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Female scientists post 'distractingly sexy' photos

  • Published
    11 June 2015
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What's popular and why

Female scientists have been sharing "distractingly sexy" photos of themselves after a feminist website encouraged them to respond to comments by a Nobel laureate.

Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt was roundly criticised when he detailed his thoughts about the "trouble with girls" at a conference of science journalists. "Three things happen when they are in the lab," he said, "you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry."

He said his comments were meant to be "light-hearted, ironic comment", but whatever the intention, it went over like a heavy metallic dirigible in a field with some widely acknowledged gender issues, external. Hunt has now resigned from his position at University College London.

On Thursday the hashtag #DistractinglySexy, external began taking off, with more than 10,000 tweets in a matter of hours. The trend was prompted by a shout-out by the feminist online magazine Vagenda, external which urged female scientists to share pictures of themselves at work. WARNING: the photos below are not graphic in the slightest.

Lab coats were a common theme ...Image source, @StephEvz43
Image caption,

Lab coats were a common theme ...

... with many making the point that science gear is about as far from distracting as you can getImage source, @dspitzzz
Image caption,

... with many making the point that science gear is about as far from distracting as you can get

Some men joined in as wellImage source, @FliesinLakes
Image caption,

Some men joined in as well

Another common theme was notable female scientists, such as Marie Curie, the first female Nobel Prize winnerImage source, @AmyRemeikis
Image caption,

Another common theme was notable female scientists, such as Marie Curie, the first female Nobel Prize winner

And of course there were plenty of wry jokesImage source, @scientist_me
Image caption,

And of course there were plenty of wry jokes

In most Twitter storms over sexism there's usually a debate of sorts but in this case nearly all of the most popular and repeated tweets, external mentioning Hunt are critical of his comments.

Blog by Mike Wendling, external

Next story: The pitched battle over the European Games

baku2015Image source, STOYAN NENOV

The European Games kicks off in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, on Friday. It's the first Olympic-style sporting festival for the continent - but a hashtag first used by organisers and originally meant to celebrate the games has been turned on its head by human rights campaigners. READ MORE

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, external, and find us on Facebook, external. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.

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