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	rhosyn_du 2012-06-28 09:18 pm UTC (link)
	...they replaced the "i" in "science" with a tube of lipstick. What. I don't even. WHAT. (Reply to this)

the__ivorytower
2012-06-28 09:23 pm UTC (link)

I think that while it is important to note that liking certain things doesn't preclude liking other things (ie, you can be a scientist and still like makeup and pink), this is not the way to go about it.

One of the commenters noted that a neat idea would be to talk about the scientific principles that go into ordinary things. This seems like it would be cool. I think exposing children of both genders to not-gender-specific sciencey things is also a good idea.

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staroverthebay
2012-06-28 10:55 pm UTC (link)

Actually, I think you're on to something there! I mean, it's not exactly wrong to like cosmetics and traditionally-girly stuff, is it? (I personally don't like wearing make-up, but that's just me.) And I don't see anything wrong with using in an ad campaign, so long as it's relevant to the actual ad campaign itself.

The science (particularly the chemistry) involved in the cosmetics industry is actually really fascinating. There's a whole crapton of science that goes into creating a single compact of foundation (or tube of lipstick, or bottle of perfume, etc). There's science in most things these days, but cosmetics in particular rely heavily on chemistry, an an example. I've been at the same retail store for almost 15 years now. I've listened to training sessions for cosmetic salespeople (easy to hear when you're working in a stockroom that's right next to the training room), and I've listened to the sales-pitch talk from sales associates trying to sell the products to store customers. The chemistry involved in creating products for use in the cosmetic retail industry is really fascinating.

It could actually make for an interesting advertising campaign idea tailored toward young women: "Hey girls, you know that makeup that you like? Wanna learn more about how it's created, and how it works? Science can show you!"

It could present science (stereotypically a male-dominated discipline) as something that even the girliest of girls can benefit from, which might make the whole thing suddenly more appealing. It might seem shallow, but it could be effective.

Note that this suggestion isn't very gender-neutral, I realize that, but at the same time, it might get attention from girls who might have found science interesting, but assume that "science is for boys because society says so" and isn't that the point of the ad campaign in the first place?

It's, at the very least, a far cry better than the crap that was produced by the EU Commission here. Geebus.

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the__ivorytower
2012-06-28 11:11 pm UTC (link)

The big problem with the ad campaign is that it doesn't go into *why* someone might like science.

Maybe you have a friend or a relative that's a doctor, and it interests you?

Maybe you live in an area where you can see things happen, like dairy farming or horse breeding, and you want to know more about zoology?

Maybe you really love Bill Nye: the Science Guy and want to know more about electromagnets?

Maybe you think dinosaurs are totally awesome, or you're curious about chemical compounds or *anything*.

Rather than making assumptions, they need to look into why people like science at all and work from there.

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	scifantasy 2012-06-28 09:58 pm UTC (link)
	Apparently, the European Commission asked five gender experts (professors at various universities, one man and four women) for advice on how to do teh campaign, then (according to the man, Curt Rice of the University of Tromsø) completely ignored it. So, pretty much as you envision it. (Reply to this)

	0_o... pantyless_angel 2012-06-29 12:03 am UTC (link)
	I got the worst embarrassment squick watching that. How is that supposed to get girls/women interested in science? Most of it looked like pointless sexy posing, and random makeup shots to me.. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: 0_o... kookaburra 2012-06-29 03:11 am UTC (link)
	The best theory I've heard is that it's actually a stealth campaign to get adolescent boys interested in science. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: 0_o... pantyless_angel 2012-06-29 03:35 am UTC (link)
	That makes a lot more sense. I mean if this is what is supposed to get women interested in science I was definitely doing it wrong, being inspired by the Science of Discworld books. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: 0_o... honorh 2012-06-29 04:21 am UTC (link)
	Your icon! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: 0_o... pantyless_angel 2012-06-29 06:11 am UTC (link)
	Closest thing to a Discworld icon I have. XD Feel free to take it if you want. He gets called that so much by..certain people... and that's always the first thing that comes to my mind so I had to make an icon of it. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: 0_o... bobafeis 2012-06-29 02:02 am UTC (link)
	So, for women... science involves posing sexily for male scientists, giggling and pictures of flasks or molecule models. Goddamnit, I can giggle and pose sexily. Where's my doctorate?! Ahem. I'm just going to go dwell on the irony that a discipline motivated by a desire to obtain the deepest understanding possible is being represented by images of the most shallow stereotypes. (Reply to this)

This ended up being in letter form

quartz
2012-06-29 02:41 am UTC (link)

Listen EU, the way to get everyone, regardless of gender, interested in science is to show them something that makes them go "Whoa, that's COOL!" And then follow that up with a little "What if" session about the possibilities of the Cool Thing. Not this kind of idiocy.

That's why Bill Nye was so awesome. Crushing a giant metal 55 gallon drum using only water and a kiddie pool? That leaves an impression of science = COOL, whereas your PSA tells me that to be a scientist I either have to be a guy in a white lab coat (who gets to touch sciencey things that are COOL) or a sexy chick who's into posing for the guy in white lab coat instead of actually doing science and touching sciencey things.

