‘Publicly available’ is not the same thing as ‘public domain.’

Ever heard of copyright law? Luke broke it a number of times on his post. And it involves permission from the copyright holder, not the subject/model.

Even with public domain photos, the photographer should be credited, just like if you were quoting someone’s writing. This is even a requirement for the use of most photos from Wikimedia Commons as well as providing a link, though it is rarely done. That’s what ‘attribution’ means (read the fine print sometime). The photographer (or agency’s) name next to the photo AND a link back to the source.

As far as the people in the photos, of course he should have asked them, out of common courtesy.

As a “here’s where I’m coming from”, I am (like Mr. Muelhauser) a white male in North America (Canada, in my case). I’m heterosexual, married, middle aged. Three kids. I’ve been known to appreciate an attractive woman. I have had in my life close friends who are female and who are, to one degree or another, ardent femininists. I believe that extremism in anything is bad, so I think extremist feminists are as bad for the state of women in society as the worst of the “club them over the head and drag them back to the cave by their hair” misogynist. That’s another discussion…

I think that Mr. Muelhauser is sexist. On Roger Ebert’s blog, in the article “How do they get to be that way?”, I submitted a comment in which I identified two broad forms of racial prejudice – the active, malicious kind that springs from fear, and the passive kind that springs from ignorance where the person has a bunch of misconceptions about the other kind of person, and just doesn’t know any better.

I think the same applies to sexism (or for that matter, any other kind of prejudice). And I think that Mr. Muelhauser falls into the category of passive sexual prejudice from ignorance.

When I read his column, I was struck by how much he spent trying to explain his point of view. I suppose that’s natural, it’s his. But there was little to no attempt on his part to try to get into the head of women. The point I learned about my feminist friends is that if a man meets you and says, “My aren’t you attractive/sexy” or “Why aren’t you married?” or you get whistled at by construction workers as you walk down the sidewalk, then they’re being sexist because they are acting without any regard to how that makes you feel. In short, they are treating you as a sexual object that exists only for their pleasure (in this case, visual). You may enjoy that. You may not mind. It may embarass you. It may infuriate you. The point is that they don’t care which reaction you’ll have.

So when Mr. Muelhauser has his column about sexy scientists, and then tries to explain this as “I’m just appreciating their physical beauty, but I still respect their scientific accomplishments,” it rings hollow. Did he actually ask anyone one that list if they minded being on it? Did he check with some people to find out if the concept itself would be offensive to some? (personally, I’m less inclined to worry about that – there will always be someone who will find offense at anything)

So when he asks if he’s sexist, I’m inclined to say, “Yes”. He’s not the kind to ask someone if they want to be his next mistress; but he doesn’t know how it feels to be wolf-whistled at, or to have their picture posted on a blog entitled “Sexy scientists” or anything like that. And I’ll admit that I don’t either. But I’m at least aware that I don’t, but that some women will feel uncomfortable in a way I don’t understand.

To be sure, we have to work on many things in our culture’s male-female relationships. I’m not advocating a culture of victimhood. But I think that until the issues of male-female cultural dynamics are resolved, we should be striving to express ourselves with a little more respect than we have been doing.

Sheril’s photo is publically available, and Luke used it without her consent. Although there is no law against this (to my knowledge), I suspect most people feel that the photo is still in some sense Sheril’s, and that she should have at least some control over how it is used.

Sheril, if you ask Luke to take down your photo **for whatever reason**, you are asking for a courtesy. And the courteous thing for him to do would be to take it down. I don’t think he has an obligation to do so, but that would be the admirable thing for him to do.

Certainly if it was me who had compiled the list of “sexy scientist” photos, I would happily take down those of any people who asked me to, in recognition that the photo is in some sense their property. Frankly, the reason why they might want it taken down is unimportant. About the only situation in which I would consider *not* complying with such a request is if it was framed as an angry demand.

My opinion on whether the original list was in good taste is that it would have been better to have asked for each featured person’s consent first, but that not doing so was not a major faux pas. I would just as happily support anyone’s right to make a “Scientists I Don’t Like” page and put up a list of photos and names on it, providing no defamatory statements about them were made.

Finally, people who complain that the list (a) does not contain enough men or (b) fails to show off other aspects of these women besides their physical attractiveness and so fails to reduce gender boundaries are missing the point I think. By all means express your opinions, but recognise that an individual’s private expressions on his or her blog are not constrained by your sense of taste, and nor should they be. In terms of rights, the only real question here is who owns a photo of themselves that is freely available on the internet, and to what extent should they be able to control what others can do with it.

But here is my current position. Luke was not sexist in posting the pics of Sexy Atheists, even without seeking permission; those were cheesecake pictures of women publicly trying to look sexy – being sexy is what they do professionally. But then when he decided to do a followup series of women for whom sexiness is not a professional attribute, but only an ancillary personal attribute – well, at that point he began demonstrating that he is stupid and insensitive to a degree that can certainly be called sexist.

Now if Sexy Atheists were not already out there, and if the rocket scientist, hospital scientist, and cowboy had been omitted from the scientist listing, then I would be inclined to advise Sheril to react cheerfully, just like Abbie did. And I would advise Abbie to publish a more flattering photo in case something like this happens again. My (male) opinion. You asked.

Tristan, Naoki Yamazaki is the 2nd woman astronaut from Japan. Chiaki Mukai was the first. She flew twice, once in 1994 and again in 1998.

But in any case, being the first or only woman in any field is always going to make headline news for the sheer “who would have believed a woman could climb a mountain/fly an airplane/do math” novelty of the event. But I don’t think that was the point you were trying to make.