Disgraced Nobel Prize winner Sir Tim Hunt praised female scientists moments after he made a "sexist" remark which saw him forced to resign from his honorary position at University College London, according to a leaked report.
The 72-year-old biochemist sparked outrage after claiming that female scientists often fall in love with their male counterparts and subsequently become over sensitive to criticism.
In a speech at a conference in South Korea, he said “the trouble with girls” in laboratories is that “you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry.”
But now it has emerged that the remark may have been intended as a flippant joke specifically in reference to scientists in Korea, according to reports in The Times.
Sir Tim, who won the 2001 Nobel Prize for medicine, is said to have preceded the remark with the self-deprecating and tongue-in-cheek declaration that he is a "chauvinist monster".
He said: "It's strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists."
He reportedly went on to praise the the work of female scientists in country, saying: "Now seriously, I'm impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me."
The context of the remark was revealed by a European Commission official who attended the event.
The official denied claims made by a journalist who also attended the speech that Sir Tim had "thanked the women for making lunch".
Sir Tim subsequently resigned from his position as UCL following the subsequent media storm, although there have been calls to reinstate him from London's Mayor Boris Johnson, scientist Richard Dawkins and executive director of the Girls’ Schools Association Charlotte Vere.
Oxford professor Dawkins criticised the “baying witch-hunt” that led to Sir Tim's resignation.
Meanwhile an online petition calling for him to be reinstated had today received more than 3000 signatures.
