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I did not, I actually did not think about the scientist at all. I was distracted by the tiny cat. CAT!
The tiny super cute cat.
Not only did I not assume that but this is also the first time I’ve stooped so low as to waste time discussing whether or not we think a scientist is a white guy based on their name.
P.S. Has anybody ever in their life met a white guy named Paola?
Wasn’t this cat discovered a year ago?
A quick search says it was just this month.
I’m trying, but where do I accent Ascarrunz? AscarRUnz or AscARrunz?
As-CARR-unz if it’s pronounced as in Spanish
I don’t know a lot of people who assume the name Paola is male. This feels like a strawman argument.
This is definitely a self-tell. They will see an article or comments that only refers to her as a “scientist” with no gender and assume the article or person is referring to them as male because that’s what they think when they see “scientist”.
I simply do not accept people waste calories trying to gender titles that are irrelevant to the article or when the scientist’s name is easily looked up. This reads as strawman ragebait and it’s exhausting.
For context, there is a trend of correcting people saying scientists to “white man”, because articles frame discoveries as “scientists discover x” when “x” had been widely known by the local population since that population got there.
However, this argument is fucking stupid because science has, famously, not categorized and described everything that exists, even if non scientists already know about it.
And most importantly, major publications are specifically not framing this as a discovery, but as a documentation.
That’s kind of self-referential gaslighting. How can you tell if society is progressing in awareness (which it is) if every time you see “scientist” you think “white man” and justify it as assuming they were racist enough to put that? (Not you, the person we are talking about.)
That idea that “scientists discover x” being a substitute is correct, but is well-known today because it is a historical trend that was described by modern academics. Not a rampant current issue (despite single examples one might be able to find).
All I’m saying is that progress starts with the institution and the reader and should meet somewhere in the middle. The reader assuming this is what articles mean downright perpetuates the problem.
I don’t know anyone who would see a hyphenated last name and assume it’s a male.
In this case I would assume that Bolivia uses a system for last names similar to that of Spain, children get a hyphenated last name consisting of the first last name of the father and the first last name of the mother.
It happens to kids who are given both surnames by their parents.
There are many cultures where having two last names or a hyphenated last name is pretty normal for any gender.
Yes, but people are bad at making assumptions that are globally accurate
My only point was that many people wouldn’t think twice about the gender of a person because of a hyphenated last name. It’s not even necessarily that common with married women tbh.
You’re right. I suspect the numbers are very similar for all genders, and most people wouldn’t make any gendered assumptions based on it.
But of those who do make an assumption, I would expect it to favor women due to the way last names are traditionally chosen and how that’s changing culturally in western countries.
For context on the original Tumblr post, which I know I reblogged but can’t seem to find, was discourse surrounding the headlines saying we’ve “discovered” something that already existed, which in turn led to users generalizing these scientists as old white guys who don’t respect where these discoveries are made.
This other post I could find says it better than I.
Yes thank you
Thank you to those who tried to translate for the contextually bereft.
I just thought it was cool to see a picure of the person who identified our new Babu.
what’s… what’s going on here?
New type of cat just dropped
Did it land on its feet?
Most under-rated question. Purrfect.
but what is the source of the “white guy” controversy? where are people reading about this new cat and commenting on the race and gender of the discoverer?
Some people online have started to either seriously or jokingly equate headlines saying “Scientists discovered” with “white guys found out something the natives have known about for years”
This is a specific type of callout post with justifiable ire about that, but to the tone of “for fucks sake not all scientists are white guys. Behold; the scientist who discovered the new cat.”
Female Bolivian scientist to be precise
I feel like this isn’t about a cat
People were assuming that the biologist that discovered the new cat species was a white guy. She’s a Bolivian biologist who is decidedly not a white guy.
Just your average casual sexism weaving it’s way through social media as usual.
People were assuming that the biologist that discovered the new cat species was a white guy.
where?
I’m answering what the OG post is talking about. I can dig up examples just as well as you can, but I’m not at my desk at the moment.