Do it again and I will bury your car under a rockslide. Or just reroute a river through your house. And with science? I can do that. And I bet it'll make more girls go "Whoa, COOL!" and want to be a scientist than your PSA will.

No love and much rage,
Quartz

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	Re: This ended up being in letter form honorh 2012-06-29 02:49 am UTC (link)
	Your letter is win. Your icon is win. You, apparently, are Made of Win. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: This ended up being in letter form

taterbird
2012-06-29 07:59 am UTC (link)

I'm a middle school science teacher. It's right on the cusp of a little kid's enthusiasm for science because they love to know why things happen, and the point where it loses relevancy in the lives of the kids. My girls like science. My boys like science. That's because I set things on fire. And then I teach them how to safely set things on fire. We explode things. We dissect sharks. My eighth graders build rockets and we shoot them off, and our school designs and races balloon rocket cars. I apply slime to EVERYTHING. It's not perfect, but my kids slog through conversions,definitions, and formulae because there's a payoff. It's fun for me, and it's fun for them.
...And yes, we use pressure to collapse cans. Because it's awesome. THAT is how you get kids interested in science. Incidentally, it's also how you get them to join science club.

Tl;dr: Cosigned.

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	Re: This ended up being in letter form kalakagatha 2012-06-30 03:04 am UTC (link)
	I really hope my daughter lucks out and gets a science teacher just like you someday. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: This ended up being in letter form sandglass 2012-07-01 04:01 am UTC (link)
	I love good science teachers! Mine made such a difference in my life that I want to hug you. (Reply to this)(Parent)

sandglass
2012-07-01 03:59 am UTC (link)

Mythbusters!

Having actual scientists talk is probably the best way to go. You wouldn't even need to have gender mentioned at all, just get some women scientists who can enthusiastically describe what they're doing and why it matters or why it's cool, and girls will take the hint. It's not hard to make science sound exciting and interesting, and one of the most important things is letting girls know that science is actually a potential field for them where they could find fulfillment.

Fuck, it'd probably be pretty cheap, too, because it's not hard to find scientists who are SO EXCITED to tell you all about what they do.

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	ladyvyola 2012-06-29 03:05 am UTC (link)
	Dammit, now my mouth is all dry because my jaw dropped open and I was frozen that way until my kind housemate came by and save me. I returned the favor by making him watch the PSA. I think he's still catching flies. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	staroverthebay 2012-06-30 07:11 pm UTC (link)
	Not a very nice way to repay your housemate, to be sure. Hopefully you at least offered him a glass of water (or "dihydrogen oxide") to help with his drymouth? :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

uldihaa
2012-06-29 03:21 am UTC (link)

I wonder if those on that committee were the same ones that come up with those bizarre nonsensical ads that they show on "Worlds Sexiest Ads" or whatever?

You know, the ones that have the supermodel in lingerie posing, slinking, and looking sultry, then she's splayed across the hood of a Lamborghini while wine/champagne is pored down her cleavage. It ends with "Buy {Brand Name Plastic Cups}" (or something else completely unrelated).

That ad was distilled FAIL. The really pathetic thing about it though? Those that came up with it are probably proud of it and wouldn't understand how much FAIL it is.

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	viralmemory 2012-06-29 03:24 am UTC (link)
	I thought it was a Target ad! :( Dear god, the fashion show is never allowed to end, is it. (Reply to this)

	wankaholic 2012-06-29 03:59 am UTC (link)
	...and here I thought I went into chemistry because it meant that I got to blow things up. GUESS I WAS WRONG. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	honorh 2012-06-29 04:20 am UTC (link)
	Mythbusters has probably done more to get girls into science than this faily thing ever will. Because of explosions. And Kari Byron is a badass. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	gardnerhill 2012-07-14 03:42 pm UTC (link)
	Amen! And Kari Byron blew stuff up and crashed cars and fired cheeses out of cannons while she was pregnant - that, right there, probably will get more girls into science and math classes than a hundred good PSAs let alone this Barbie crap. Without saying a word it says that they too they can do Cool Science Shit and all the Cool Lady Shit without conflict. (Reply to this)(Parent)

rosehiptea
2012-06-29 04:10 am UTC (link)

Side question: why is it the '80s in this video?

I was wondering the same thing. I kept expecting period music to start up.

... Probably "She Blinded Me With Science."

Anyway, yeah, that's really... bizarre and counterproductive, and assumes that a) girls aren't into science because they think it's not "girly" enough and b) they will change their minds and think it is girly if a content-free ad tells them it is. How pathetic.

