"Pretty Curious" about science!

[GretchenBeckett]

The company my DP works for has launched a campaign aimed at getting more girls into STEM subjects.

www.edfenergy.com/STEM/pretty-curious

On the surface a great idea but they've called it 'pretty curious'! Which has completely fucked the whole thing up for me. I wondered what others thought of this?

((www.edfenergy.com/STEM/pretty-curious))

Buggered up the link!

They explain their angle quite early on in the article and do so well IMO so I think yabu.

Or did you just want an excuse to highlight your DP's company's (v.worthy) cause on here?

"We appreciate the name might be controversial for some – but we chose it to highlight the stereotypes that are often applied to teenage girls. We want to focus on personality and emphasise some of the key attributes that are important for careers in science and technology – things like being curious, creative and focused.
We’re not saying you have to be ‘pretty’ to be ‘curious’.
Or that you have to be ‘pretty’ and ‘curious’ to have an interest in this area.
What we are saying is that being ‘pretty curious’ about the world around you can open up lots of new opportunities."

Nothing further to see here

We appreciate the name might be controversial for some – but we chose it to highlight the stereotypes that are often applied to teenage girls. We want to focus on personality and emphasise some of the key attributes that are important for careers in science and technology – things like being curious, creative and focused.

We’re not saying you have to be ‘pretty’ to be ‘curious’.

Or that you have to be ‘pretty’ and ‘curious’ to have an interest in this area.

^What we are saying is that being ‘pretty curious’ about the world around you can open up lots of new opportunities.

I think they've tried. And it might reach some girls that it otherwise wouldn't, and any help is a good thing.

Bugger it's not Aibu!!

Gender Stereotyping in industry (& in life, in fact but one thing at a time!) is a humongous bugbear of mine but accepting there's a problem and that teenage girls are more inclined to view things from a certain more feminine or 'girly' angle is a step in the right direction I think as the first thing is to get their attention, don't you think?

They're not aiming their project at Yo,u as obviously you (& i, and our ilk) are already well aware of the invisible barriers and actively fight against them - it's getting the attention of teenage and young girls... Do why not use language which will draw them in?

Sorry, italics fail - penultimate paragraph is theirs too.

Bloody hell - men, eh? What are they like? Bastards!!

Am I doing this right?

Ah, too slow anyway!

There was a thread about this campaign previously:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2579941-Competition-to-get-girls-into-STEM-won-by-a-boy?pg=1

There was a bit of a twitter storm about it, as is typical of twitter.

It's not perfect, that's all I can say really.

It's weird though - they are at pains to say that when they say 'pretty', they don't mean that you have to be pretty, that they just mean 'pretty curious' as in 'fairly curious'. So then why are they using the word! It is clearly being used rather than another word because of the double meaning and so it does have connotations with attractiveness.

If you have to include two paragraphs explaining how your slogan isn't really sexist even though it might seem so, you've chosen the wrong slogan!

It's sexist bullshit. How can we make it clear that this is about girls? Use a gendered word about physical attractiveness. Fuck off.