Sparkly girls choose sparkle science: Column
The Carnegie Science Center recently found itself on the wrong end of a viral photo. Tishka Miller snapped a photo of the Center's Scout science workshop offerings. It showed that the boys were being offered chemistry, engineering and astronomy. The girls? Science with a Sparkle about health and beauty products. The uneven offerings lit the Internet on fire, something that is not difficult to do these days.
Carnegie officials responded quickly, stating that they have offered robotics, engineering and chemistry for Girls Scouts in the past, but no one signed up. They have even created workshops that would fit into the Girl Scouts Journeys curriculum, which gets the girls to work on a topic longer than just one meeting. I helped my daughter's troop get through two in the past and think of them as super badges.
As the director of the Women in Science and Engineering program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I feel Carnegie's pain.
One of my most successful events was when Karoline Wells, a woman who holds a biology degree, worked in biochemistry and now runs her own lipstick company, Elixery, visited campus. She talked about her love of science as well as her love of lipstick. Wells was honest about the difficulty of creating lipsticks that look good on women of every skin tone. She addressed the challenges of being a small business owner. Well even discussed how her science and lipstick fit into her view of feminism. It was brilliant. I still kick myself for not recording it.
Research has shown that girls want to do science that excites them. Science can excite girls through glitter and sparkle or robots and coding. Girls and my university students are also eager to learn how their science skills can benefit humanity. Helping people and saving the world are important things to today's girls.They also want things to be fun.
And let's not let the parents off the hook either. An eight-year-old cannot sign herself up for robotics. Too many parents buy into stereotypes of what their girls can or want to do. This can go for Girl Scout troop leaders as well. Having served as my daughter's troop volunteer for the past four year, we are encouraged to let the girls lead the troop.
While I would never defend pink and blue toy aisles or reinforcing gender stereotypes, as Joan Williams, the founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, once explained to me, we have to meet the girls where they are. If a girl is into sparkly, attract her with sparkle science. As a friend on Facebook pointed out, "You know what is sparkly? Supernovas!" This is how my office approaches science with girls. I meet them where they are.
I have had a teen girl tell me she didn't like science, but wanted to create her how cosmetic line. You bet I discussed her need to study chemistry like she was Madame Curie. No one wants mascara from a woman who didn't study chemistry. When they tell me they want to be a model, I respond with, "Great! But do you realize that many models end up becoming successful businesswomen? Some create perfumes! You should know some science so someone does not trick you into using bad ingredients."
A friend with two young daughters and a son posted a photo on Facebook last week. Alas, it did not go viral. Her daughters have a GoldieBlox set and apparently the axles are not what they should be. GoldieBlox sent the girls, unrequested, a set of new axles. The photo my friend, Alicia Kowitz, shared was of a personalized letter from GoldieBlox explaining to the girls that making mistakes is part of the engineering process. But the toy maker corrected the design flaw, provided a diagram of the flaw and the correction and said, "But hey, I'm an engineer, so I keep on trying." GENIUS! In one letter, GoldieBlox addressed so many issues we know that keep girls from enjoying science and did it wrapped in a yellow bow.
I have my own issues with GoldieBlox for still traveling in gender roles of storytelling, but most of what they do is pretty awesome. I wish we could engage girls in science without gendered activities. But at the moment, we live in a gendered society. What we have to do is never let that push us to limit girls and their ability.
The biggest mistake the Carnegie Science Center did was give the girls no choice in the type of science they want to engage in. Those of us who work on a daily basis on recruiting girls into science and engineering need to have balance. We need to address the girl with the skinned knees who likes to climb trees (that would have been me) and the girl who wears a tutu everywhere. Because one of these days they will engineer a scientific discovery that will knock our socks off.
Veronica Arreola is the director of the Women in Science and Engineering program at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
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