I've been amazed at the small explosion over Tommaso Dorigo's post concerning Lisa Randall's talk at a recent conference at CERN. He described her physically as well as the feel of the room when she began to present, and then proceeded to give a detailed account of the physics. Asymptotia denounces him, Arcadian Functor defends him. Lots of debate about the objectification of women, the PC police, "sexophobia," and Italian culture in the comments on those three blogs lately. The angriest arguments have been concerned with what women face in this male-dominated field, most of them centered around women as eye-candy. I get the impression that Dorigo was surprised by the sudden storm, and his main defense has been (as a clever but unknown 18-year-old pointed it out), that the subtitle of his blog is "private thoughts of a physicist and chessplayer." that Lisa Randall is a public figure and, like other celebrities, is open to such comments. [edited
brought to you by the American Physical Society