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Sexy Female Scientist Video Draws Fire
sciencehabit writes "A new video released by the The European Commission — ostensibly aimed at getting girls interested in science — is drawing widespred condemnation from around the web for its depiction of female scientists as sexy models strutting into the frame in high heels and short skirts. A male scientist watching them from behind his microscope doesn't seem to mind that none of them are wearing safe lab attire—he just pops his glasses on for a better look. The rest of the video is a mish-mash of heels, nail polish, lipstick, and sexily smoldering Erlenmeyer flasks, arbitrarily punctuated by girly giggles." The Commission denies that the video (since pulled) was a parody, but they've certainly set the bar high for anyone who wanted to make an actual parody.
I can imagine somebody was trying to address a number one concern of girls: It's not a sexy enough job! And I can't be sexy doing it, either.
In the sense that people read Playboy magazine for the articles.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
If you really want to close the gender gap, show girls the video of Ariel Waldman's talk at last year's OSCON. That..was awesome.
Finding God in a Dog
Nothing. But seems like it'd do more to attract men to the field.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
An accurate depiction of lab work wouldn't attract anybody, simply because no advert could ever be long enough to capture the true nature of a science (or in fact, any) job.
The problem is in trying to create a video at all. Ask female scientists why they got into science and create something that triggers those buttons in girls.
Most likely female scientists didn't become scientists because they wanted to look at pretty colors in glass tubes all day.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Ick. I'm not sure I'd consider it sexist, but I do consider it bad.
Ohhh, it's sexist.
Using good looking models? Not so sexist. Using very well dressed good looking models? Well women scientists are still women. They can dress nice.
Showing lab equipment, chemical equations, and elements interspersed with cosmetics in a flagrant advertising-douchy way as if that is the only way to keep the attention of women watching it, or to participate in science?
Sexist. Most definitely.
While there may be some who would be content with closing the gender gap on general principle, for most of us the goal is not warm fuzzies, it really is more and better science. One of the problems we have is that since there are so few women in the sciences, it is very hard to attract new women, even if they have the aptitude. So, the woman who had the potential to be a brilliant bio-chemist goes off and gets a degree in French literature instead and we are down a brilliant bio-chemist. Will all of the women who are attracted by these kinds of efforts make significant scientific advancements? Of course not. Most of the men in the sciences won't either. However, if we can't attract new women to the sciences, we are, in essence, shutting out half of the population from whence these advances could come. This isn't the only reason to want to close the gender gap, but hopefully it will at least convince you that the efforts are not just some pointless progressive feel-good program.
Mainzer. But I guess you were so taken with imagining what her tits look like that you didn't notice what her name was.
Question: why does it matter if she's gorgeous? Is she a better scientist for it? Is her work more notable as a result? She's a remarkably intelligent scientist in her own right, and that's far more important to her scientific credibility than her cup size.
Pairing "gorgeous" with "brilliant" is sort of like saying, "He's a great programmer. And has a horse cock!" They're two characteristics that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH ONE ANOTHER, and drooling over a small handful of smart/pretty women only serves to underscore the sexist, borderline-misogynist, attitudes prevalent in the field.
If you respect a woman's scientific work, there is no reason to bring her looks into it - it's irrelevant to the study of astronomy.