Science it's a girl thing

[thestrangequark]

^I find that assessment completely over the top and silly. It's just more of the "high heels are for idiots" bullshit, and is doing exactly what I referred to: reinforcing the false dichotomy that a woman can't be both fashionable/hot and intellectual. It's also focusing on the negative consequences of a specific feminine image being promoted by the media, which is a completely valid topic for discussion, but rather beside the point in this conversation. Like I said before, the video isn't great, but I think the deep repulsion people seem to feel is more telling of their own stereotyping of women and misunderstanding of feminism than it is about the actual problems with the ad.

 

[iguana_tonante]

tsq, I think I disagree with you this time. I don't like the ad not because I buy into the stereotype that a scientist can't be stylish or pretty (I, for instance, am fucking fabulous).

I dislike it because it starts from that idea that science can't be interesting for women on its own, so they need to dress it with fashion and glamour to make it appealing to women. I'm sure the intention was good, but it comes out as very patronizing in my opinion: "Hey, we know you girls can't like science because it's hard and kinda unfashionable, but look, science can be glamorous too! We bet you are interested now!"

I know the entertainment industry plays a lot the stereotype that girly girls are dumb while smart girls are frumpy, but if you want to break it down (and we certainly do) this is the wrong way to do it in my opinion.

 

[thestrangequark]

^I think it's a matter of baggage. I think what you, and most others, see is science needing to be dressed up to appeal to girls. What I see is "Hey girl, you don't have to give up your pumps and lipstick to pick up a test tube."

Again, I don't think the ad is particularly good (they could've done much better)...I just think that the cries of sexism and the dumbing down of science say more about jaded adults than about the girls the ad is aimed at.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I dislike it because it starts from that idea that science can't be interesting for women on its own, so they need to dress it with fashion and glamour to make it appealing to women. I'm sure the intention was good, but it comes out as very patronizing in my opinion: "Hey, we know you girls can't like science because it's hard and kinda unfashionable, but look, science can be glamorous too! We bet you are interested now!"

Exactly. The problem is not women looking attractive, but trying to sex up something that is, in reality, not that sexy. As another post said, science is hard work, it's generally not glamorous, but it's also very important and we need women doing it just as much as we need men. I don't think anyone was intending to imply that female scientists can't be attractive or fashionable.

It's the superficiality of the video itself that makes me frown on the glamor aspect. Yes, the women were attractive and fashionable... and that's basically all there was to the video. It was completely content-free. "Here are some beautiful women in a music video ostensibly about science. Doesn't this make you want to become a scientist?"

It's insulting, as if the only thing that could attract women to science is telling them they just have to look good and prance around in high heels. The video itself reinforced the idea that "fashion is for idiots," because there was simply no substance in the video at all.

 

[MacLeod]

^Agreed, Science covers a broad spectrum. Some fields of study would no doubt appeal to one particualr gender, but both genders are equally capable of doing them.

I studied in a largely male dominated subjected, Electronic Engineering at College, it was a 3 year course though you could finish at the end of the 2nd year with a lower qualification. 30 people orignally started the course 29 males and 1 female. The number of people that actually passed and gratuated at the end of the third year was 4, 3 males and 1 female. So the females had a 100% pass rate, the males had a much lower pass rate.

A snazzy ad really won't make much difference to getting more females into science, i would say it's more a case of how it's taught to them. I'm not saying you teach boys and girls different but rather what you can do with it later in life. Pharamocology, looking for cure to disease's might appeal more to females than it does to boys.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I think what you, and most others, see is science needing to be dressed up to appeal to girls.

I definitively not see science as that, and I have no idea where you took that idea from my posts.

 

[thestrangequark]

I think what you, and most others, see is science needing to be dressed up to appeal to girls.

I definitively not see science as that, and I have no idea where you took that idea from my posts.

You misunderstood...I meant that that's what you see the ad saying, not what you think. (Upon rereading my statement wasn't very clear, and could definitely be read to mean that I thought you though that!)

 

[iguana_tonante]

Thanks for the clarification, because I was honesly baffled at how you could think I would think that...

 

[thestrangequark]

^I would never think that of you! Your bafflement was justified! I could have worded sentence better.

But back to the ad...I guess I am just looking at it differently, and clearly mine is the minority opinion. Though I wonder what the target audience, the average tween to teen girl sees when she views it.

 

[Miss Chicken]

It might be because I am an old lady but my first thought while watching the ad was 'those shoes aren't suitable lab attire".

I think the thing that annoyed me the most was that, except for the young lady doing equations, you never really got to see the girls doing any science.

