As someone who visits The Globe and Mail website daily, I didn’t come across its “special online feature” promoting women’s involvement in science, until what I’m cautious to call an article showed up in my inbox, accompanied by a reader rant.
While the actual message is without a doubt worthwhile, the article in question (Making science fun for girls, Nov. 25), strays from its goal of encouraging women to study and work in the sciences by reinforcing dated, sexist notions of both women and pedagogy. It is important (and admittedly, not all that difficult) to read this article with a critical eye.
But, wait.
I can’t ask you to read it unless you pay and subscribe to the paper’s online GlobePlus service. Live for only a month, this strange article – with the comments section disabled – is now available only to readers who pay to peruse the Globe’s website. (From what I can tell, the paper keeps its online stories live for a year). Here, I should add one more thing: Both the feature and this article are funded by L’Oréal Canada.
It took reading two sentences for me to see why this article elicited a strong response from one of its readers; it had the same effect on me. Here’s the gist:
In order to encourage young girls to pursue a science education and career, we need to capture their interest and “demystify what sounds intimidating” at an early age. The best way to do this, according to the article, is by showing young girls how science makes cosmetics products possible.
Citing research from Actua, a not-for-profit organization that promotes science education (and gets big bucks from the L’Oréal Foundation), that shows girls lose interest in science and math early on, the article includes the following gem explanation as to why girls lose interest, from the president and CEO of L’Oréal Canada: “It’s because all these matters do not look sexy, like something a girl would like to do or talk about.”
What an archaic, patronizing and offensive message, I thought. Girls want to be sexy (and smart). Make-up is sexy. Science needs women. Women need (and like) makeup. What a great opportunity for a winning combination!
I figured, hoped, maybe, that we had overcome such sexist approaches to women, science, and pedagogy in general.
But, no.
After speaking with Gillian Barker, a philosophy of science professor at Western and member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, as well as Valerie Racine, completing her PhD in the philosophy of science, I was reminded that despite my optimism, and in spite of statistics showing greater female enrolment in the sciences, women are still underrepresented not only in science, but also in other fields traditionally reserved for men.
“In university, overwhelmingly, science, philosophy, computer science, math and physics instructors are male and, (when) girls see these bearded faces looking back at them, it’s hard,” Barker told me.
“As you go forward in science education, at every level, the number of girls is reduced. It’s hard to be the only girl in a large physics class, and it’s hard to be one of the girls when there’s only 10 per cent. You feel out of place, you feel it’s not aimed at you and you’re not sure it’s OK for you to be there.”
Barker cited a number of reasons this is still the case. Some still argue a lack of innate talent; others cite a lack of female role models in the sciences and a lack of general interest. Some of that can be attributed to the traditional, sexist approaches to pedagogy that riddle physics textbooks with equation examples using planes, trains and automobiles.
Whatever the problem – and it’s likely a combination of the above – this is precisely what the L’Oréal Foundation and Actua are trying to address.
This brings me back to the article, which, instead of furthering the good work Actua is doing by sponsoring female scientists and promoting equal access to science education, is only reinforcing the very stereotypes that keep women out of the field.
Sympathetic to the notion that efforts need to be made to include women in science, Racine mentioned she had no problem with catering the subject to girls’ interests so long as that catering didn’t reinforce any gender stereotypes. I wasn’t sure if this was possible. When I asked her if it was better to cater the subject in a gender-neutral way, Racine explained that finding a “gender-neutral” interest quickly becomes problematic, and the discussion ends up reinforcing gender stereotypes anyway.
So this is the endless loop this issue circles, I thought.
In any case, both Actua and the L’Oréal Foundation are working to make science more inclusive and open to women. So how did this ‘article’ – one that so obviously regresses their efforts – come about?
Barker said it appears as if someone made a mistake in assigning the wrong person to write the article, someone who took a simple-minded approach to the issue as an advertising opportunity for the good work L’Oréal is doing. Because of its commitment to bettering the cause, Barker doesn’t think the article was supposed to be self-serving. And I guess I would agree.
Lesson for L’Oréal: Be careful when assigning to the PR department work not inherently meant to puff up your image.
But I think there’s another lesson to take away from this – and it’s the other reason I’m so bothered by this article. This lesson, I’d say, is for the online editor/advertisement co-coordinator at the Globe who let this ‘article’ slip into cyberspace, attached to the paper’s name.
It didn’t take a second read for me to see the problem with this piece.
Even if it does so unintentionally, this article/advertisement perpetuates dated and sexist views of women, science and education. Had someone handed this to me and said ‘Let’s put this on our website,’ I would, without hesitation, turn it away.
So, why didn’t the online editor/advertisement co-coordinator at the Globe (someone who, much like L’Oréal’s PR person is responsible for upholding a good – albeit progressive and unbiased – image of his/her company) do the same? Why was this piece online, on our national newspaper’s website, with the comments section disabled?
I wish I could say I believed someone let this advertisement/article slip by without actually reading it, but rather, it seems a fitting example of bowing to the all-mighty dollar. It’s irresponsible.
And clearly, it’s offensive.
As the reader who originally sent this article in said in an e-mail, rant done.