"Science: It's a Girl Thing" Says Controversial Ad
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Yeah, and that blood-soaked or weapon-shaped lettering happens all of the time (and is just as uninspired). I simply refuse to give the filmmaker of this spot enough credit to earnestly believe that he or she was trying to make "a statement". This is much more of a "you want us to make a video about girls and science? Okay, well girls sometimes wear makeup, and scientists sometimes write equations. Let's make an ad with makeup and equations!"kitsuta said:
The problem is that when you deal with dull marketing producers, everything that comes out of them will be directly associative. This video was the composition of five people Family-Feuding what things people commonly associate with women. Whether or not makeup should be a go-to item for the thought of women is a different matter.
This ad could have been much better, but a lack of creativity, not sexism, is the perpetrator.
Where is Sarah Haskins [http://youtu.be/qWh1ZYQAneE] when you need her? I would pay good money to see a Target: Women episode about this.
Are you sure that was an ad for science? I could have sworn that was the first minute of some terrible music video from some terrible artist. I was waiting for the dubstep!
Also, am I the only one who thought the guy at the beginning had an expression of slightly incredulous confusion? He was all like "WTF are these models doing with all my science?"
I'm all for women scientists but this...is not the way to do it. Having models with science flying around them and smoke everywhere doesn't instantly mean "study science!"
At least, not to me.
Also, am I the only one who thought the guy at the beginning had an expression of slightly incredulous confusion? He was all like "WTF are these models doing with all my science?"
I'm all for women scientists but this...is not the way to do it. Having models with science flying around them and smoke everywhere doesn't instantly mean "study science!"
At least, not to me.
Getting more women into the hard sciences is going to take a society-wide mentality shift where we don't assume women are only interested in superficial crap, and where we don't snicker at little girls playing with "toys for boys" and think "aww, isn't that cute, she thinks she's going to be anything but a housewife when she grows up".
This commercial? NOT HELPING.
This commercial? NOT HELPING.
What i always find confusing about "women empowerment in the workplace" ads is that, does it really matter what gender is working more dominantly in each job? Men don't usually work at fashion salons and women don't usually work in a warehouse; it's not gender inequality, it's just how it is.
Pathetic the sheer amount of folk that have cross linked and responded to this advert without investigating the director of it or the other work that is being done on their channel.
The ad itself is not really good, and it is not really bad. Simply at first glance that it appeared to not have delivered it's message. Yet in the context of the channel from which it originally came it does make sense. It does this in a rather "meta" way, in that it solicited the knee jerk stereotype responses from both scientist and lay people alike.
No more than a cursory examination of any of the other videos produced by this team lay the groundwork clear... watch and figure it out for yourselves...
The ad itself is not really good, and it is not really bad. Simply at first glance that it appeared to not have delivered it's message. Yet in the context of the channel from which it originally came it does make sense. It does this in a rather "meta" way, in that it solicited the knee jerk stereotype responses from both scientist and lay people alike.
No more than a cursory examination of any of the other videos produced by this team lay the groundwork clear... watch and figure it out for yourselves...
If anyone wants to complain the sites contact page is here: http://science-girl-thing.eu/contact
I've sent an e-mail myself. Their facebook page is here: http://www.facebook.com/sciencegirlthing
Sadly they have made no comment I can find so far, I've received no response to my e-mail sent yesterday and there has been, as you can see, no apology or explanation from their site or facebook page. I honestly think they're trying to pretend it didn't happen by taking down the video and staying silent, don't let them.
A shame this article didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but I'm glad the case is gaining notoriety.
I've sent an e-mail myself. Their facebook page is here: http://www.facebook.com/sciencegirlthing
Sadly they have made no comment I can find so far, I've received no response to my e-mail sent yesterday and there has been, as you can see, no apology or explanation from their site or facebook page. I honestly think they're trying to pretend it didn't happen by taking down the video and staying silent, don't let them.
A shame this article didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but I'm glad the case is gaining notoriety.
Poor you. It might not be universal, but at least for as far as my experience goes is that in higher education the ratio is very weighted towards females. Might just be that one university though.BlackStar42 said:
Maybe you should swim across the canal. Come for a visit here
I honestly wasn't aware of any big divide in the sciences. Always seemed pretty open to everybody to me. I've never been in any busy lab and confused it for a Hotdog Haus or Taco Bell.
