Science and Gender

[thesummerqueen]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badast...-to-girls/

Now, I am not a sociologist or a psychologist who studies gender roles and the differences between the sexes. It strikes me that there may be no need to separate the way we teach between boys and girls — my friend and geologist Evelyn Mervine discusses this point further — but I’ll also readily admit that there may very well be differences between the ways boys and girls see the world. If that’s the case, I have no problem with a company, teacher, or parent accepting that and using it to help the child learn. In other words, science is the same for everyone, but how we get people interested in it and learning about may vary from demographic to demographic.

But I don’t think that’s really the issue here. The problem here is these girls’ kits all are almost entirely marketed on the idea that girls should be pretty, or should try to make themselves pretty.

On the other hand, because many other facets of society enforce some of these stereotypes, I'd say a pink kit that shows the science that goes into cosmetics is a great way to get a girl who really likes those sorts of things to get interested in science.

I don't know - as a kid my mother was very anti-frills, insisting I concentrate on my brain instead of anything else, but I was a natural tomboy anyway and obsessed with rainforests and oceans. I really didn't care about make up and girly things unless it had to do with costumes, but I knew a bunch of girls who did, obviously.

I guess I figure if a kid likes something well enough, they're not going to care how it's packaged. But just like I prefer to exercise by working in the yard rather than going to the gym for exercise's sake (because I can see "results" and get shit done), I would imagine pink "girly" science kits would get those makeup-loving girls who weren't interested in science for science's sake doing science-y things because they could see the benefit for it and they were creating something they liked.

I think the answer would be for the company to produce more gender neutral products as well.

Thoughts? How could we get ALL kids more interested in science?

My thought as I looked at the girl's kit was that a child who was very girly when young might discover an interest in perfume creation because of that kit and might go on to become a perfumer (something plenty of men did back in the day) or a fragrance specialist for product marketing (more important than people realize) or work with special needs people and scent (experiments where blind people use scent to navigate, for example) or researcher into how scent works with the brain to create some of the most powerful memories we have.

It makes me wonder very much how kids toys influence us as we grow up. I played with dinosaur figurines (if you didn't, you suck), hot wheels cars, lego sets, and SuperSoaker guns. I also played with Polly Pockets and My Little Pet Shops and briefly for a few years, Barbies. Know what? I turned into a nerdy woman who likes good science, sexy dresses, classic cars, architecture, shooting guns, and role-playing. But did the toys make me that way...or did I ask for those toys because I'm interested in science and cars and buildings, and playing pretend?