The Best of Systers Blog “Science: It’s a Girl Thing”
Laurian Vega
Everyone woman who is in technology has their own story about how they fell in love with technology. Usually it is a teacher or a parent who lighted a spark of interest in a field that can look very unappealing. With me, my parents (my dad is an engineer) always assumed I would be good at computers, and therefore I was. The lack of assumptions about what girls would be good at let my desires to play with computers flourish.
But not everyone is so lucky. Girls get told that “math class is tough”, that they are biologically not sufficient to be good at STEM, and that to like something in technology it must be pink. Don’t even get me started on the vitriol that is the whole topic of female gamers. It is enough to wonder how any women end up in technology to begin with.
Which is why when this video came out from the European Commission, titled, “Science: It’s a Girl Thing” there was a decent amount of outcry. The video shows young women in tall heels and short skirts taking off their stylish sun glasses to put on safety goggles. I’m not sure what was more offensive to me – the hodge podge mashup of girls giggling with pictures of scientific objects, or the scene when the girls swap out their sun glasses for safety goggles. I was left gobsmacked at how an agency like the European Commission could come out with such a video.
Luckily, the EC decided to do something about it. Check out their new website. Thankfully, there isn’t an overly highlighted high heel in sight.
January 4th, 2013 at 2:13 am
Hi Laurian, After that video came out, we started an informal “crowdsourcing” contest to make an alternative. Here are the three winners along with a description of what we did:
Science: It’s your thing! 3 steps to a crowdsourcing success http://bit.ly/Us73hB
Enjoy!
Curt