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?

When in fact the inequalities are deep rooted and structural, beginning at birth. Girls get nurse outfits, boys get doctors, girls get pissing dolls, boys get chemistry sets.

Yep. Mothercare have a lovely new science/space/robots range of baby clothes. Obviously, it's in the boys section. Well used to that as 10yo DD loves dinosaur and I've never seen any dinosaur clothing for older kids in a girls section. She will be telling her new baby sister about Mary Anning from the moment she's born I think.

These little things add up though. I'm waffling now sorry, but I even noticed a difference in baby sleeping bags FFS. Boys caption: flying up to dreamland. Girls caption (along with the compulsory pink embellishments etc): floating up to dreamland. It's such a tiny thing but once again the boy is acting proactively and the girl is just being carried.

My dd has done a number of Greenlight 4 Girls days and has a couple of "personalised" lab coats. This was done during the arrival period and by no means detracted from the rest of the day. She's visited local companies like Cisco and Rockwell Engineering, done coding, design,science experiments etc etc. I think it's a fabulous initiative. I work in IT and women are woefully underrepresented.

This was done during the arrival period and by no means detracted from the rest of the day.

That's exactly what I suggested I thought might happen earlier in the thread. Other posters have taken the comment by the OP as the lab coat decorating taking place 'ALL MORNING' as red where I thought it unlikely and that it would be something to get the girls thinking about STEM as they arrive. I suspect he outrage on this thread is misplaced...

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?*

I think schools can be gender biased, unintentionally. I went to a single sex school and we had more girls sitting A Level physics than in every other comprehensive school in the city combined. Because we were all girls, there was far less of the background "girls subjects and boys subjects" treatment.

Does anyone remember the fiasco from a few years ago? Maybe link to some commentary from the time?

Haven't RTFT but omg that's shocking. Really awful.

I know it's often not a popular idea but I do think girls benefit hugely from single sex education. By doing so it removes the stereotypical boys do these subjects and girls do these. Although based on gender separation it brings about a gender neutral (the latest pet topic!) environment specifically for girls allowed them to explore all subjects without biasé

Although I may be biased having been to single sex school and seen a great number of friends go into science and engineering far greater than friends at university who came from a mixed background

There is no need to make science and engineering girlie to encourage girls, science and engineering is an exciting subject but to get girls to go to events is key and infairness I can't see how lab coat decorating would entice a girl who wasn't interested in but I can see how it would feel patronising to one who was already interested!

Working in engineering, the best thing is when someone appreciates your work not your gender that's where the focus should be and making girls feel proud and excited about what they can do with science, though don't get me wrong it would be nice to find a boiler suit that is designed for women with bums 😂

I suspect the outrage on this thread is misplaced..

No. It isn't. It's perfectly possible and easy to run workshops aimed at girls without any sort of gender biasing.
I know. I've taken part in many.
You can bet your bottom dollar that it wouldn't happen if the workshop was aimed at boys.
There's a difference between writing your name on a lab coat with a Sharpie and dedicating valuable time fannyimg about doing crafts which could be spent actually teaching the kids something.

Although based on gender separation it brings about a gender neutral (the latest pet topic!) environment

Can I correct that - its based on sex separation! Not bloody 'gender' - as I'm sure you know, but in this area being careful not to perpetuate the conflation of sex and gender is not mere pedantry.

Here's Dd's last one. She looked a bit bemused when I asked her about it being a "girly" activity. She said it was just something simple to give everyone something to do whilst the registration process was ongoing and didn't see why boys wouldn't also do it.

And she said there was definitely no glitter.

As someone who works in a laboratory, lab coats are regarded as protective equipment and not a fashion statement.Accessorizing them will reduce their effectiveness especially if the accessories are not flame and or chemical resistant.

This was obviously thought up by someone who has no experience of working in science and no regard for laboratory safety.

Oh for heaven's sake. They are NOT accessorising them or covering them with glitter/sparkles and shit. This is a charity focussed on encouraging girls into STEM careers. They get sponsorship from big technology companies, who also give up their premises and the free time of their staff to allow teenage girls have the FREE opportunity to take part in their sessions. It's a wonderful, totally non-pinkified thing and I am cross that everyone is focussing on the half hour they might spend writing on the lab coats in sharpies when at one of the sessions my dd attended they had a link up with the ISS!

From my perspective, I understand what you're getting at Marcia, BUT to me it doesn't matter whether there is glitter or not, nor does it matter precisely how much time it takes up. However much time it is, it's a waste of time which could be used doing something of greater value. Additionally, while the organisation can never truly answer it (because tongue only do girls days) I very much doubt anyone would even have proposed it as an activity with boys.

What COULD they be doing in that time when all the girls are checking in? Given it needs to be unsupervised and not cost any more money. I have to say I'm not very imaginative but I'm sure ideas would be useful feedback vs slagging them off when In my experience they are doing a great job.

I've just received this reply from them... seems fair enough.

Thanks for your message - and would love to see your daughters at the event. But, first - to address your concerns - not to worry - we teach all the things you mention! If you saw a few posts of "cooking" - it was referring to our non-Newtonian fluid experiment and it's fun to teach things that the kids can find in the house, including the kitchen - and also has lots of other great uses which is why certain materials are effective... it's all in the science! :-). Some of our favourite messages include the parents who write us and let them know that their child woke them up at 8am on a Sunday to test the DNA of a banana :-). And for lab coats, at some events, the kids spend a few minutes out of normally, an 8-hour day - to write their name and let their imagination go wild. It's incredible to see the inspiring messages about STEM that they write! But, this is their choice - and just a way to create a fun moment to meet other girls and then get down to business -- diving into all things STEM!! And we'd be happy to address any further concerns personally - so feel free to PM us and we can even set up a skype session.

There you go. This thread was a big fuss about nothing . Now we can focus on other things that truely warrant our attention.

Hmm. As an early teen who was not massively interested in science, the decoration of a lab coat as an ice-breaker activity and then a keepsake would actually have really appealled to me!

Fab post - from some one who is target market!!!!

Why aren't they making slime like all the kids in our neighbourhood? Only three ingredients, but various recipes. You tube is awash with this stuff.

Good reponse.

Re slime... this sort of event for this age group should be doing more serious science than that. Slime, along with bicarb volcanoes, isn't that more the sort of thing to do with little kids in the kitchen?

Custard is an excellent tool for non-Newtonian fluid experiments.

Marcia at secondary age there are a huge number of small experiments that the kids could do unsupervised in the same time. And to further respond to you I have been in continued contact with the G4G team since this thread began and have made several recommendations to them. They did in fact say that they don't do the lab coat decorating at all their events and the activities which take place are always decided with the host/sponsor/partner, so OP could get back in touch with her HR and ask them to suggest a swap if she still wants to.

Materials science and electronic engineering graduate here with many years served in the scientific civil service spanning pre and post equality law stuff. Wtaf? Glittery lab coats in 2017? I remember participating in a "get more women into science" film in 1990. And no glitter was involved! I did have a very clean lab coat provided for it though. Even tho I didn't normally wear one! And they did give me a clothing allowance , 5 pounds!

There WAS no glitter involved. Good on you for making some suggestions Soup.

Though thinking of the set up of the ones my dd has attended I really can't see how they could do experiments of any sort. Lots of people milling about eating the sponsored breakfast ;-) You really have to take this in context. A hundred plus girls being dropped off between 8 and 9. In a work environment.