What Do Car Crashes, Volcanoes, and Pop Stars Have in Common?

I’ve written previously about how important it is to expose young girls to science and female role models.  A group of undergraduate students at Colorado State University are doing this by going into local classrooms of 12 year old girls and leading them in science experiments.  They’ve come up with some great ideas for science experiences:

1.    Taxonomy: girls learn about the classification of animals by classifying pop stars.  They learn about the different ways that animals can be classified.

2.    Volcanoes: girls create volcanoes out of papier mache and use vinegar and baking soda to make them erupt, learning how volcanoes work and how lava moves.

3.  Momentum: girls crash cars into each other and learn how seat belts and air bags absorb energy from the collision. 

This program, called WISDOM (Women in Science Devoted to Outreach and Mendoring), was created by a senior at CSU who was concerned about the disparity between men and women in science fields.  The idea of these classes is to allow girls to experience a relaxed, hands-on approach to studying science than what is typically taught to them in co-ed classes. 

Because only girls participate, there seems to be less peer pressure for them to behave a certain way.  They also get to see young women who are majoring in science and who can act as mentors.

Read more about this program in the Coloradoan.

Name that Fictional Female Scientist

It's time to wrap up the fictional female scientist challenge.  There are still four unidentified characters (see list to right).  I'm going to provide a few hints and give 24 hours to submit the final four.  The clues will lead you either to the title of the movie or to the character herself.

If you can identify three keywords (each taken from the description of a photo), they will lead you directly to the movie and then to the character.  Think of it as an electronic treasure hunt. 

Here are the clues listed by number:

4. This movie was released in 1982. 

#6 This movie was released in 1989

#8 This movie was released in 1992.

#12 This movie was released in 2009.

Onslaught(er)

I included a video in the previous post called "Onslaught", I used the video to illustrate the massive pressure on females to conform to certain standards of "beauty".  But there's a bit more to the story.  Take a look at the video again:



It did not escape my attention that this video was produced by the "Dove Self Esteem Fund".  This is the same Dove that makes beauty products.  The idea behind this fund is to "help free the next generation from self-limiting beauty stereotypes".  This strategy should sound familiar.  Think cigarette manufacturers and their campaigns to stop youth smoking; chemical companies that pollute the environment and their environmental campaigns (the "human element" of Dow).

Greenpeace especially did not think much of the hypocritical concern about female self-esteem displayed in the Dove video.  Their disgust focused on the fact that beauty products such as Dove soap are made at the expense of the environment.  Greenpeace produced a counter-video called "Dove Onslaught(er)", which is a pretty good take-off on the Dove video.  Here it is:



The Greenpeace video apparently struck a nerve, mobilizing massive public support of their "Dove campaign", calling attention to the connection between Dove and the destruction of forests in South East Asia.  Unilever, maker of Dove products, has apparently knuckled under (according to Greenpeace) and agreed to help save the lowland forests of South East Asia. As the biggest single buyer of palm oil in the world, Unilever supposedly agreed to support the call by Greenpeace for an immediate moratorium on deforestation for palm oil plantations and to encourage other beauty product companies to do the same.

The Dove video has had 610,439 views and the Greenpeace video has had 1,047,847 views on YouTube.

I'm not sure what the message of this post is.  Beauty comes at a price--in more ways than one?  

Are All Female Scientists White, Skinny, and "Hot"?

In the previous post, I presented photos of fictional female scientists for readers to identify.  One commenter pointed out that all of the examples I used were women who were white,  skinny, and "hot".  Actually, female scientists depicted in popular film might appear to be attractive in a physical sense, but are typically portrayed in subordinate or other stereotypical roles that are less than flattering.  In fact, I would argue that how female scientists are portrayed by the media perpetuates negative myths about women's roles. 

I previously discussed the six main stereotypes of female scientists in the cinema: the old maid, the male woman, the naive expert, the evil plotter, the female assistant or daughter, and the lonely heroine.  None of these stereotypes could be characterized as being flattering, regardless of how "attractive" the actor happens to be.

Why should we care about how women scientists are portrayed in movies?  Mainly, the reason we should be concerned is that film is important in influencing the public's perception of scientists.  Most people never meet a scientist and so get their impressions about us from movies and TV.  Unfortunately, Hollywood has traditionally marginalized and sexualized women in science roles in the movies.  Although many of the fictional characters I selected were physically attractive, the roles they played sent negative messages about women who go into science.  These negative (and often conflicting) images are absorbed by adolescent girls and young women whose career choices are influenced by their perceptions of feminine roles.  How they will be perceived by society in the career they choose is very important to adolescents, especially girls.

