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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.
Whats wrong with sexy female scientists - they have them in movies.
A story where everybody reads the article!
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
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.
I'll be honest, until I saw the tagline at the end, I thought this was a makeup commercial.
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.
I totally agree... they were obviously aiming for a dual-sponsored message.
Science: it's a girl thing
maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline
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
Judging by the 'tweets', what seems to be the original has been made 'private', i.e. taken-down. (I'm assuming that was the official YouTube posting - I can't find anything more official looking.)
As well as the mirror linked in the summary, we have a Youtube mirror, and another non-Youtube mirror.
Why would they bother? Do they really not realise that if you release something high-profile on the web, it's out for good?
I don't know about American labs, but this is how we roll in Europe. Especially, Biology labs...
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Why does anybody want to advertise this way?
Does science career needs THIS type or any type of advertising?
People who go to science and people who science need to go into science, have completely different channels of getting into science, being highborn for example (science is one of the most hereditary professions in the world).
Science does not need extra people, science does not need advertising.
If science had a want in people, postdocs won't be living on meager 50K a year salary, grown 35 old men with beards and wives.
Why don't European commission advertise food serving industry, the situation seems quite deplorable there?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Next stop - stirring more male interest in the nursing profession by making an ad with fast cars in a hospital.
Why did no one complain that they used a sexy male model for a scientist too?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Please take a look at how things work in Denmark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ8_81Qy9kg&feature=BFa&list=UU3B_-v8-6-_6Px0FwBcLTrw Not at all related to the subject but also funny - and from just across the lawn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOzwpMs-5bM&feature=BFa&list=UU3B_-v8-6-_6Px0FwBcLTrw
What a horrible bunch of stereotypes and role models for young girls. Everyone know that to be smart you have to bug ugly or fat.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. This fallacy is a classic though, so maybe we can just call this argument "vintage".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3eZQHwGQE0&feature=g-u-u
I agree with Dr. Meghan Gray. She is spot on.
For those not familiar with Brady (the interviewer and editor of the videos), don't take too much offense. He commonly takes an antagonistic view to help draw out a more in-depth response.
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.
We insist on closing it because there is no evidence to support the theory that biological differences make one gender or another better "suited" to certain roles.
We insist on closing it because there is a constant drumbeat of warnings about how we don't have enough people earning qualifications for STEM careers in college graduating, and we're going to have massive shortfalls - yet somewhere approaching 50% of the population (depending on the field - some fields have higher participation rates than others, to be fair) simply isn't considering the idea of a STEM career.
We insist because there simply is no gender gap in performance measurements that is NOT eliminated by equal access and participation in math and science programs - yet there is clearly something social or psychological causing perfectly capable women to focus on other careers instead.
Maybe you should think about the biases your own post betrays, and consider whether or not maybe you're part of the problem, and the reason you think it's dumb is because you're going to have to rethink your attitudes and learn how to behave like a decent human being towards women in your workplace?
I'm taking night classes while I get my master's in Internet programming, and doing a lot better. People doing well at 8AM classes doesn't show serious commitment so much as it shows people whose circadian clocks function on what is accepted as the "proper" schedule. Now that I'm not a stupid freshman, I can get up at 7AM pretty regularly, but it was almost impossible for me when I was 18. (That was also due to iron deficiency anemia, but it took another 8 months for me to be diagnosed with that when I finally went to the doctor about not being able to get up, even with the alarm.)
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.