I needed to buy a new scientific calculator today so I was looking on the Casio UK website and was flabbergasted to find that along with the bog standard grey/black ones you can also get ones in blue or pink (and in no other colours!). I then looked to see if they were available at WHSmith, to see if this a freak thing that isn't actually available at general retailers, and lo and behold WHSmith not only have them on their website, but actually do their own pink scientific calculator as well (but no blue).
Perhaps this is something you have encountered before if you are a parent but as I am not I was really shocked that it would occur to anyone to gender a scientific instrument.
And where does it stop? Pink instruments for science undergrads? Pink stethoscopes for medical doctors who are women? Do the women scientists at CERN go into a meltdown if things aren't coloured pink for them? (educated guess: I bet they fucking well don't)
Are girls and women now so utterly brainwashed by gender messages that the only way science can be made acceptable to them is by pinkwashing things? Or is it a sign of patriarchy's discomfort with women engaging with science that it feels it has to send them a message: 'we'll let you do this as long as you remember you're just a woman after all'?