Science is science, regardless of whether you are a women or a man, be yourself and enjoy what you do. Don’t push science to young girls by making it seem all girly. Just treat boys and girls the same when it comes to science and engineering and there will be no gender troubles. That includes not favoring women in science because that is just unfair and may not produce the best person for the job if you are just choosing a woman for diversity’s sake.

On the contrary, men are discouraged from getting involved in english, history, design and arts. Why doesn’t anybody stress that point? Oh right those subjects aren’t “manly” enough, I forgot… :P

On the other hand, maybe men and woman just tend to have different instincts that lead them down different educational roads. The world may never know the true answer! :P

jtotheizzoe:

More on “Science: It’s A Girl Thing” Video Flop:

Could videos like this actually help “girly” girls be more comfortable in the sciences?

HuffPo Science’s Cara Santa Maria stopped by to talk to Chris Hardwick on Attack of the Show, which is like, so many cool things coming together in one place that it’s hard to handle. They discussed the EU’s recent launch of an effort to get young girls involved in science called “Science: It’s A Girl Thing”. The intro video didn’t go over so well. Alice Bell said science isn’t a girl thing, it’s a people thing.

The original video featured girls in high heels and make-up strutting around a lab, distracting a good-looking male scientist (it wasn’t me, just to clear up confusion). It has since been taken down, but a clip can be viewed here. I thought it created an image of a female scientist that A) had very little to do with being a female and B) had very little to do with being a scientist. Meaning it wouldn’t help very much.

But Cara offers this thought in her interview with Chris up above: Could a video like this help girls who identify as “girly” be more comfortable with science? We know that girls in general have massive social pressures working against them to continue pursuing science as a career or even as something to excel at, but do you think that one of those is that there’s an image that’s discouraging more “girly” girls?

Obviously, a lot of that will depend on what your definition of “girly” even is, and whether you think it matters. 

I want to note that the EU commission has been very cool in the aftermath of this video. And the videos of real female scientists on their website are very nicely done, and you should check them out.

I’ve made my view clear in the past, and I think there are many cooler ways to capture the fun and adventure of scientific discovery than focusing on girly vs. non-girly. But what do you think?