I (Don’t) Want to Be a Vet

To be a veterinarian is the childhood dream of many girls. While some genuinely have a deep passion for animals and medicine, I’ve heard countless teachers direct girls with an aptitude for science to this field. Why?

There is this idea that STEM fields all sit in a box with well defined dimension for a well defined set of people, meaning designed for nerdy and mostly white men. Girls are frequently directed to being vets, to taking on jobs in science related fields deemed feminine. Teachers and parents often don’t encourage girls to pursue other science jobs, or jobs in engineering and tech. When we want more women to enter other “less feminine” fields, then we pinkify. From slapping pink on everything to turning to STEAM to make science fields more for girls, but often this results in a “feminized” science sometimes going so far to limit or obscure the STEM aspects. This also feeds the assumption that STEM can’t be artistic, or that artistic people aren’t interested in STEM.

When my interest in science first blossomed I was met with support. Family friends gave us science books. When a school field trip was canceled my mom took me to the science museum instead. My mom bought me a microscope kit even though money was tight. Every imaginary game I played I was a scientist and engineer building time machines and spaceships.

Even with all their support, my family didn’t quite know what to do with my passion for science and pushed me to be a veterinarian. In middle school I said I wanted to be a scientist, but was told I was being unrealistic and that I wasn’t made for those jobs and those jobs weren’t made for me.

Teachers often encouraged girls with an aptitude for science to pursue careers in the veterinary field, or to become local wildlife photographers. Jobs more directed towards care or art. The only girl I ever heard directed otherwise was encouraged to be an environmental lawyer because she was tall and could be intimidating. Even now my family refuses to see any possible path for me beyond becoming a vet, although I’ve made it clear I`d rather pursue genetics.

Programs reaching out to girls to pursue fields and careers that aren’t as “women-appropriate” try to tackle that problem by throwing on some pink. The pinkification of science attempts to make the fields more girly.

Pinkification screams “this wasn’t made for you”. This isn’t women leaving their mark on a field, questioning what science is and can be. This is throwing on glitter in hopes to draw girls in. Consider Abby Wheat, a young woman interested in engineering, getting “far too many “lady-centric” emails in Curlz MT font from prospective colleges” (2015). Colleges change the font in order to draw her in, the font. That is demeaning. Reaching out to girls in ways that are flashy and “pretty” as if that is the only way to draw them in, sets the idea that women have to be lured into STEM. Are bright colors and swirly letter supposed to be what makes a girl interested in STEM rather than the topics and opportunities STEM can open? Is sparkly glitter really a solution to gender disparity in these fields?

Are we bowerbirds?

The idea that girls have to be lured in by image is belittling. It’s one thing for a girl or woman to make STEM her own by adding her flare, it’s another to tell her what the flare is and try to glue it on the image of STEM with a glue stick. Science isn’t being depicted as something for everyone, there are again limitations set in place for girls and women to enter STEM.

Science doesn’t have to be pink to be for girls. Science doesn’t have to be painted over with little pictures of flowers and butterflies to be for girls. Science doesn’t have to be traditionally feminine to be for girls. Science is already for girls across all fields. CompuGirls works with girls of color and technology in a way that doesn’t define tech by the same standard box it’s normally confined to. Technology isn’t portrayed as not feminine enough. While the girls are shown the ways society has defined the field and the limitations the definition results in, they are also shown technology as theirs. The curriculum is culturally responsive, so it is based on the girl’s knowledge, experiences, and interests. They get tech in a way that is “for you, from you, by you”.

One of the goals of CompuGirls is to help the girls become techno-social change agents, to utilize technology for a change by fixing the technology to themselves. CompuGirls doesn’t wave around pink tech to get these girls invested, the program doesn’t need to.

Wheat, A. (2015, July 15). “High school girl to college recruiters: Don't make everything pink!” Retrieved from: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-15/high-school-girl-college-recruiters-dont-make-everything-pink

Sierra Fales Bennington College Student Intern