sparkly labcoats

[No1blueengine]

I work for a major international financial institution. HR sponsor various special interest alliances within the company which lobby for their causes. One of the special interest alliances is "Women and Allies". It concerns itself with promoting equality in the workplace, etc etc.

They have managed to obtain some funding to host a STEM event. Women are hugely underrepresented in our actuarial and data analysis dept and the alliance would like to encourage girls and young women to consider careers in these fields. They have invited a boatload of girls from local secondary schools to attend one of our sites for an day long STEM event in September.

I received an invitation yesterday for my daughter(s). Apparently the girls will spend the morning decorating lab coats before hearing from a range of speakers about STEM careers.

Decorating lab coats. I shit you not.

My jaw hit the floor. i thought it must be joke but apparently it is not. I keep trying to draft an email to the organizers but i cant get past spluttering outrage. A (female) colleague cant see what i am getting upset about, though thinks the money could have been better spent on pay rises.

I think it is insulting to girls intelligence that the organizers felt they needed to offer this activity (and dedicate such a substantial amount of time to it) to get the girls to attend and reflects the influence of underlying stereotypes on their thinking.

My 14 y/o step daughter built a functional robot in school last term and my 7 y/o daughter is very excited to be going to learn to code in September. Somehow they were both excited by their projects without sparkly lab coat inducements.

Above-mentioned colleague thinks i am getting worked up over nothing. AIBU?

Good grief. No YANBU. Lost for words TBH

Have they ever done a similar event for boys, or indeed for young people generally, and if so what activities did they organise? If, as I suspect, they were different and were actually career related, ask them why they are doing anything different this time round.

CMOT Let's go grabs slightly grubby but otherwise undecorated lab coat I'll me you outside and we can get our rampaging protest on.

I too and unspeakably angered by this. I'm not a physicist, I'm an engineer. Teenage me wasn't as aware of these things. I was lucky enough that I went to an all girls school where we simply weren't ever made aware that there might be anything at all we couldn't or shouldn't do. as such we probably would have happily decorated our labcoats not realising it was a signifier of something so much worse. and THAT is why it's so awful, these girls might not think anything of it and it becomes part of the "oh, making things pretty is what we do" mentality.

oh god I am SOOOO angry. Please someone else come and articulate what I'm trying to say because I'm too angry to!

Oh dear, I have mixed feeling about this. It sounds completely unnecessary to me (the decorating the coat bit) but I know that my science-mad DD would glitter the heck out of that lab coat given a chance! What age range is this targeted at, primary/junior level?

What STEM activities are they actually doing on the day? Is it just lectures or is there any hands-on stuff for them to do?

I think YANBU but my DD may disagree

Which company is this OP?

That's outrageous, please please do raise it.

please please please can we have info about the organisation and a screen shot of the letter so that we can let twitter do what it does best!

outrageous!!!!

cotswold, it says secondary.

Jesus Christ.

Please publicise this shite, OP.

When you have compiled your email OP link it to this thread. I am seriously appalled.

There is absolutely no value in spending a single minute doing this, zilch, zero, nada, none.

Who in the company actually decided that this was would be a good idea?

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK

please kick off big style about this. PLEASE.

I volunteer to go give a talk on cancer research to fill an hour of that morning if you're in the NW.

What the actual fuck?! I'm pretty used to the unending sexism of the world, but I am actually gobsmacked.

The only decorations I ever had or wanted on my lab coat were telephone messages I'd biro-ed onto the sleeve if I had no scrap paper etc.

What a load of rubbish!

After 22 years working in science I now work for an organisation promoting STEM careers for both girls and boys, there are plenty of appropriate "filler activities" available on-line or it could be outsourced to a local company who specialises in this sort of workshops, if finance allows.

Glittery shit is not an appropriate activity!.

Aaargghhhhhh!

YANBU

I can't think of email wording that won't result in disciplinary action, but I sincerely hope the girls involved burn their lab coats in protest.

Please let us know what you email them and what their response is. Talk about reinforcing stereotypes!

This is ridiculous, not only would a lab coat with sparkles and glitter be a hazard it's stupid to think it'll entice girls into science!

There are so many fun science experiments you can do which would get them interested in the subject. (My personal favorite being the screaming jelly babies)
I did Biomed at uni and decorating a lab coat really wouldn't have made me want to join that career path.

It's like the obviously-for-girls versions of science toys, IMHO. Like the pink K'nex, Goldieblox etc. Makes it MORE divisive, not less. Girls can only do STEM if they have the sparkly feminine versions. Fuck. That. Why is it necessary?

DD wants to be a paleontologist, I'd best tell her she can't do it unless her fossil brush has a glittery handle.

i cant say what company but feeling validated by the response i have just spoken to HR who tell me that event is being run through a recognized charity - greenlight 4 girls. It is the first event they have done with them.

It is a girl only event. Daughters and nieces of employees are invited and girls from local schools.

The flyer doesn't go into too much detail on the agenda other than to say girls will decorate their lab coats in the morning and in the afternoon hear from STEM speakers and take part in interactive activities.

YANBU and I'd go as far as saying this may reinforce to all the girls attending that this is not really for them, they are not stupid and know a trip to decorate a lab coat is not

1. a way of encouraging boys to take this career path
2. anything to do with the subjects

After 22 years working in science I now work for an organisation promoting STEM careers for both girls and boys, there are plenty of appropriate "filler activities" available on-line or it could be outsourced to a local company who specialises in this sort of workshops, if finance allows.

Maybe the way to go is to pass those resources on to HR, or these Greenlight people.

just google greenlight 4 girls. also known as g4g.

This is on their homepage "Our signature one‐day girl‐focused event demonstrates the fun in science through hands‐on workshops and activities run by volunteer role models in STEM fields. These are events open to the local community and brings 200+ attendees with up to 100 volunteers/workshop leaders per event. We organise these events in 5 continents across the globe, and with our growing partnerships and sponsors, we often get the question... where next?"

sounds excellent. Wonder how decorating lab coats "demonstrates the fun in science through hands‐on workshops"

So your company is paying for someone to come in and glitter the lab coats with the girls, when presumably there is a fuck tonne of brilliant women in the office who actually work in STEM who could just be, you know, TALKING TO YOUNG WOMEN ABOUT STEM???

I'm inchoate with rage. The 14 yo girls I know are proper scary-bright by the way and highly likely to throw the glitter at the course leader...

Anyone fancy linking this on Greenlight's FB page? I can't do it at the moment.