anyone so discredited honoured now, can we?

Well, in actual fact, the genders are indeed biologically differentiated. Men and women act differently from one another, think differently, appear different physically and react to one another's physical differentiation differently, depending on which sex they represent. Both can be amorous, though women tend to be more cautious and men more aggressively demanding. And when men and women are thrown together in workplace situations, social situations can arise from them.

Revelations of sexual misconduct on the part of men toward women in the Armed Forces are hardly surprising; they reflect the general population on steroids. Men in uniform tend for the most part to be more physically assertive and hormonally charged; their very profession ramps up their testosterone. When women were first introduced into the military it was predicted that complications in reaction would ensue, and they did. This is by no means a Canadian phenomenon; it happens all over the world.

This doesn't excuse the violence, the oppression, the threats that emanate from some men toward some women, but it does express a situation of endowments with which nature has addressed the genders for the purpose of inciting to procreation, as animals. General Lawson simply stated forthrightly what he knows to be the truth of biology and interactions between the sexes. For that he too has been pilloried.

Causing him to attempt to explain himself further by issuing an apology for "awkward characterization" of the issue, as he put it. He will not be forgiven in certain quarters. The living truth, as evolutionary biologists point out, is that some men inherit traits predisposing them to sexual violence. Society trusts that social mores impinge upon them to restrain their impulses, that cultural and workplace influences can cause them to moderate their actions, but this is not always so.

Professor Hunt has seen his academic credentials trashed because of a light-hearted comment on the 'differences' between the sexes. At the age of 72, it has been made clear to him that honours in recognition of the outstanding scientific work he is known for internationally do not balance the horror of his statement on the scale of social justice. And he must now accommodate himself to carrying a legacy other than those he earned with distinction.

General Tom Lawson is on the cusp of retiring as Chief of the Defence Staff; his replacement has been named. He can only hope that this injudicious statement of his however reflective of reality, given the tenor of times, will not haunt his future, nor blacken his legacy. Sometimes a tempest in a teapot becomes a hurricane of nasty wretchedness, unearned but unstoppable.