Dance parties, drawing math problems in lipstick on the bathroom mirror and spying on cute male research subjects?
That's the day in the life of a woman scientist, according a spoof video above, made by psychology and neuroscience graduate students at Bristol University. Their video, "Science: It's a Thing.4.Girls.," is a response to the widely criticized "Science: It's A Girl Thing" video produced by the European Union Commission in June 2012.
(Watch the full "Science: It's A Girl Thing" video below)
The E.U. Commission created "Science: It's A Girl Thing" to address the lack of women in STEM fields by encouraging young women to go into science. However, said encouragement came in the form of comparing Bunsen burners to tubes of lipstick and featuring female "scientists" posing in fashionable dresses. The video, described by Curt Rice of the Guardian as a "viral fiasco," originally had a caption that read: "From cosmetics to chemistry, from fashion to biology, from rhythm to electronics, girls have what it takes to succeed in science." This stereotyping of women in science as superficial and shallow received such negative reactions that the video and caption were removed from the European Union Commission website after just 30 hours, Rice wrote.
But, as Mashable noted, "Even the worst of web fails have a silver lining." The woman scientists at Bristol University banded together to create a parody video, which according to Jezebel cost an estimated $13 to make compared to the original's $128,136.
Participant Suzi Gage told Jezebel, "We made the video mainly for fun, but also because the original was so awful. It was really demeaning to women, and contained no science at all -- just make-up."
The feel-good clip shows graduate students frolicking in their lab, strutting their stuff through the corridors of a research facility and experiencing a few mishaps with an array of scientific apparatus. The best part of the parody? Each woman's impressive credentials are listed at the end, and it's Ph.D.'s galore.
[H/T Jezebel]