Be your own princess charming

I recently came across this lovely series of photographs from photographer Jaime Moore in Austin. She wanted to take photos of her 5-year-old daughter, Emma, on her birthday. While looking for inspiration on the net, all she could find was how to dress one's daughter like a Disney Princess. So she took matters into her own hands -

It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better. My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters. I wanted her to know the value of these amazing women who had gone against everything so she can now have everything. We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over the world……..so let’s set aside the Barbie Dolls and the Disney Princesses for just a moment, and let’s show our girls the REAL women they can be.

Here are a few of these remarkable photos:

The rest of the photos are here: http://www.jaimemoorephotography.com/2013/05/09/not-just-a-girl/

I would love to see the marketing industry, toy industry, and Hollywood follow Jaime Moore's lead. K-12 STEM outreach is great and all, but if we want to make a significant impact we need to get ImagesOfGreatness (beyond beauty) into the minds of young women on a daily basis.

Houston, we have an image problem

I was at a novelty store a few months ago, and came across a board game called "The Mad Professor Science Kit". I noted that the mad science professor looks nothing like me at all.

I've written a lot about how journalists and artists and other media people need to get the memo about what professors and scientists look like, in order to help change images in the minds of the younger generation. 

Alas, we still have a ways to go. Here is my unscientific analysis.

Method: Clip Art Google Image search, Screenshot of page 1 of results.

Term 1: professor

Results: 8% owl, 92% male, 0% female. Only one person who may be of asian or latino descent. (Note: Page 2 has a whopping two female professors - wowie! And one person of color.) 

Term 2: scientist

Results: 80% male, 20% female. No owls. One person of color. Page two has owls, and a few more women.

Term 3: engineer

Results: Of 19 humans and gendered characters (Mickey Mouse), 90% male, 10% female. No people of color.

Term 4: "computer scientist"

Results: Of the three humans, 33% are women! And it's Grace Hopper, baby! No people of color, though we do have a link to "African Americans in Science and Technology", which is nice. An a Pi symbol, cat, Connect 4, and some cool geek pride T-shirts. 

"Software engineer" and "programmer" do not yield very positive results, but I am pleased to say "computer programmer" yields several women, including a woman of color and this awesome coloring book page: 

I know it seems like a silly thing, clipart, but a heck of a lot of people use it when preparing presentations.

Any artists out there want to start a revolution? Or maybe work on an NSF proposal? I think this would be a great STEM education thing. And easy as anything to do. 

Trump's racist remarks continue

First it was "that black guy can't possibly be a US citizen." Now it's "that black guy can't possibly have good academic credentials." Just listen to this:

Image description: 

Text that reads, "Blog 

against racism (it helps)"

Standing on a tarmac Wednesday in New Hampshire, Trump said "word is he (Obama) wasn't a very good student." 

"I'd like to know how does he get into Harvard, how does he get into Columbia if he isn't a very good student," Trump said.

Trump, we have an intelligent, black, American president who kicks ass. I'm very sorry if this offends your delicate sensibilities, but time to face reality: He's Black and Brilliant. These two things do co-occur!

Kudos to Bob Scheiffer for this comment:

"That's just code for saying he got into law school because he's black," Schieffer said on the CBS Evening News Wednesday. "This is an ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing."

Indeed there is! Finally, someone with the guts to call Trump on this baloney. Few other media figures seem willing.

I really liked Etan Thomas' article on this topic. In fact, a lot of what he described sounds similar to what many women in technology experience in higher education. We must have cheated on our exams. A man must have helped us on that programming assignment. We only got that job/fellowship/grant because we're a woman.

Totally. My ovaries know C++, actually.

Birthers, Racism, and The Media

Here I was thinking, how I can I best write about what I think about the birthers? And then Tony Auth drew a fabulous editorial cartoon. Well done, Tony.

Image Descrption: Four panels. Upper left "He wasn't, you know, born in America."
Upper right, "He's not, you know, A Christian." Bottom left, "He's you know, a Muslim
or a Kenyan.". Bottom right, "He's well, you know..." [silhouette of Obama,
visual implication is: '...black']

Also on the topic of birthers and latent racism, The New Black Woman posted a critique of how the media just played into Trump's hands, let him and other birthers spew all sorts of racist and xenophobic garbage unchecked, etc,:

"...many of the traditional news outlets and journalists refused to examine the racial factor behind the birther issue. Big Media refused to dig deeper into the underlying racist feelings that when a black man or woman obtains higher power or authority, there's something astray about that person's ascent to power. It failed to ponder why so many people feel that whenever a black man or woman achieves great success, their rise to fame or fortune must be the result of either a law or being broken or skewed in their favor at the expense of a white person.

But, I can't blame Big Media for failing to delve into any analytical reporting or investigating. Reporting on the racial, xenophobia aspect of the birther issue would require the media to confront the system of white supremacy and privilege set up to benefit many of the reporters working for Big Media. It would require them to dig deeper than the shallow reporting they are so accustomed to (due to advertising demands, a short attention span and hollow reasoning by their audience) and examine the subconscious racism laying dormant in a majority of our society. It would require making their audience and their bosses uncomfortable reading and editing stories about race as they would see quotes or segments reminiscent of their underlying racist feelings."

I sincerely hope the media outlets take this as a challenge to make themselves uncomfortable and truly confront latent racism. The day they finally realize that their power is more than just selling toothpaste and viagra, and they can have a major hand in changing people's negative attitudes toward other races, cultures, and abilities. It doesn't have to be after school specials, just even the topics they choose to discuss and the way in which they discuss them. They could do so much better with not all that much effort.

Of course, then there's always the inevitable, "Oh noes! Our art will suffer by having to care about how we use language!" argument. You think I'm joking. If you watch the actual noose gaffe video, while fumbling Mitt Romney quips, 'You have to be careful what you say these days!' Aw. Not like the good old days where you could make noose jokes without a problem. Poor guy, he already has a lot on his plate, I shouldn't pick on him.

The Social Network

Due to circumstances beyond my control (a long plane ride), I watched "The Social Network". I didn't really want to watch it, but also sort of did, kind of like a train wreck. I also wanted to see sudo*-Matt Welsh's cameo teaching Operating Systems.

I was pleased that Hollywood got some of the technobabble correct (apache with a SQL backend), and I loved that the closeup of Mark's laptop showed it running *nix. I also thought it was cute they re-branded the iBook laptop as "Book".  

However, I was greatly displeased with how the film portrayed women. By my count, there was only one female character who was not: a flake, a flirt, a drunk, a girlfriend, or crazy - and she was a lawyer with hardly any personality depth. Why were there no female engineers, or CS majors? Or, heck, I'd even take an Art History major. Just somebody with some brains to accompany the legs.

I was also displeased with how Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed. I don't know the real Mark, but the director seemed really dedicated to employing the geek-with-zero-social-interaction-skills trope. Couldn't the actor have smiled occasionally? Been somewhat friendly now and then?

So, Hollywood, your scorecard is: B+ for suspending my geek disbelief, but an F for perpetuating stereotypes.

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(*) Pun intended!