Misleading "Inspire Her Mind" Ad

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The first time I caught a glimpse of Verizon's "Inspire Her Mind" ad I thought to myself, good grief.

 

 If this ad is to believed fathers are participants in a conspiracy to drive their daughters away from science and into the stuff that the ad portrays as girly. I'm going to have to call shenanigans on that, both on the idea that girls are discouraged from pursuing the sciences and the portrayal of stereotypically girl oriented interests and styles of play are undesirable. My parents had no problems with my interest in science when I was growing up, so long as I did my chores, and didn't do anything to endanger myself, my siblings, or the structural integrity of our house. As a mother one of my greatest joys is sharing my interest in science with my sons and daughters, with the same limitations my parents set on me of course. (I have no desire to have the house burn down or have to rush anyone to the hospital, again.)

The fact of the matter is that women are either at or close to parity with men in the various sciences. Nearly half of all advanced degrees in the sciences are earned by women. So just who is supposedly discouraging girls from getting into science?

This video does a pretty good job critiquing the sketchy numbers and beliefs presented in the Verizon ad.

 

 Do yourself and your daughters a favor, don't believe everything you see on TV or the internet and teach your sons and daughters to be similarly skeptical.

Comments

  1. Jeremy PierceJuly 22, 2014 4:49 PM

    There still is a huge gap in the most technical sciences. Women occur in good numbers in social sciences and maybe do all right in biology, but the numbers are very low still in physics, engineering, and computer science. Philosophy is part of this. A lot of people are doing a lot of hand-wringing about why that is, but it seems to be during the first or first few undergrad classes that the numbers really drop. Women take these courses initially, but they don't seem to take them as majors or go on to graduate work in them at anywhere near the rates they do with social sciences, humanities (other than philosophy), or a number of other majors where there is more balance.

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