Role models in science

[shermarama]

So, feanelwa linked to this article, which reports a statement by Girlguiding UK that 'a lack of positive female role models is damaging the future prospects of girls and young women'.

The first thing I thought on reading it is that we could do with changing what's on telly, but that would be missing the point. Telly's meant to be entertainment, not

Comments

[hairyears]

I happen to believe that television has a mission to educate, inform, and entertain: Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation and all that...

Others, working in television, see it only as a job and will follow the advertising 'spend' into pink-stinks marketeering masquerading as programming but, in reality, a profitable vehicle for product placements.

Some of the benighted individuals work in childrens' television.

Which leads on to a corollary question to your point about 'headline' roles fuelling youthful ambition, and propelling them through education until they either succeed in gaining the pinnacle, or accept that much of what they had desired is illusory, while finding themselves well-placed and well-prepared for interesting and worthwhile things...

Or not. Could the defeat of ambition be infecting them - or some of them - with cynicism?

Could the most repellent sellers of dissatisfaction, insecurity and diet problems to young girls have been ispired by a real role model like (say) Valerie Singleton?

[shermarama]

I doubt the defeat of ambition is leading the youth into cynicism, or at least, if it is it ought to be already intruding a lot more. It's been a few years now since you went down't pit like yer dad and were grateful for it, and plenty of people that spent their formative years wanting to be rock stars have already got over themselves, got on with something else and done well enough. A certain Mr. Blair that once thought he was Mick Jagger, for one.

[feanelwa]

I'm finding it vaguely ironic that you've just written a huge long post on a misinterpretation of the point of a blog I haven't even written any posts in yet.

I'm going to show the hard work and the real life of it because that's what needs exposure. Science is hard work and it's not some god-given gift that you can just make breakthroughs. Some external agency doesn't decide how good you can be at something and that's it. The power to decide if you can do it is in your hands, kid.

I'm also going to show the hard work happening without being an obnoxious made-up squeaky-voiced character all the time, because that's still what so many of the TV drama woman scientist characters are, the ones that are going LOOK I'M A GIRL LOOK AT MY NAILS AND MY HAIR and I am doing science. It's going to be a story about doing science written by a woman, not a story about a woman doing science written by a media company.

[shermarama]

Well, one of the reasons I moved this to my own LJ rather than commenting on yours was that I don't think I responding to your blog idea much any more, but trying to work out what I felt was weird about the assumptions made in that article

[katstevens]

One of the (many) reasons I prefer CSI:Original Flavour to all the other spin-offs is that it shows numerous women scientists/detectives/whatever just getting on with their (difficult) job. Occasionally it will clunk badly around the issue of 'oh I am a MOTHER working NIGHTSHIFTS and my DAUGHTER is on the RAMPAGE as a result' with lots of handwringing, but hey, that's something lots of working women have to deal with so you can't exactly not mention it (though it could be handled better). But my point is that all of the female characters' main motivation is their job and doing it properly, rather than dealing with their love lives. This is massively unusual for a tv show! I'd say ER had similar levels of professionalism from its characters but very often they would drop everything and act like hormonal teenagers. CSI's characters (both male and female) approach their non-work lives like grown-ups. Except for Little Greg, obviously.

[aphroditemf]

Ah, GirlGuidingUK! The hypocrisy of their statement astounds me (I say this as someone who has been a Girl Guide and Brownie volunteer for ten years). Having been to training days, I've noticed that 99% of my fellow Guiders are white, middle-aged, terribly posh churchy women. And yet in the same breath as dismissing throwaway celebrity culture, they're saying that the future success of Guiding lies in dumbing down the organisation by making the whole thing a bit more hip and "yoof" - something they are woefully out of touch with. So every year there is an official pop concert for Girl Guides, where the latest batch of X Factor rejects perform, the girls can do badges in party planning and chocolate, and there's a lot more pink on the uniform. Quite what this is supposed to achieve I don't know, because most units have long waiting lists, and attracting girls isn't a problem, but the top brass seem to have this idea in their heads that being trendy and down with the kids is more worthwhile than preserving traditions

[shermarama]

That's a good point - weren't the Girl Guides themselves supposed to do some of the stuff they're complaining is missing? I'm glad to hear you're doing such sterling work as a role model yourself, though. *grins*