So here is what the European Commission thinks is the way to get girls more interested in science:
Apparently, the Commission thinks the defining aspect of girls who are interested in science is that they wear lipstick and high heels — and love sexy dance music. I guess they never saw Dr. Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Rimshot! [OK, that's technically a "sting."]
Seriously, though, the Commission does seem to have a thing for lipstick, as their “Science: It’s A Girl Thing!” website makes painfully clear:
As you can imagine, the video didn’t go over well with actual scientists of both sexes. The L.A. Times reports:
Appalled scientists said the video was a sexist bit of advertising based on the idea that only fashion could get girls interested in test tubes.
“It’s as if Disney channel male execs do ‘science Barbie,’” geologist and blogger Sharon Hill tweeted in disgust. “Terrible.”
Ben Goldacre, author of the Guardian‘s “Bad Science” column, joked, “The EU have funded a campaign to make women in science wear shorter skirts.”
Could the ad be “a fiendish ploy to highlight the stereotyping of women and scientists?” University of Bristol climate scientist Tamsin Edwards quizzed the campaign through Twitter.
Though apparently embarrassed enough to [try to] take the video down, the Commission seems to be of the there’s-no-such-thing-as-bad-press school:
The “Commission doesn’t really do irony,” European Commission spokesman for science Michael Jennings replied. “Hope was to get young people onto site. That seems to be happening!”
Quite. Though the outpouring of attention may have brought more attention to the campaign, the girly video caused such an outcry that the European Commission eventually pulled it from YouTube — only to find that Internet users had already copied it elsewhere.
Yes, well, under that reasoning the Commission could have put in some nudity and, heck, maybe some vampires, if they really wanted people to visit the site. Oh, and I’m guessing lot of the people viewing the site and the video aren’t young girls!
The Commission does have a better, albeit less flashy, video on their site:
Oddly enough, the first video has been watched more than 10 times as much as this one. Go figure.
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It would be interesting to get feedback from the target audience. It is obviously not trying to appeal to those already committed to a science education or those already working in a science field. Maybe the creators of this video believe some girls are afraid if they go into a science field they will not be accepted if fashionable clothing and makeup are looked down on. I have a feeling this video was not tested on a sample group of young women and it is the result of male dominated marketing types.
Dianna Cowern (aka Physics Woman) only has a few thousand YouTube views, so far, yet methinks this Kauai-raised MIT grad does far more to inspire young minds than any of the above. ROTFL, too! http://www.youtube.com/physicswoman
Amongst other problems, who on earth decided to give white captions on the second video? Lab coats and white captions…
The in-your-face video of “I’m a climate scientist” is more effective at debunking the stereotype of scientists as dull and humorless and instantly old.
Heavy makeup and spike heels are party stuff, not work place attire. People who smear mascara on the oculars of an expensive microscope, or make other similarly stupid mistakes, usually don’t last long.
And after work..my best after-work party experiences have been with scientists! Good humor..great cooks..inventive party activities..
ROFL for the lipstick
It’s called “experimentation.” Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but at least they are attempting something different. You’d think the science community would understand the conception of experimentation in the interest of innovation. Wouldn’t you?
I am all for experimentation. But the people who paid for this experiment should have never let the rest of us have to endure it once they saw how flawed it was.
Pointless anyway. There is no such thing as a deficit of women in science, if you include the medical profession. In engineering, where women fraction is low, the problem is caused by an excess of mean instead of a deficit of women.
Speaking of “lipstick and high heels”, I like a LOT of Stephanie McMillan’s work (used for cartoons in many ‘penny for your thought posts here) but those were my exact thoughts about her cartoon at
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/23/505129/open-thread-plus-rio20-cartoon-of-the-week/
Seriously, I’m not saying McMillan’s cartoon is as bad (it’s definitely NOT!) as that really pathetically ‘chic’ first vid here..but, honestly, those were *exactly* my first two thoughts, why the heck did she have to have her character wear super loud bright red lipstick and high heels?
No, it won’t do to say, “but some delegates/ attendees wear that” – not all, certainly not all wear high heels like that, nor blindingly bright red lipstick…far from all of them do, let ALONE the ‘rebel’ attendee (saying “isn’t ‘sustainable development’ an oxymoron?”…they even less so!
Lessons for us all – we promote stereotypical images even when we’re not aware, much less intending to, do so…we should all be careful, especially those who have a large audience and create videos or cartoons etc
But yes, the first vid shown here is over-the-top, “face-palm” bad, bad, bad!
As for the second one..
Except for the makeup in 0:16 (they could have found plenty of female scientists without makeup or without that much) and the lipstick(!) in their text slogan at the end, the second vid is not bad
(oh, and it’s not just lipstick, they HAVE to put an ice cream sundae in the vid? suuuure it’s what we have 7 days a week in the science world…yeah, that’s the ticket…But yeah the first vid above is facepalm bad…hope they get better thought out videos in the future!)