Science campaign scratches kittens
‘Girly’ pitch removed amid criticism
A day after the National Post reported on the controversy over a government of Canada website to promote girls in science, the page has been drastically altered and no longer specifically mentions girls or uses images of kittens and fashion.
Science Minister Kirsty Duncan launched the campaign, Choose Science, on Feb. 11 to encourage young girls to pursue jobs in science, technology, engineering and math, the so-called STEM fields. In addition to social media, the campaign includes a slick website, with resources for parents, teachers and girls to help address the persistent gap of women in those fields.
But Thursday morning, the website no longer mentioned girls and the wide-eyed tabby had been scrubbed, Even the link to the “for girls” section had been removed from the Choose Science landing page.
At first blush, the campaign sounded innocuous, until some noticed the website relied on gender stereotypes by using cute animal photos and fashion. The original page also proclaimed “A career in STEM doesn’t mean spending your life in science class,” which some female scientists took issue with.
Now that line is gone, as is an image addressed to girls and proclaiming “Science: it’s not what you think it is.”
A date at the bottom of the web page shows it was updated on Feb. 15, the same day the Post reported about the controversy.
Duncan’s office did not responded to a request for comment.
The suggestion that girls would only be enticed into the fields of science and technology by showing their softer side or because it wasn’t as difficult as it seemed prompted fierce backlash since the campaign launch.
“This perpetuates negative stereotypes — we need you stand up and say that science class *is* interesting and it *is* for girls,” Lindsay LeBlanc, a physicist at the University of Alberta, responded to Duncan’s tweet announcing the campaign.
On Facebook the pitch was called “horrifying” and criticized as perpetuating negative female stereotypes.
Yet, there were those who defended the original campaign and argued it was more effective than a less “girly” campaign.
Talk to women who actually work in STEM — especially those who are trying to increase female enrolment in still male-dominated programs like engineering — and they suggest the campaign was appealing to girls “where they’re at.”
“The piece that’s interesting for me is that this acknowledges there are some girls that still need to be met wherever they are,” said Dawn Britton, director of outreach for the University of Toronto’s faculty of engineering. “There are girls who are going to be already excited by science and engineering, and we see that from the first photo (at the top of the original page of a young girl wearing wings and strapped to skateboards) … but then there are girls who may not understand the technology and science around those things already.
Statistics Canada data released in June 2016 shows women have made great strides in certain STEM fields but not others. Overall, as of 2011, women comprised just 22.7 per cent of the STEM-related workforce. But they make up 42.5 per cent of those working in life science and 49.6 per cent of those in math statistics and actuarial sciences. Yet, just 24.7 per cent of those working in computer science are women, and just 13 per cent of civic, mechanical, electrical and chemical engineers are female.
THIS PERPETUATES NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES.