Girly science ad gets European Commission grief

[n2doc]

The European Commission is getting grief over a flashy ad meant to get girls excited about science that looks more like a lipstick commercial. The teaser video, "Science: It’s a girl thing!" is pegged to a European Commission campaign to bring more women into the field, which skews heavily toward men.

But for many galled viewers, the feminist goal was drowned out by the stereotypically girly images of women giggling and strutting in skirts, jumbled in with bubbling flasks.

The perky video bounces between shots of nail polish and petri dishes, sunglasses and goggles over a techno beat; it even swaps out the "i" in "science" with a tube of lipstick. Appalled scientists said the video was a sexist bit of advertising based on the idea that only fashion could get girls interested in test tubes.

"It's as if Disney channel male execs do ‘science Barbie,'" geologist and blogger Sharon Hill tweeted in disgust. "Terrible.


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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/girly-science-ad-gets-european-commission-grief-video.html

[rocktivity]

1. I thought it was a new cosmetics line for teenyboppers

rocktivity

[Warpy]

2. The only part of it I found objectionable was the hooker shoes.

You can't do anything in hooker shoes except be a hooker and hope you get to kick them off soon.

[eridani]

3. Seriously stupid

Very seriously stupid. But since I retired, I'm wearing perfume again. When I was working, the people in the volatiles analysis lab raised holy hell when anyone walked by the door wearing any kind of a scent.

A geeky approach to perfume might have been fun, though. Breaking down the scent profiles of perfumes (and many other commercial products) is an art as much as a science. There are analytical systems that have mass spectroscopy detectors, flame ionization detectors, and a line teeing off where a real expert actually smells the analytes as they come by and makes time annotated notes about the scents. This is combined with data from the other detectors.

A commentaru from a woman scientist--

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[Posteritatis]

4. It's like someone told them to do PR and they did the opposite. (nt)

[Kablooie]

5. The people who made this obviously knew nothing about science.

But they knew lots about fashion I'll bet.

Oooh. Science is all about dry ice in flasks! Cool! I want do do THAT!

[HopeHoops]

6. I think I see the problem here.