Science for girls: just add heels?

A recent promotional video uses lipstick, high heels and sexy, sashaying girls to promote science. The real news? It's from the European Commission, writes DANIELLE MORAN

AMID pastel puffs of smoke, strutting models and what must be the first hydrogen symbol to resemble a Chanel logo, the European Commission is trying to encourage more girls to consider science when plotting their careers.

But accusations of stereotyping and sexualisation piled up as the Commission’s 45-second “teaser” went viral last month, causing its research, innovation and science team to backtrack and pull the video from its website.

Science showed us, earlier this month, that it is more than capable of generating its own positive perceptions with the announcement that scientists at Cern had discovered evidence of a sub-atomic particle believed to be crucial in the formation of the universe. So do we really need lipstick and face powder to excite female students about a career in science?

It would seem, at least at Leaving Certificate level, we don’t. In Ireland, female students are outnumbering their male counterparts when they sit down to the Leaving Cert chemistry exam and almost twice as many girls as boys tackle the biology paper.

Yet girls are turning away from physics, despite those who sit the paper excelling in similar proportions to boys. In fact, in 2011 a higher percentage of female students received an A2, B or C grade in their Leaving Cert at higher level – with more boys at the extreme ends of the spectrum achieving either an A1 or D and lower grades.

The idea that physics and girls don’t match could be a hangover from an earlier view of education. “Physics wasn’t offered to me at school, and it was expressed to me that this was because it wasn’t a girl’s subject,” says Lorraine Hanlon, now head of physics at UCD. “This is still an attitude that is out there.”

Hanlon studied for her Leaving Cert physics exam outside school hours at her local VEC and says “there can be an automatic assumption that it’s not for girls and it’s important to make it normal and to protect physics at secondary level”.

Physics is now considered by teachers to be vulnerable in terms of both female and male students.

Numbers taking physics have dropped dramatically in the past 10 years, says Pat Doyle, physics teacher at the Institute of Education. Despite the lingering perception that physics is not a girl’s subject, Doyle doesn’t see any evidence of the divide in his students, but he is wary that schools might be inclined to choose which subjects they offer on the basis of what those teachers had studied in their own exams when harder science subjects were not traditionally offered to female students.

He fears moves to implement a new syllabus will not encourage more students to take physics but suggests exam questions could be written in such a way as to be seen to reward hard-working students.

“Students feel that there is a certain gamble with the physics paper that isn’t there with biology. Students can work very hard and not be rewarded. There could be a way of changing the exam paper without dumbing it down.”

Yet gambling on the future could be a returning theme for those who choose to study physics, or any science, at university and postgraduate level as, despite talk of science and technology being the blocks on which we reconstruct our economy, there isn’t always a clear career path for young students to aspire to.

Even for those who go so far as taking a PhD the odds of claiming an academic staff position are low – with women typically holding less than 20 per cent of positions, according to Hanlon.

“There are fewer women than men applying for tenure track positions and this is not going to help. Many take a PhD and go to postdoctoral level but even these are not necessarily family-friendly.”

The jump between postdoctoral fellow and a career in academia seems to be one many women are either unhappy or unable to make.

“It’s a difficult career path,” says Ursula Bond, head of microbiology at Trinity College, who for 17 years was the sole female member of academic staff in her department.

“I think when someone’s looking at work-life balance of an academic career some females may make a decision that it’s not for them. For me, that’s the point where you see the fall-out.”

Across the EU, women are under-represented in both engineering and science and make up just 32 per cent of career researchers. It’s clear the problem is a dual one: how to spark a passion in science and how to maintain it throughout a career.

The EU Commission, to its credit, is attempting to tackle this through a wider campaign which will try to address both problems and begins by making the research and stories of female scientists as role models available online.

It’s clear, however, that catwalk-style videos are not the way forward. Diana Betz, a researcher at the University of Michigan, recently showed that teenage girls are actually repelled, not attracted, by role models who combine both scientific prowess and stereotypic femininity. Perhaps after some experimentation, it is clear that the results show that mixing lipstick with models in a lab doesn’t necessarily produce female scientists.

What are your impressions of the EU Commission ‘teaser’ video?

Lorraine Hanlon, head of physics, UCD

I dont know what the Commission was hoping to achieve with the video teaser – it’s ludicrous. My immediate reaction was, ‘what on earth are they thinking?’ It’s a cross between Sex and the City and a L’Oréal advert. It seems incredible, particularly since the EU does so much to encourage and promote research.”

Curt Rice, EU Commission Gender Advisory Group

“My initial reaction was, ‘Oh boy, how is this going to play out?’ I was concerned that there’s one man in the video and three girls and there’s a significant contrast in how theyre portrayed. The man looks a bit more of a traditional scientist, and the girls are dancing and dressed more for a nightclub than a day at work.”

Ursula Bond, head of microbiology, TCD

“What can I say? I don’t think you need to try make Science ‘sexy’ to attract more women into science careers. In fact, that is just demeaning to women. We just want to attract both men and women who are passionate and curious about research as these qualities are what are necessary to sustain any person interested in a career in science.”

Michael Jennings, head of press for Márie Geoghegen-Quinn MEP

It is “not central to the main campaign. We accept that the video went too far. The campaign is balanced by a range of sources but we got the balance wrong with the video. The notion that science is cool is important and we stand by that.”

Diana E Betz, gender researcher at University of Michigan

“The video may fall into the trap that feminine science role models do [in our research] in that girls may feel deterred by the pressure of being perfectly feminine and scientifically skilled. There’s also an element of sexualisation in the video . . . which may have unintended consequences.”

The Science: It’s a Girl Thing! video can be viewed on YouTube. Search: Science it’s a girl thing