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	wook77 2012-06-29 04:19 am UTC (link)
	This comment made me lol. It really does look like a crappy sequel to Weird Science, doesn't it? (Reply to this)

	spacelogic 2012-06-29 08:29 am UTC (link)
	It's past my bedtime but I just remembered a highly relevant comic so here I am with it. toddles off to go sleep (Reply to this)

	chikane 2012-06-29 08:50 am UTC (link)
	Yeeeah, that is one terrible campaign. Posing for guys is not exactly what aspiring female scientists would usually aspire to. The hypothesis that it's a stealth campaign for adolescent males seems to have merit. Either that or incompetence. Maybe both. (Reply to this)

etcetera_cat
2012-06-29 02:02 pm UTC (link)

The only pink ten year old me was interested in was the end product of making litmus paper from red cabbage, and it wasn't so much the pink as the fact that I made something that did something else! (and could then spend roughly the next five days straight making my parents pick soggy scraps of litmus paper out of every conceivable fluid in the entire house because I was determined to know the acid/base leaning of ALL THE THINGS).

Which. Okay? COOL STUFF > stereotyped assumptions when it comes to generating interest in things.

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	cat_mcdougall 2012-07-01 09:12 pm UTC (link)
	How did I know you would be here with the awesome that is science and you? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	etcetera_cat 2012-07-01 10:04 pm UTC (link)
	It's possible that science was not considered awesome around about the third time ten year old me being in the kitchen directly resulted in, ahem, "additional fibre" in the dinner whistles (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cat_mcdougall 2012-07-01 10:06 pm UTC (link)
	I'm using cooking and cleaning (Mainly baking soda + vinegar = AWESOME) to convince the girl child that science is cool. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	etcetera_cat 2012-07-01 10:09 pm UTC (link)
	Baking soda plus vinegar plus red food colouring equals VOLCANO (why yes, yes I did. We had to repaint the ceiling in the dining room because twelve year old me was more about enthusiasm than accurate (or sensible) measuring) :D (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cat_mcdougall 2012-07-01 10:11 pm UTC (link)
	We may try variations of different colors because why not? But in the sink, where the mess will be less. :D (Reply to this)(Parent)

	aaron_agonistes 2012-06-29 08:20 pm UTC (link)
	If, like me, you needed something to wash this crap out of your head, here: Have some Bill Nye doing it right. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	kumquat_of_doom 2012-06-29 10:33 pm UTC (link)
	Actually, I'm pretty sure that what we need here is some girl scientists doing it right. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the__ivorytower 2012-06-30 12:56 am UTC (link)
	If it helps, the first person we see doing an experiment (who isn't Bill) is a girl, and the person doing the "Try This" segment is also a girl, and a black girl too. Science! Oh hey, Candice the Science Gal! There's a girl in the second Try This segment too. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kumquat_of_doom 2012-06-29 10:31 pm UTC (link)
	...What the HELL did I just watch? I have got to send this to my physicist BFF: in between dealing with newborn Mini Me, she will compose a rant about this that might actually leave a mushroom cloud in its wake. (Reply to this)

tiye
2012-06-30 12:52 am UTC (link)

In an effort to find something awesome that features girls doing actual science, I came across this. One thing that I love is that it represents girls and women of different ages (from pre-teen to young adult), different races, different backgrounds, sometimes working in teams and sometimes on their own, and the variety of projects/types of science is incredible. They talk about their personal reasons for doing their projects, and how it feels to do the work and see the results of their efforts. Just so cool.

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	the__ivorytower 2012-06-30 01:05 am UTC (link)
	That video is totally cool. And I saw Bill Nye in the background, bringing things back around, since his show often featured kids of both genders and many races doing things that were totally cool. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	tiye 2012-06-30 01:11 am UTC (link)
	Yes, I thought I spotted Bill Nye in there! XD (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kookaburra 2012-06-30 03:21 pm UTC (link)
	There's also this SciShow about Marie Curie (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: This ended up being in letter form

sandglass
2012-07-01 04:18 am UTC (link)

Here, have nine awesome women scientists giving lectures for TED!

Also, because I'll never miss a chance to promote the Symphony of Science, Ode to the Brain! has clips from Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk that give me goose bumps. It's still mostly men, but Symphony of Science is so awesome. Now, if he'd made their commercial, I bet they'd have people beating down their doors to get into science.

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kattahj
2012-06-30 06:14 am UTC (link)

To this day, I'm kicking myself that I didn't realize how cool science could be until I was well into my twenties. That ad? Would not have made it cooler. What it would have done is convince me, "Oh, all that boring stuff, and I have to be sexy too? Forget it." The STEM video in the comments, however, might have done some good.

On a sidenote, I find it very funny that the first woman in Sweden's science academy got in there by figuring out how to make alcohol from potatoes. Snaps drinkers have a lot to thank her for. :-)

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	eevee 2012-07-05 03:05 pm UTC (link)
	>I didn't realize how cool science could be until I was well into my twenties Me too... and now I'm an Engineering freshman at 25. sigh! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kattahj 2012-07-05 04:05 pm UTC (link)
	Yay you! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	cellardoor28 2012-06-30 09:21 am UTC (link)
	When I did my integrated science GCSE at an all-girls school (20 years ago, mind you!) one of the modules we were given was Cosmetic Science. Learning how to make lipstick and facecream. We could have had automotive science ffs! So yeah, this is nothing new, but you'd like to think things have changed in 20 years. (Reply to this)