Prepare yourself for a fit of rage

[squeaver]

The EU has spent actual money on a campaign designed to interest girls in science.

this is the result.

DD started blogging yesterday (inspired by although much less adventurous than 'NeverSeconds') and has posted this blog about the video. Perhaps some of you could offer a few gentle comments to help her formulate her ideas? I do think the point about some men ending up in science although they may not have wanted to is an interesting one. TIA.

How come the number of medical students/graduates is roughly a 50:50 gender split?

pickledsiblings, I agree medicine related sciences don't have a problem attracting women. I'm sure you're aware that the media show lots of examples of women working as doctors (ER, Holby City etc etc etc), which will encourage science-minded girls to consider medicine as a socially acceptable career path for a woman. No need to worry about upsetting girly stereotypes if you're studying sciencey subjects because you want to be a doctor...

Lazily copying and pasting from my post on another thread about this video -

other areas of science do have problems. I work in engineering, have met lots of professional engineers, and the majority of professional engineers are men.

IME, the engineering field with the most women is chemical engineering, and even there, I'd say less than a quarter of chemical engineers are women. Proportions get much less with other types of engineering. I've only ever met one female civil engineer.

So we need a really cool soap about engineers lily .

What's the difference with medicine? Is it because it's 'caring' and people-related or is it because - doctors being largely state employees - there is better provision for career provision for women versus the private sector? Maybe a mix of both. There's a lot of female vets too - but I guess vet practices are independent so its more up to the women writing their own scripts. Probably its a combination of what is attractive to young women plus what allows them to be retained and progress in a career.

So what would your alternative video be?

I agree with Grimma - it should have conveyed something of how interesting science is - not this woeful stereotyped sub-bodyform crap.

I guess their brief was to use no language so it could be a Euro-ad....but still there is lots you could do.

For me science is about "no limitations" ....no limitation to the scale from sub-molecules to the universe, no limitation to what can be studied, no limitation to who can do it.

They could have done something like this with girl message hidden in it....
htwins.net/scale2/

So if the premise of the video is that women are invading the male space and taking over science, maybe even bringing a bit if life and color to it, then there are ways to have a similar video without endorsing the male gaze.

E.g. The shot immediately after the man looks up at the women doesn't have to show their shoes. He could see them out of focus, as if he doesn't 'get' why they're there, then they could snap into focus, and draw up a microscope next to him.

That would show them taking an equal position next to him, if they're framed in a two head shot, then they are partners who are collaborating, not having to turn the lab pink to make it acceptable.

Do you see how the film language would change the meaning there?

You could have a series of situations like that, with different types of science being shown. Like those images of what does a scientist look like? So a man and woman doing field work, mixing stuff in a lab, working on equations, computers etc. a lot of research isn't very visually attractive but there are some situations which signify science where women could be seen as equals with men.

I can't see the video it's coming up with a privacy sign.

pickled - I'm glad that you comment was mistakenly addressed to me - it wasn't that I misunderstood what you said, more what on earth it had to do with me! Now I get that it wasn't for me, it's all fine.

There are better ways to engage girls than a powder-puff advert that looks like it's selling make up or perfume, IMO - principally by showing lots of different women scientists doing their thing and making it look interesting! Making nylon at school was fun, bringing in a coke can so we could make our own expanding foam out of it was fun, soda volcanoes are fun (although a bit young for teens perhaps).

kickass, I thought the shoe shot showed the girl as being assertive, it reminded me of that Olivia Newton John shot in Grease at the beginning of 'you better shape up'.

Assertive

I saw it as you need heals and a short skirt to distract a man from his work.

No way did I think of the girls (and they are silly fashion obsessed girls) as scientists.

I worked for years in a lab and we did have young women who were not sterotypical geeks. They wore fashionable casual and sometimes quite sexy clothes.

But a skirt you can't bend down in and 6pm heels. For fucks sake!

Himalaya...I loved that link. I will be showing it to DC.

BTW we watched the Horizon programme on the Tranist of Venus last night (had recorded it at the time) and the vast majority of the presenters and scientists were women. I wouldnt have noticed except for this discussion. Guess which I would be encouraging my DD with? I wanted to be a volcanologist.

'tis fab isn't it?

StarBall, they're not supposed to be scientists yet - they're just girls. The one girl who obviously was supposed to be a scientist (the one writing with a board marker) doesn't appear to be overly made up, no bare arms and you can't see if she's wearing heel/mini skirt, hair fashioned in a very demure side plait and a look of 'I'm it' (or is it just a puzzled/engrossed look/semi- pout?) on her face.

omfg just watched the video with my jaw on the floor. I literally have no words

Starball, was 6pm heels a typo or a description I've not heard before ? I like it !

piglet - when a shot goes from someone's eyes, to something else, then we are looking at what they are looking at. in the Grease example, he looks at her, and sees the whole of her - she looks round confused to her friends, then does the grinding a cigarette under her shoe. As it's the denouement at the end of a movie, we have a whole load of references to work this into.

In the science short, we just see him gazing at her shoes, which she is kindly parading in a similar style to a fashion model. No interaction with her face/persona at all.

It doesn't really matter how any individual interprets it - the people who made this film KNOW this. It is deliberate and planned. They are knowingly putting this onto film, to be released, and re-inforcing stereotypes.

If this had been a short film for race equality, showing a white person looking at a black person as they worked in the fields, picking cotton, then the black person went and sat in a house that was a stereotype of a field-hands house, and it had a catch phrase of 'housing, it's a black thing', no-one would see that as encouragement for african americans to buy housing & move into property ownership.

Even typing that paragraph makes me uncomfortable as it's so very obviously wrong to represent a group of people like that. But when it comes to teenage girls, that's OK, cos they're all pink & fluffy so we can treat them as sub human. Add a laugh sound-track and we all know it's fun, so let's not get our knickers in a twist, eh?

Kickass-was that last post to me? I posted that I couldn't actually view the video-has it been taken down?

It crossed the pond!

Piglet, sorry, I meant pickled. Got confused there.

I knew you meant me but hadn't realised there actually was a piglet - just thought it was a cute typo.

Don't they run these things by a sample of their target audience before the big release then?

Even the tag line 'Science - it's a girl thing' is starting to irritate me now. Its not a 'girl thing'. Its a thing for people who are fascinated by how the world works regardless of their gender. . Its a silly pink patronising title.

Science is a fascinating subject about how the world works. It's not a girl thing, it's not a boy thing. It's a subject like no other. I remember the excitement I used to have when I was developing my gel and seeing if I had found some meningitis bacteria DNA. You're finding things out, investigating, researching and really using your intelligence.

Some people really like that kind of stuff and it suits some people down to the ground. It should be a career open to all but - as with other careers - it gets harder (not impossible) to maintain a research career and a family. But a scientific career does not always have to be research - it can be using science in the real world.

There's so much we don't know about the world.

This is interesting.

www.wiset.org.uk/

But even they fall for a stereotype

"The afternoon session begins with a fun introduction to DNA using models and examples, which is followed by the hands-on extraction of their own DNA under the supervision of role-models from the world of science. Each pupil?s DNA is then placed into heart-shaped necklaces for them to take home and impress friends and family."