In addition to identifying fictional female scientists, I also asked readers to identify a series of photographs depicting real female scientists.  I had a couple of objectives to these exercises.  One was to explore the fact that female scientists who have made major contributions are not well known.  A second objective was to relate the portrayal of female scientists in popular film to society's perceptions of women in science.

What set me off on this tangent was a comment by a student lamenting the fact that there are few female role models or mentors in science, which seems to be a common complaint among female science students.  Ironically, these same students often cannot name more than one or two famous female scientists, when in fact, there are dozens of notable women in science going back at least to the time of Aristotle.

When I was in undergraduate and graduate school, there were no female mentors for me.  So I searched out women in history who had accomplished remarkable things and read all I could about them.  A number of them wrote books or had biographies written about them, which provided a great deal of insight into how they overcame barriers and other useful information.  By reading books they wrote, I began to feel as if I knew them, even if they had died long before I was born.  Through their writing, I was privy to their innermost thoughts, dreams and aspirations. 

Of course, reading is not the same as having a live person to talk to or work with.  On the other hand, reading about how a variety of women navigated their way in different scientific fields provided a broader perspective for me than interacting with a single live person.  Not all of the heroines I studied were scientific researchers.  Some were naturalists, explorers, or inventors.  All, however, had something to teach me.  By reading about the enormous obstacles that some of them overcame, I was better prepared to deal with the more mundane problems I would eventually encounter during my career.  Some of my favorites were Mary Kingsley (Travels in West Africa), May Theilgaard Watts (Reading the Landscape of America), and Beryl Markham (West with the Night).

I also wanted to explore further the lack of public awareness of women (and men) in science, which I attribute in part to the general lack of information (and curiosity?) about the people behind major scientific accomplishments.  I wondered if fictional female scientists were more recognizable based on their broader exposure in popular film.  I conducted a very unscientific poll of my relatives to see if they could identify 12 real female scientists vs. 12 fictional female scientists.  As you might guess, they knew many of the fictional examples, but only one (or none) of the real examples.  The one they knew most about was Dian Fossey...based on the movie "Gorillas in the Mist".

I think that we could do a much better job of raising awareness of women's contributions to science and improving the public's perception of science as a viable career for women.  We can't depend on Hollywood or the news media to do it for us.  What we can do is tell our own stories.  The internet has opened up a door for us, making it easier to convey information about ourselves as scientists.  I think that female scientists through blogs, media interviews, and other means have an opportunity to convey more positive images of women in science and dispel some of the myths and stereotypes that have prevailed in the past.

As for what effect the media's portrayal of women has...see this video:

Fictional Female Scientists

Well, it took less than 24 hours to identify all twelve photos of notable women scientists and naturalists.  I was sure at least a couple of them would stump you a bit longer.  I'm guessing Google helped with those harder ones.  Although I was impressed with how many were quickly identified, I don't think that anyone recognized all twelve photos (I've moved the list identifying the photos to the very bottom of the page).

My selection was somewhat arbitrary, although I tried to have representatives from different countries and different scientific fields and types of accomplishments.  There are certainly many more notable women who could have been highlighted, as some of you noted.  However, the twelve I selected served to illustrate my point, which is that even those of use who are scientists and female don't know many of these women who have made substantial contributions.

The thought occurred to me, however, that perhaps female scientists in popular film were more identifiable than real scientists.  Just for fun, here are twelve more photos--this time of fictional female scientists.  Can you identify them?  What I'm looking for is the name of the character, their scientific specialty, and the movie in which they appeared. 

Answers can be found at the very bottom of the main page.

Famous Female Scientists

One of my favorite exam questions for female students is to name five well-known scientists who are female.  I ask for the name, the field of study, and specifically what she discovered or became famous for doing.  I'm looking for names of women whose accomplishments are recognized beyond their own field.  I have yet to find a student who can name more than two or three women.  Most often named is Marie Curie, but students usually cannot explain precisely what she did.  Second is Jane Goodall, and students do a better job of explaining her work.  Then the students typically become stumped and ask if naming me counts (it doesn't).

Some students seem to think that there aren't very many notable women scientists and that it's not possible to name more than two or three.  I name several for them and suggest that there are quite a few more, but that their stories are just not well known.  I do find that female students are more curious about this question than about other questions asked of them during exams.  Most students become interested enough to seek out books describing famous female scientists and inventors--they often contact me later to say that they really enjoyed reading about such women.