The guy was at the microscope not the girls.

I went to an all girl school between grades 7-10 and then did grade 11 at a mixed school (because in the Tasmanian state school system grades 11+ are done at community colleges). I noticed the difference in science classes between the two. In the mixed class the girls who had always been in mixed schools were happy to take the notes while the boys did the experiments. The girls who had previously been to all-girls schools were not satisfied to just take notes.

I returned to study at one of these community college in the 1990s and most of the girls from mixed schools acted the same way as they did in the 70s. I hope that that has since changed.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Though I wonder what the target audience, the average tween to teen girl sees when she views it.

Yeah, I agree with this. I might think it's silly, but if it's reaching the target audience, I'm all for it.

 

[thestrangequark]

Sadly, Miss Chicken, your experience perfectly fits the statistics. Until around puberty, girls tend to perform equally well in science and math as boys, but at puberty, girls' scores fall drastically in comparison. However, this does not happen in all-girl schools.

 

[Count Zero]

^I think it's a matter of baggage. I think what you, and most others, see is science needing to be dressed up to appeal to girls. What I see is "Hey girl, you don't have to give up your pumps and lipstick to pick up a test tube."

I have a third interpretation of the ad, namely that it shows things commonly thought of as being "a girl's thing", linking them with science to show that science is also a girl's thing.

The production values are great on this one and i shudder to think what it might have cost (probably a large chunk of the budget for this campaign ). But I don't get the outrage over it. I'm a woman and I did study physics for 3 years before sadly flunking out.

 

[thestrangequark]

^I'm glad I'm not the only one who isn't completely affronted!

 

[Spot's Meow]

^I'm glad I'm not the only one who isn't completely affronted!

I didn't find the ad terribly offensive either. Actually, I thought it was kind of cool. I liked how they showed the makeup in the different formations and from different perspectives. To me the message was, "all that make up and other fun stuff you love and think has no connection to science? Well, all of that was developed in a lab somewhere, it IS science, and you can be a part of developing cool things like this in the future too." So, I thought that the camera work looked neat and the message wasn't a terrible one.

And this is coming from someone who has never worn makeup and is one of the least girly women I know. And I'm terrible in science.

I think it was just a fun way of showing that the practical items we think are so integral to our every day existence really are rooted in science. And for young girls, this often means makeup.

 

[Amaris]

Eh, I'm not affronted, I just don't think the ad takes the subject seriously. Maybe it's because I'm a guy, but my macro really was the first thing I thought of when I saw the ad. Right after that, I thought of this:

To me it just seems like they're going for the short tease. "Lipstick! Glamour! Fashion! Science! Girlfrendz! "

 

[Thestral]

Though I wonder what the target audience, the average tween to teen girl sees when she views it.

Yeah, I agree with this. I might think it's silly, but if it's reaching the target audience, I'm all for it.

Yeah, and that's the thing after reading this conversation and watching the video. I see y'all complaining that "science isn't all fun and sexy" - which is of course very true, but appealing to the fun aspect is, in my opinion, a good way to spark an initial interest in kids. Hence you take kids to the zoo and they love the animals and maybe get interested in zoology and/or bio in general. Or you take them to a planetarium and they think the stars are awesome and maybe from there get interested in astrophysics.

When I was in high school, every year our science club hosted "Super Saturday Science" for fourth graders; we had them come in and build an Estes model rocket (a basic one ) on Friday night and hear us/our teacher talk about some basic scientific principles underlying the rockets, and then on Saturday come back and launch the rockets. And one or two years we had a second one where a chemistry professor from UT came and did a chemistry magic show/talked about chemistry. Kids loved it, and at least some of them apparently have come back later and mentioned that as helping get them interested in science in the first place.

Heck, even Mythbusters kinda does this - lots of people watch it cause they love to see shit blow up, but maybe some of them stick around and actually get an interest in the physics or chemistry or engineering or what have you.

Which I guess most of this isn't related to the feminism part of the discussion specifically and it's not like I think it's a great ad, but I thought it might be helpful.

 

[Holdfast]

I'd glad to see that in this time of financial crisis, the EU bureaucrats are spending their money wisely...

Elon Musk said that permanent space settlement is equally important as lipstick.

Only because it will lead to wonderful new kinds of space-lipstick.

 

[Lumi]

Ridiculous.

If someone needs to see sexy women or expensive high heel shoes on a commercial in order to become interested in science (or anything)... I... don't even know what to say.

"Why did you become a scientist?"
"Oh, there was this commercial with models and lipstick..."

Yeah right.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My opinion is that it can only lead to better things:

Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto. You're beautiful!