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.

Just shown it to DH and asked him what he thought it was for (unreconstructed Aussie male) - he thought it was an ad to make the perfect formula for "picking up chicks"; then he thought it was for the perfect perfume.

He was actually quite horrified when I told him what it was for and said "oh wow, that's really going to work, isn't it " It's really bad.

PMSL at that response. "Misogynistic is a long word"

I can't see it, it says it is private.

Ok found it - this reaction is worth a watch

My comment on their FB page has been removed, it wasn't even sweary!!

They appear to have replaced the teaser with...

A video of a female scientist talking about why she was inspired to be scientist.

And profiles of female scientists.

The real problem though with being a female scientist is the difficulties balancing a scientific research career and a family - not a problem for male scientists who tend to be able to fully commit to their research career. If you have been out of science (like anything) for a while, you need to catch up.

I'm not sure why it's a "girl thing" - certainly biology and biochemistry are very popular with girls. Physics and engineering are the problems and that's the problem that needs to be addressed - at school and University.

Still interesting photos - showing that perfectly ordinary girls can be scientists. Of course - the girls are doing stereotypically girl things such as shopping and dancing.Also perfectly made up and groomed as well.

As I said before, I'm a female Physicist. Ages ago I received a flyer from the IoP appealing for 'Women Physicists' to sign up as 'Ambassadors of Science', to go into schools and help out in science classes and show children what scientists actually do and how fascinating it can be etc... I decided I didn't have time, that it would be a lot of hassle.

I'm now rethinking this, I'll have to ask IoP if the scheme is still going. There are better ways of getting girls interested in science careers and this is most definitely NOT one of them!

The look on the face of the guy in the promo Simms up how I feel about this.
WTF ?!

Wow. Most of the links aren't working (presumably the EU has worked out people are a tad pissed off) but the most recent is. That is really really shit.

Why not get physicist Maggie Aderin-Pocock talking about how science is for girls? She's really good at it. Especially when she puts up slides of loads of men + one woman in a wedding dress and asks 'spot the scientist'. The answer is they all are - it's her wedding picture (and both people in it are scientists). She gave a fab talk at the AGM of the Women's Institute recently - had her baby dd in a sling throughout. I would never have managed to stand up and give a speech to 5,000 people with ds in a sling!

OlympicFlame Do! I'd have loved something like that when I was at school :)

Emakina have form for this offensive crap. Whoever gave them the contract clearly didn't do their research properly...

The EU spokesman who claims it's a great viral teaser which is working because it's being spoken about clearly knows nothing about viral marketing either. Generally the principle is that it's ok to generate publicity by offending people AS LONG AS YOU DON'T OFFEND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. Paddy Power are masters of this - they frequently get written about by the press for offending various groups, but they never offend their core demographic that they're targetting - instead they get many times the amount of publicity the campaign itself got from all the press coverage (and then another bite of the cherry a few months later when the ASA opine!).

Has anyone linked to this yet? science-girl-thing.eu/#overlay=teaser this is the current "teaser" on the official website - the only similarity to the original is that they still have the lipstick in "Science - it's a girl thing", which is still written in pink lipstick writing as well - other than that and some dubious toppings on yoghurt, it seems a heap better.

Oddly, the things that attracted the nice girl in the video to science didn't include a longing to know how make up was made...

They could have done with using black lettering for their subtitles as well, the white letters frequently disappear against the background.

I'm not sure the middled aged mamas of MN are their target audience Thumb .

?? I don't really understand your point there, pickledsiblings - my post is relevant to this thread topic.

Sadly I didn't get to see the video before it was taken down, but I think I understand the context.

The point I would like to make is that a great many girls are selecting themselves out of lucrative and interesting careers - not only science- by choosing options that fit better with society's expectations of femininity.

Either we challenge this by challenging whether it makes you unfeminine (by society's standards) to do science, or IT, or carpentry, or we challenge the underlying assumptions of acceptable femininity.

Teenage girls are in general eager to fit in with the accepted stereotypes, and while the advert may have been crass, it might have been effective with this group.

I say this as someone with a degree in biochemistry, and a career in IT.

is a link to the original video which should work. (from the thread Squeaver started in Chat first here.

OneHand. In all its glory.

Sadly the original had some very pertinent comments from younger women/girls as well, which have all gone since the original video was removed - it didn't impress any of them either. The only people it appeared to appeal to was a certain type of male.

I'm not sure the middled aged mamas of MN are their target audience Thumb

no, but our daughters are. Not that mine needs any encouragement from the EU- she's 13 and it seems pretty likely she will go into some sort of science or engineering. But then, she's got 2 PhD parents - one with a perfect science job for a mother (and blonde even ) so she has no idea that she's not supposed to be able to have it all. And she goes to a girls school with science/tech specialism where they all do 3 sciences and half of them do electronics and they're introducing proper Computer Science in time for her. Being interested in science is normal for her.

The campaign is aimed at 13-17 year old females but I'm quite sure that the majority of the backlash has not been from this age group = target demographic not necessarily offended. Is that any clearer Thumb?

Yes, I dislike those simpering, over made up girls. But to be honest, they look like most teenage girls round here to me.

I'd prefer to see them doing something more actively sciencey, rather than posturing, and watching drips of nail varnish but as GrimmatheNome says, we're not the target audience.

If it worked, - and I'm not sure you can base that on the comments alone, I'd let it go, for the greater good.

The video doesn't need to 'appeal' to anyone, it just needs to get people talking andit has done just that. If you didn't know that there was a severe lack of young women in STEM careers, you do now!

, just realised that my original comment above to Thumb should have been made to Acekicker - oops, sorry Thumb.

The video makes me feel old laugh.

I'm quite sure that the majority of the backlash has not been from this age group = target demographic not necessarily offended

I must run it by DD - I didn't last night because I reckoned it would wind her up too much just before bedtime.

It doesn't have to "only" get people talking. It also has to not harm the cause it's trying to get people talking about, and it would be good if it could set a tone that would engage women scientists who are likely important to the future of a successful campaign.

I think a lot of girls who don't fit the "girly" stereotype and are already into science will feel very undermined. Not to mention that trying to get girls into science by adding to the pressure to conform to an unhealthy and unhelpful stereotype is not good for girls regardless of how many of them go into science.