Great post on the whole “It’s a girl thing” fiasco.
My twitter feed exploded this morning in response to a new European Commission Campaign called “Science: it’s a girl thing“. Specifically the ‘teaser’ video (below). In summary, the tweeple are not impressed.
My guess is that the video was put together by people who don’t actually know anything about science (open toed shoes in a lab? Tsk!) Or women. So perhaps we should pity them in their ignorance, though presumably they were paid enough that they could have done a little research first. Failure to do so has resulted in what Olivia Solon aptly describes as “the bastard offspring of a Barry M ad and the results of searching for “science” in a stock image library”
I can only speak for myself here, but my journey into science was not tinged with any perceptible gender angle. My father worked with numbers for a living, taught me to…
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Mr Epidemiology 
June 25, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for the re-blog. Overall, the video is so daft that I’m more amused than irate, but it did deserve comment.
June 25, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Anytime! I really liked your post – especially the comment that it’s not gender based. We should be encouraging all kids to cultivate an interest in it – regardless of other demographics.
June 25, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Yes, any time we make assumptions about the preferences, interests and thought processes of large groups, we’re likely to only get it right for a subset. I’m sure there’s a population health analogy in there – move the distribution rather than focussing the intervention on the tails (cf Geoffrey Rose)!