Tuesday, June 26, 2012

LOL: the EU's Hilarrible Ad for Women Scientists

Apparently this is not a joke.  This really is the EU's attempt to encourage girls to study science.  Come on, really?  Some ladies are not amused.  I laughed out loud, though.  It's so blatantly stupid.  Dude, they replaced the "i" in "science" with a lipstick!  Here's the actual website.  

Look, I'm on the record on this blog saying that girls should feel free to be themselves in academia, and if "being themselves" means enjoying nice shoes and clothes and whatever, then that's great!  My point is that you should feel free to express your femininity and your personality however you please instead of constraining yourself inside someone else's arbitrary expectations ("you have to look like a frump in order to be taken seriously," etc.)  At the same time, I don't think you should construct yourself as a sexpot to order to get attention.  Your work should speak for itself. This EU propaganda, though, isn't about that at all.  The geniuses behind this would have done better to appeal to the intellect and highlight actual women scientists past and present ... oh, you know, people like Ada Lovelace or Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin or Barbara McClintock or the growing number of female astronauts or ... You get the picture.  Oh, and see this too as long as we're talking about scientific stereotypes.

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looked more like a video to get more guys into science to meet the hot women.

- Wodun

Mad Minerva said...

LOL!