• Avicenna@programming.devEnglish
    2 months

    I did not, I actually did not think about the scientist at all. I was distracted by the tiny cat. CAT!

        • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2 months

          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.

          • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2 months

            People were assuming that the biologist that discovered the new cat species was a white guy.

            where?

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              2 months

              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?

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  2 months

                  If you didn’t assume she was a white guy, then this isn’t targeting you. You can put your pitchfork down.

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 months

        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?

        • NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2 months

          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.”

  • Alpha71@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2 months

    We discover a new species. what’s the first thing we do? We put it in a cage.

    Humanity in a nutshell.

    • Optional@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      She didn’t identify the cat. She is pretty famous, tho. Also that woman who’s all radioactive.

      • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.caEnglish
        2 months

        “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.

        • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2 months

          *Marie Skłodowska Curie. People often shorten her name (and I’ll be honest, “Marie Curie” is fun to say) but she used both surnames.

  • Kind_to_Everyone@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2 months

    I don’t know a lot of people who assume the name Paola is male. This feels like a strawman argument.

    • Caesium@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      yeah I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone confusing who the scientist is. I also don’t get why anyone would think an event happening in Bolivia would include white people

      • wieson@feddit.orgEnglish
        2 months

        It’s about the story: scientists discovered a new cat species and named it Tilcayo, after the name the locals call it.
        Reactions were:

        • So it hasn’t been discovered, just put on an official list
        • Do you mean discovered for white guys?
        • Finally someone asked the locals!

        Second type of reaction is probably what caused OPs post

    • Donkter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2 months

      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”.

      • Derpenheim@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2 months

        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.

        • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2 months

          And most importantly, major publications are specifically not framing this as a discovery, but as a documentation.

          • EvilHankVenture@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2 months

            Yes, they discovered that it was a new species. If I had a rock on my desk for 20 years then one day ran a test that discovered it was a new element, I could say I discovered a new element even though I knew the rock existed.

  • Kowowow@lemmy.caEnglish
    2 months

    Hey some of us can’t tell races easily, she just looks like any white woman

    • blockheadjt@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2 months

      She doesn’t look white to me. She looks hispanic to me.

      A person being not black doesn’t make them white.

        • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2 months

          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.

          • village604@adultswim.fanEnglish
            2 months

            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.

            • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
              2 months

              Elon Musk is African-American. I went to high school with a guy who was a Muslim from Africa. Guess what, also white and from South Africa.

              (Yeah I know white South Africans are anthropologically generally more recently from Europe than Africa; this is just a criticism of the term “African-American”.)

        • frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish
          2 months

          Who is considered white changes depending on the attitudes of the day.