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?

Precisely cagliostro

It's just not necessary. Use the time better.

I dare her to:
Take in a predyed bright pink lab coat
Stencil for 'leader' to be shared around in an 'i am sparticus' kind of way.
Ask loads and loads of questions about the chemistry of hair products, skin care, detergents etc then say 'i' m really interested in the use of detergents in protein analysis
Decorate the lab coat with actuarial symbols like thisen.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuarial_notation

Actually I wish sciences did allow girlieness as well as rigour.. Why not?

But it would be highly amusing to insist senior male scientists join in and encourage them to draw footballs and racing cars..

Don't worry about safety boots. The new apprenticeships should encourage some smaller teen exploitation sizes..

The issues are indeed very deep rooted and go on from the day a girl is born in so many cases. Schools are often very gender biased without realising. I'd be interested in any data that showed that as a result of girls STEM events such as this, even one or two girls opts to study a STEM subject or do they just default back to norm?

It's a STEM day and the first activity girls are asked to engage in is a creative arty one involving glittery pens and making clothes look nice. They then model the clothes.

The addition of a lab coat does not make it a STEM activity and it means the day starts with a stereotypical activity that girls are meant to like which is not science and crucially which is their takeaway from the day.

It's a great way to sideline the independent strong thinkers you need in science and turn them off it.
I think there's some self-hoisting on someone petard going on

It isn't just the decorating lab coats that is stereotypical. Look what I found on their homepage. greenlightforgirls.org/g4g-in-the-community/

"Relay for Life 2015

Thank you everyone for being a part of the g4g Mad Scientists Team, for participating in our science experiments of daisies, lava lamps & lab coat decorating -- all of your generosity and support has helped to contribute to the amazing work of the International Community's Relay for Life to fight cancer. ".

Daisies, lava lamps and decorating lab coats. Girlie, girlie and girlie. Taken separately not insulting. No offense taken.The three together: OFFENSE!

I can see this as a complete own goal; putting off the girls that would have entered science and misleading girls who would have. With @scaryclown on this.

There are so many things that you could do to make science exciting and relevant. There was a great one at DD's recent science camp. The campers got to ask the staff science questions and throw water at them if they got it wrong. They did lots of fun, exciting, interesting, educational things that both boys and girls were involved in.

Don't know whether to be outraged or just to shake my head, sadly, in disappointment.
My dd (Yr10) has just done a week's work experience at the science labs of a university - she was incredibly inspired by THE SCIENCE that was being done.
Had she been asked to start decorating a lab coat, she would not have been impressed.

Daisies and lava lamps? What with the 'cooking is science' it's like they're trying to get girls into science by putting a faint science spin on stereotypically girlie activities instead of just doing cool and inspiring science.

Wrong approach.

Not rtft but I'm a woman who works in the exact area you've mentioned and that idea makes me stabby! How utterly patronising

I have written a comment on Greenlights facebook page, telling them how disappointed I am with them. Please go and do the same.

Anyone who uses the term Mad Scientist is on my shit list as well. Mostly, we aren't mad (apart from after the bourbon tasting session a group were conducting at a recent conference) - we are totally normal women living normal lives, not some sort of 'other'. Which also goes for male scientists.

@CMOTDibbler So with you in the Mad Scientist label! A distant colleague asked whether their child could borrow one of my stash of tiny lab coats because the school was apparently doing 'dress up as a mad scientist day'. I contacted the school and they changed the title

... mind you... as a Brownie leader I do rather want one of these badges ;-)
www.e-patchesandcrests.com/catalogue/patches/owls/ES13110-mad-scientist-owl.php

Oh, don't watch the new Captain Underpants movie then, Professor P Poopypants is the epitome of a Mad Scientist.

I may be veering off topic but I don't understand why girls need their own science courses / workshops. My girls (pre teens) do science workshops, courses and camps (robotics, chemistry etc) with boys..... not a decorated lab coat in sight. Why do girls need to be taught science separately with a feminine slant? Are they going to be doing "cooking is science" (yes greenlight 4 girls, I've read your twitter feed) forever or actually get to learn about engineering, physics, chemistry etc in a more gender neutral and realistic setting?

I know we need more women in STEM but attracting them with flowers and cupcakes is downright patronizing and sets us back to the 1950s.

BradleyPooper

Its to do with there voices being heard and not over shadowed by male voices.

Boys have a tendency to push to the front and drown out any girls.

Or maybe girls have a tendency to hang back and let boys take the lead.

Either way, girl only events are important.

Its to do with there voices being heard and not over shadowed by male voices.

Thats why girls' schools seem to do significantly better at not turning girls off STEM subjects than mixed schools. But they don't pinkify the curriculum (or their labcoats).

Separate/additional workshops etc for girls may be a good thing but not if the content is patronising. Actually, my observation is that girls tend to be a bit more serious and 'play' less - so if the content of the workshops is different for girls it should perhaps lean towards being more serious and focussed. (And absolutely no 'mad science' vibe, cringe)

OK, teach them separately but teach them properly. Do we need to pinkify it?

I got a free labcoat from Glaxo, when I started uni. Grandad collar, fitted and quite lovely. It would have stayed white, if I hadn't decorated it with iodine, nitric acid and all sorts of weird and smelly organic chemicals! As it should be!

An ice breaker is a 15 minute activity. Not the whole morning.

I expect they can do coloring and drawing without taking the valuable time of a workshop too.... Why not use those precious minutes to explore, explain, discover, learn, experiment .... rather than color?

Why do girls need to be taught science separately with a feminine slant? When I walk into DD's science clubs, camps and parties I do a swift recce; is the teacher female, half the attendees, who's bagsied the Lego? And so on.

A lot of science for kids is very much taken over by the boys. Particularly if the male attendees outnumber the female.