A recent survey (Women, Science and Success: The New Face of Innovation) showed that 65% of Americans could not name a single female scientist.  Take a look at the photos above and see how many of these notable female scientists and naturalists you can name.  Their correct identification and accomplishments can be found at the very bottom of the page (scroll all the way down).

More Bizarre Behavior

I once was faced with a serious situation involving a mentally unbalanced lab worker.  I was co-supervising (along with my husband who was the PI) a young lab technician (whom I'll call "Ted") who began displaying erratic behavior.  Ted would fail to show up for work, later claiming to be sick.  He misplaced lab supplies and equipment and started accusing others of hiding these items from him.  However, he never did anything really alarming in our presence; he was very quiet and appeared to be quite harmless.  We never recognized just how disturbed he was during this period.  Just as we were contemplating not renewing his contract because of his unexplained absences, Ted suddenly quit.  We later learned from graduate students about more bizarre behavior; they did not tell us about it at the time and were apparently trying to "protect" him from being fired.

Ted was ultimately committed to a psychiatric institution with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.  He escaped from the institution and went to Washington, DC where he spent about a year trying to get in to see various members of Congress.  We later learned that he was telling people my husband was an international spy who was controlling his mind (Ted at first thought it was the graduate students in our lab, but later decided that it had to be the PI).

After having no luck in DC, he came back to our city and began stalking my husband.  Ted managed to talk to several professors and administrators at our university regarding his suspicions about my husband.  I was by this time uneasy, because Ted was quite smart and had been a chemistry major (think bombs, poison).  I knew it was just a matter of time before he decided that if he eliminated the person controlling his mind (my husband), his problems would be solved.

His parents in the meantime were frantically trying to have him picked up and re-institutionalized.  We would let them know when he showed up, but by the time anyone arrived, he had slipped away.  He continued to elude the local deputy sheriffs who were searching for him.  After a while, he went back to DC.

Unfortunately, the story has an unhappy ending.  Ted was living on the street in DC, where someone stabbed and killed him.

My husband and I were both quite young, just out of graduate school when this happened.  We had never been faced with a mentally unbalanced associate before.  Now, if someone in my lab showed a sudden change in personality or exhibited behavior that frightened other employees, I would be more proactive in getting help.

Here are some recommendations from the experts for PIs in such a situation:

1.  Conduct a discreet interview with the employee and treat the discussion as confidential.  The purpose of the interview is for you to determine if there is a problem and if the employee is still capable of carrying out their job duties.  If other employees have complained about specific behavior, bring this up in the context of concern about the work environment and meeting project deadlines (I would avoid saying that co-workers have complained and instead say something like, "I've noticed that you seem to be upset about something...are late turning in work....have come in late on several occasions....etc.").

2.  Have questions written out beforehand and keep notes during the interview.

3.  Refrain from any diagnosis or discussion of "mental health"; if the employee expresses problems of that nature, encourage them to seek help (perhaps refer them to an employee assistance program, if available).  Explain that your purpose is to help them get help if they want it (don't try to force it on them though).

4.  If the situation warrants, turn it over to HR (perhaps coordinate your actions with them).  I've found that it's always safer to talk with someone in HR to let them know that there is a potential problem and what your plan of action is going to be.  Note that discussing the situation with HR does not constitute defamation, which involves false statements.  It is your responsibility to ensure a safe working environment for all your employees, and you must take action if the workplace is disrupted by an employee's actions.

5. If the complaining employees are female, you might be dealing with a sexual harassment charge. As the PI and supervisor, it is your responsibility to take action in such cases.  Failure to do so could be costly for you and your institution.  Also keep in mind that it is the perception of harassment on the part of the victim that is the key issue, not your viewpoint.  It does not matter if you are certain there is no harassment.  If the victim(s) perceive any actions as being sexual harassment, then you must take steps to investigate. 

6.  In most situations, it is illegal to take action against an employee based solely on their mental or emotional condition (real or perceived).  However, if their behavior affects the employer's operation, then you have reason to take action.

7.  If the employee makes overt threats of harm to him/herself or to others, contact local law enforcement immediately.

The above recommendations are based in part on comments by G. Frederick Compton, Jr., JD, Partner, Roetzel & Andress Law Firm--originally published at www.principalinvestigators.org.