Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Persistence of the Bad Male Apology

Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Persistence of the Bad Male Apology


Advocates for survivors of sexual assault say statements like Tyson's are rarely about apologizing to alleged victims.


On Saturday, celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson published a lengthy Facebook post responding to multiple sexual misconduct allegations: One that surfaced earlier that week, claiming that he'd made inappropriate advances to a female production assistant; another that he'd groped a woman during a photo-op nearly a decade ago; and a third, that had been hanging over him for some time, an allegation that he'd drugged and raped a female classmate in graduate school.


The post, which he titled "On Being Accused," goes into the particulars of his encounters with each accuser, bookended by an introduction and, later, an "overview," in which Tyson laments that he and other men are "presumed to be guilty by the court of public opinion" and ruined by emotions that "bypass due process." Buried in these posts are tepid near-apologies. Tyson says one allegation against him which took place after a conference in 2009, from Katelyn Allers, an associate professor at Bucknell University, had been the result of a misunderstanding: Whereas Allers had found Tyson's physical inspection of the Pluto tattoo on her shoulder—which she says involved him putting his hands up her dress—a violation of her "bodily autonomy," Tyson said he'd only been interested in getting a better look at the tattoo. "That was never my intent and I’m deeply sorry to have made her feel that way," Tyson writes. "Had I been told of her discomfort in the moment, I would have offered this same apology eagerly, and on the spot."

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Such is the state of the male apology, a phenomenon that's emerged with the rise of the #MeToo movement. According to its critics, the male apology—by which I mean, very specifically, men's response to allegations of misconduct—is characterized, first and foremost, by a lack of any genuine remorse. Last year, multiple outlets published year-end roundups of the worst apologies of 2017, and, by way of summary, Vox writer Anna T. Donahue called the year's male apologies an "utter failure." Among those to receive mention in these critiques was Louis CK, who, while admitting that his accusers were telling the truth, said the source of his power over them was derived from their admiration from him. Kevin Spacey used his public statement of apology to come out as a gay man. Harvey Weinstein said he came of age during a different time, when "all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different." Chef and restaurateur Mario Batali signed off his apology, which he sent in an email newsletter, with the suggestion that his readers try his recipe for pizza dough cinnamon rolls.

"The intention of these public statements is never to apologize to the victim," Sage Carson, an advocate from sexual assault survivor advocacy group Know Your IX, tells Broadly. "It's always to explain to the world why they should be forgiven or why they're in the right." The trend persists, and without any apparent improvements, according to Carson. She notes that Tyson's apology shares some noticeable qualities with its antecedents. Like CK and Batali, Carson says, Tyson finds opportunities to tout his achievements. He talks about his "professional history with the demotion of Pluto" when addressing the groping allegation against him, and mentions the "grueling adventure-marathon" that was finishing astrophysics graduate school. And then he uses these successes, Carson adds, to tear down his alleged victims, whom he seemingly blames for his alleged indiscretions.

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https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/3k9pgb/neil-degrasse-tyson-sexual-assault-male-apology