Looking the Wrong Way

Written by Julia Rafaelle T. Martinez

Mankind has once again reached a milestone that will change the world as we know it. On the recent November 12, 2014, an unmanned probe on a moving comet called 67P or Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The probe, named Rosetta, after the Rosetta Stone, had taken seven hours before deploying a smaller robot called Philae on the comet. Landing the probe, who had been tailing the comet for ten years in space, had been difficult due to the fact that the comet does not slow down or stop and that it has a rotating axis; in other words, the landing point was constantly on the move.


I had first heard the big news when I was eating dinner on the night of the landing itself. My first thought had been: achievement unlocked for humankind. For me, this was really important step to take if we really want to know more about this universe we leave in. I saluted the people who made this happen. It was later on did I realize how not all people thought like me.

Another issue had popped up a few days later. Matt Taylor, a man who had been a significant puzzle piece to the successful Rosetta mission, was trending on social medias like Twitter for something that, in my opinion, is completely out of topic to his achievement. Dr. Taylor, who had appeared on television after the Philae landing, was being thrown rotten tomatoes at for wearing a gaudy shirt featuring bondage and semi-dressed women wielding guns. Many tweets had been complaints and hurtful comments to the scientist and his choice of clothing. One of them was: 'I don't care what scientists wear. But a shirt featuring women in lingerie isn't appropriate for a broadcast if you care about women in STEM(science, technology, engineering and mathematics),' astrophysicist Katie Mack had tweeted. ‘You think a shirt like this makes women feel welcome? I don't.’ Mack had tweeted in reply to another person.'Matt Taylor causing thousands of people to choke on their cornflakes this morning.' tweeted another.

And what do you think happens to an issue which people can easily access through the internet? Intense shame and embarrassment to the man being dissed. In another interview about the Rosetta, it was vividly shown on TV that Dr. Taylor was depressed and ashamed. When asked about the issue, he had burst in tears and had apologized about the shirt. This angered me for one, main reason.

First, is that this man was the leader of the scientists who had just given a massive contribution to space science, not to the mention the chance he just gave us an extremely rare view and experience of ‘being and seeing’ on a comet that is now hurtling around somewhere in the galaxy far, far away. Why would people choose to focus on his shirt instead of the success of the Rosetta mission? In my opinion, the shirt maybe be sexist but why judge a man by what he wears? It is not like every single person on this planet who wears plain, unsexist shirts has the ability to do something like be the FIRST to land a freaking space probe on a freaking comet. He was the first and only one to do this in the history of mankind. I think that Dr. Taylor is an awesome person to be able to do that as I cannot even imagine how much work and patience it needed to land the Philae robot. And there must have been uncountable trials he had to face just to deliver his work to the development of space science.

Now I ask of you, to take a stand. I am one of the few who are on the side of this scientist in need of a hand to get up. One supported had tweeted about Matt Taylor, which I agree with: ‘a proper cool scientist’’ and 'definitely not boring’. I mean, where can you find a scientist who has a tattoo of the Philae on 67P on his arm? Another had tweeted: 'Dr Matt Taylor is what every scientist should look like - rad shirt, sleeve tattoos. Rad’.

I believe that Dr. Taylor does not deserve the pies that are being thrown in his face. He deserves to be the one who is standing on an international stage, proud and with a clean reputation. So what if he wears a shirt that has a bad meaning? It should not affect his achievements or dirty his name. I say, we get our smartphones, laptops, computers and other gadgets and launch an attack, defending Dr. Matt Taylor from the enemies: the idiots who are too blind to see past someone’s shirt.