The OP says “this site” and it looks like maybe Tumblr?
So why is tumblr’s issue our problem?
If you didn’t assume she was a white guy, then this isn’t targeting you. You can put your pitchfork down.
I can dig up examples just as well as you can, but I’m not at my desk at the moment.
you should have done that before posting this screenshot out of context. If you’re not willing to verify something is true, then don’t repost it on social media.
I didn’t post the screenshot
I’m not the OP
deleted by creator
Oh. Well, if that’s the whole story, then this is a pretty weak science meme
Eh there’s value in calling out sexist assumptions.
I guess so, it just would be nice to see two people verbally sparring, instead of a one-person narrative about a supposed firestorm
It’s an old trope that people assume any scientist is a white man.
I saw the article before but didn’t read the details, if I had seen the name ending with an -a I would have thought a woman. But that’s also probably because I knew a guy named Paolo.
There is absolutely sexism as well as racism still lurking around in the average person’s assumptions. Seems a connected world hasn’t (yet) fixed that. Might take more time.
yes but what’s all the “white guy” stuff?
It’s in response to an assumption that’s described here, but not included here.
There’s a running assumption that the scientist that discovered this new cat species is a white guy. It’s not.
on tumblr especially, there is a belief that science is essentially only a thing white european/american men do and they impose their vision of the world onto everyone, hence “discovering” a new cat species (which was actually known to locals since forever)
it’s an understandable belief, given the very imperialist and colonialist history of science and the legacy that this leaves behind. but it also completely erases the many contributions to science from other people, like here, where the tilcayo was first formally described by a Bolivian woman, and named after the name local Indigenous people give to the cat
Well explained.
There’s a running assumption
citation needed
If you read the comment section, someone already did:
this is no different than OP, another accusation.
What did I do?
Pspspspspspspspspspspspsps
“Extreamly weird how many people I’ve seen assume she is a white guy”
I thought she was a cat. That’s what we were talking about. White? She is more of a yellow orange with tan to brown spots.
/s
Jane Goodall? Isn’t she well known.
She didn’t identify the cat. She is pretty famous, tho. Also that woman who’s all radioactive.
“That super famous lady whose name I can’t seem to remember” is probably not the best way to defend your post about women being dismissed in science. Marie Curie was a badass, and her husband, who was also a scientist and notable in his field, was lucky to have her. I unironically couldn’t remember his name. I just checked, thinking it might be Pierre but dismissing that as too stereotypical, and it is.
thatsthejoke.jpg
Guess I need one of these…
✈️
Blame the news for conflating “new to science” as being “new to everyone”
Ooh, Kitteh!!
Hey some of us can’t tell races easily, she just looks like any white woman
That’s because her being Bolivian doesn’t mean anything about her race. She could very well just be a white woman.
What if she’s not a woman? or white? or real? Maybe she’s trans. Not transgender… transdimensional.
Maybe they exist in a space that occupies your mind but not on this physical plane? What if all we see of them is but a piece of the knowable whole and our perceptions give it the shape of what we think it should be? Like an iceberg breaching through dimensional surface, forced into focus by our rules of reality.
How else could they discover that which was unknown?
You got your HRT, and then you got your SMRT (Spice Melange Replacement Therapy)
Time to . . . Par-tee-down?
She doesn’t look white to me. She looks hispanic to me.
A person being not black doesn’t make them white.
There’s still disagreement on whether Hispanic means white or not.
Who is considered white changes depending on the attitudes of the day.
Ask the Irish!
People from Hispania (you know where the word HIspanic derives from) aka Spain are considered white. To me it’s weird that the label Hispanic automatically means not white.
I think there’s added confusion because Caucasian ≠ White either. Indians are caucasians (look up pictures of albino Indian people and they just look like white Europeans).
I’ve always chuckled at African American = Black too. My wife went to school with a kid whose parents were African immigrants. Kid entered an African American art contest, won, then had his award taken away because he was white.
She’s Bolivian. That doesn’t say anything about the color of her skin.
