Catching up on my magazines and there was this tidbit synopsis that I thought was worth sharing here
Still - going to the actual article, there is a ways to go - the male stereotype still becomes stronger with age. But progress!
Very cool!
I have taught a math and science methods course several times at a local college. The first year I had nine students. All women. Several had very strong science backgrounds: one had taken organic chemistry “for fun,” one had gone to an elementary school with a marine science focus, one was a bio major.
Oh, and the building in which the class met had been built for the use of a famous woman scientist of the 1800s.
On the first day of the science part of the course I asked the students to visualize a “scientist”—what was the first image they got? “My brother,” said one. “Bill Nye in a lab,” said another. “A guy in a white coat.” Down the line we went: my sneaky purpose was not to focus on images but indirectly on gender, and as it happened every one of them visualized a man. I was rather astonished and a bit appalled that it was a clean sweep. And so, when I pointed it out, were they.
So I am really glad to see your post!
Sounds like my wife the Art History major. Once I came home and said that I had passed an oil refinery that smelled just like french fries. She said, “Not surprising. Carbon can combine only so many ways.”
I, without the organic chem background, thought for a moment and said, “No, carbon can combine thousands of ways.”
“That’s only so many.”
Sadly, the only job she had that used her mad, but untutored, skillz was at a flavor company.
ETA: Barbie dolls at first only had outfits appropriate for a high-end call girl. Wife had to make her a lab coat.
The article also mentions that girls are the ones primarily drawing female scientists. It is a bit of projection; they want to be a scientist, so they draw themselves as a scientist. Boys are still drawing males scientists more than female scientists.
We need to do a better job of exposing all children to positive role models that don’t conform with “traditional” jobs for that gender. Female engineers. Male nurses. Female firefighters. Male early childhood teachers. Moms who are executives. Dads who stay at home. And we also need to encourage kids to aspire to whatever job they want. Don’t tell a boy that he really wants to be a doctor when he says he wants to be a nurse. Don’t tell a girl that she would be better as an elementary school teacher if she says she wants to be professor.
This study shows that things are trending in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.
What if I picture a woman scientist as a gigantic Marie Curie attacking Tokyo with laser eyes? I mean, I could just think of one of my coworkers, but Kaiju Marie and Pierre Curie is so much more fun.