“Science: It’s a Sexy Thing” (7-18-12)

from Science: Its a Girl Thing

“Science: It’s a Sexy Thing”

(I had this kvetch on “draft” since 6/27/12, but then we lost electricity and I didn’t bother posting it.  It strikes me as even more outrageous than when I first saw it!)

This comically absurd music video, “Science: It’s a Girl Thing” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/science-its-a-girl-thing-_n_1620235.html?utm_hp_ref=science is understandably evoking outrage and/or guffaws. Scantily clad girls and women are shown striking fashion poses in shadowy full-body scans, interspersed with Bunsen burners and lab microscopes, “to show women and girls that science does not just mean old men in white coats,” proclaimed Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the European Research, Innovation and Science Commissioner. “We hope that by providing positive role models ….we can persuade more young women to stick with science.” Presumably the genuinely fascinating explorations of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are not deemed sufficiently sexy in their own right, and require appeals to these “positive role models”?  But what I find truly creepy in this video is the male model ogling with approval the silouettes of young, female bodies that parade before him, as he gives an arrogant, dominating (shades of grey?) sneer.