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?

oh oh oh ! They have a tweiiter account;

twitter.com/green4girls?lang=en

from the look of their re-tweets the labcoat decorating is a standard part of their days. one tweet they have retweeted says "#Labcoats give a sense of what you could be as a scientist 👩‍🔬 tech / engineer #space & release creativity ##g4gdayCBR w/ @green4girls" with a load of pics of the girls decorating them.....

Maybe they could decorate the labcoats with pictures of willies. Since apparently you need one to do actual science.

soupforbrains
Was just about to post the exact same tweet! How on earth is decorating a coat giving a sense of what it would be like to be a scientist ffs!
[angry

I don't even have any anger left for this. I just feel so sad.

Please do complain, and see if you can actually prevent this from happening. As them to look up stereotype threat and why mixing lab coats with glitter, lipstick high heels or anything in that general area is a terrible terrible idea.

I used to wear a lab coat, PPE there to save your clothes and skin not to stick potentially flammable things to, tinsel anyone. Fuckwits

Ada Lovelace, 1960's BIG computer versus modern one? Making nylon? Lots of interesting things to do off curriculum.

It would be better to show them how to put on saris and point out that they now resemble the best space engineers on the planet.

Depends how they are decorating them?

I've done this before to decorate labcoats with my children:

www.happinessishomemade.net/sharpie-tie-dye-shirts-tutorial/

They enjoyed doing that. They were a bit younger than 14 though. (boys - if it's important).

It wouldn't take all morning though - are you sure that's the only morning activity?

Endo from the looks of the pics on the twitter post just sharpies, fabric paints and fabric glitter glue....

It would be better to show them how to put on saris and point out that they now resemble the best space engineers on the planet.

Oh Pest.... I think i love you. that comment is SO on point.

I came on this thread because I thought that I'd quite like a sparkly lab coat. I'm bored of my dull white one.

I can't actually believe your post though. Seriously?

If they keep treating women in the industry like this I'll never get my sparkly lab coat side line off the ground, I need more than just men buying them 😉

Well they could put glitter on the labcoats and then set fire to them to see what glitter and glue does to their flame retardent properties.

They could then see how far the bits of glitter tracks all over the lab and beyond. Would be great for demonstrating spread of contamination if they are interested in working in clean rooms, nuclear facilities or forensic science.

This is horrendous.

I wonder whether you could reply saying that you just wanted to clarify what they mean by 'decorate' as that suggests girly glittery stuff which obviously in this day and age you're sure isn't their intention. Perhaps they mean 'personalise' - i.e. put their names on and some snappy phrases about why science appeals to them etc.

But even that should only take half an hour. And what a criminally extravagant waste. Presumably they get to take their coats home and stuff them in the wardrobe?

Can you ask the organisers what relevant to STEM decorating lab coats has? I am curious to see what they come back with.

They have a facebook page: www.facebook.com/greenlightforgirls/

Also, just to say that I work in Garment Tech and you can have non- hazardous diamanté and glitter prints.

Not sure a bunch of kids and a glitter gun will achieve passable production levels mind you. Maybe they could decorate the coats and then subject them to testing?

I can't even. It's too much. Can you guys just be really angry on my behalf and I'm going to go and look at pictures of cats somewhere, because it's just too fucking depressing.

I worked as a bench scientist for 10 years before making a bit of a career change and working as a statistician in the finance industry. I left bench science after my job got marked "at risk" and 10% of my colleagues got made redundant for the third year in a row. I was TTC and didn't want to be in a job anymore that was in constant danger of disappearing or moving continents - a fate that more than a few women in STEM will be familiar with, as it's common practice for idiot CEOs in certain R&D based companies to decide every few years to completely rejig their operations and fuck everyone off.

About half of my ex-colleagues from my old industry have been relocated while they had families. They end up living away from their families or else one parent gives up their job, and it's usually the woman. That's your "leaky pipe" right there.

And then you hear about things like this. What can we do, as a company, to attract more women into the business? Oh I know, sparkly lab coats!

Not quite on topic, but I once gave a talk at my son's primary school during Science week. The teacher asked if I could wear my lab coat. I declined stating that I didn't wear one and it was important for the children to know that not all scientists wear lab coats (sparkly or otherwise).

I also work from home and the number of people who think I have a wee lab at the end of my garden.

We walk among fools I tell you!

I went to go and have a look at the FB page. I don't want to 'out myself' by sharing a link but there is a comment on their page (you have to go digging to see visitor posts) which might be from someone on here asking about the relevance of decorating lab-coats. Suggest we all go like it a lot so that G4G have to respond?

I am gobsmacked at the idea that decorating labcoats "gives a sense of what you could be as a scientist".
If anyone came into my lab with such a potentially contaminating coat, they would be given a sense of a WARNING about their future employment.

This has me raging, what a complete load of shit.

I've always loved science, and if I was still at school this is something I would be interested in; however, decorating a lab coat would put me right off as I'm just not artistic and I'd probably be stood there wondering just why I'd bothered. For what it's worth I loved it at college when I first bought my lab coat (as opposed to dad's old shirt at school)...it sounds daft, but it made me feel like a scientist. Not a female scientist, just a scientist.

I can't help but think we're going backwards, why of why do people keep reinforcing the bollocks that is 'girls like pink and glitter'?! I love science, I loved it at school, college, uni, work and in popular science books I read for pleasure...I do not need it to be fucking pink.

Do not get me started on the science kits available for girls either....it's all lip glosses and perfume, because of course girls would be scared of real experiments...fucks sake.

OP can you and some of your colleagues think up a few more suitable STEM activities and approach the organisers with them , it would be a more proactive approach than emailing and expressing your anger, justified as it is.

Perhaps they mean 'personalise' - i.e. put their names on

To make it realistic what they could do is get the kids to design company logos and then draw them onto iron-on labels and iron them onto the lab coats. Then 20 minutes later they can announce a takeover and do it all over again with a new logo, except that they also have to throw away 10% of the labcoats each time and close the final salary pension scheme to new entrants.

Do you know what - I work in a real life laboratory and guess what? We decorate our lab coats! ~shock horror~

I worked near a lab once where it was compulsory for all members to tie-dye their lab coats. It was a rite of initiation for newbies. But they were male and female and it was an in joke. This is different.

BarbaraofSevillle glitter tracking is a brilliant idea They will be finding the stuff for years.

The pictures on Twitter have them sticking pink sparkly shit on....