Hehe, crudeness is fun every now and then.
I can go with you to this place, but I still think it's on the same end of town. I don't think it's intentionally sexist, but the effects of ignorance can very easily mimic those of malice.Mike Kayatta said:
The very reason we tend to push women away from "real work" and toward such endeavors a shopping, cooking, and fashion is because we have constructed cultural attachments between women and those things. And rather than challenge those attachments, this ad played to them.
If anything, I think that kind of thing is worse than intentional sexism, because we still make excuses for it. It's still permissible to be "a little sexist," as long as it's not out of hatred but out of habit. That kind of sexism still has a backdoor into our subconscious, whereas most sensible people can identify and immediately ignore more direct, intentional sexism.
What's more, the "accidental sexists" are the ones that we should be seeking to convert in the first place. The intentional ones aren't going to listen, ever, so it's stupid of us to make so much of a fuss when they pop up. It's easy to see this as mountains-from-molehills, but it's actually choosing the battles that can be won and are thus worth fighting.
I understand needing to address the status quo in order to challenge it, but you need to be careful your ad doesn't celebrate it. Maybe something more along the lines of a young woman narrator saying,
"Why do people think of me wearing this stuff (Show woman putting on all sorts of makeup)... but never making it (Show woman working in lab)? Why is it 'normal' for me to do this (Show woman working on something complicated in kitchen)... but not this (Now in lab, maybe working on safer, more sustainable foods)? Why do I have to wear the little pink dress (clip of Marilyn Monroe) instead of the long white coat (dramatization of Marie Curie), and why am I expected to live on the cutting-edge of fashion (clip of random supermodels), when I can live on the cutting-edge of discovery (clip of female surgeons, astronauts, etc.)?
And then a series of match-cut shots of the young woman's face, starting with a frown in a little pink dress against a dimly-lit pink floral background, but gradually moving to a smile as she rotates faster and faster through various "science uniforms" against a brightly-lit science-equipment-filled background, and a green-screen of outer space, all under the voiceover, "When can I stop worrying what you think? When will you start watching what I can do?"
And then the tagline: Science - Look what I can do. Or something. And maybe the "I" is the little "woman" symbol from restroom doors, or the "O" in "do" is that Roman symbol for female. But, by God, nothing about it is pink.
There, 15 minutes of work, and I think we already have a less-accidentally-sexist ad. Yeah, you address the stereotypes... but then you either choose to sustain them, or to subvert them.
I am offended and outraged by the blatant falsehoods and pandering imagery in this video.
And I´m not talking about the girl stuff.
I´m talking about trying to make science look cool and fun.
It´s not.
If you want to convey an accurate picture of science, just put up a video of somebody slamming a door against his head for 10 minutes, while fighting of a pack of raptors with a glow-in-the-dark slinky and falling down a huge cliff on fire.
THAT would be an accurate description of what science is like.
Or maybe it isn´t. But I would still pay good money to see that video.
And I´m not talking about the girl stuff.
I´m talking about trying to make science look cool and fun.
It´s not.
If you want to convey an accurate picture of science, just put up a video of somebody slamming a door against his head for 10 minutes, while fighting of a pack of raptors with a glow-in-the-dark slinky and falling down a huge cliff on fire.
THAT would be an accurate description of what science is like.
Or maybe it isn´t. But I would still pay good money to see that video.
The only thing most girls I know are aware of science is the Formula on how to make money from men's wallet spontaneously disappear into some 5th dimension where only fashion existminiboss said:
This piratically REEKS of quantum physics!
Hmm that is an odd looking kit.... i mean lab.
C'mon it is just another commercial shit out by some talentless hack. What is its difference from the other lame as hell ads?
To clarify my stance, i too think it is utterly stupid but nothing too offensive
"One really souldn't worry about this sort of thing unless there is genuine hatred behind it" said once a wise guy
C'mon it is just another commercial shit out by some talentless hack. What is its difference from the other lame as hell ads?
To clarify my stance, i too think it is utterly stupid but nothing too offensive
"One really souldn't worry about this sort of thing unless there is genuine hatred behind it" said once a wise guy