#GirlsWithToys Is Your Female Empowerment Hashtag Of The Day
20 May 2015, 12:18 | Updated: 8 May 2017, 17:09
Girls doing science is our favourite trope.
For as long as any of us can remember, there has been a concerted effort to get women more involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects at every level.
While the industry has traditionally been seen as a boys club, awareness about women in these fields has probably made most people feel parity in the subjects had finally been achieved.
A recent twitter trend has got people firmly refocused on the issue, however, and it all started with a careless slip of the tongue.
Many scientists, I think, secretly are what I call 'boys with toys'. I really like playing around with telescopes. It's just not fashionable to admit it.
Shrinivas Kulkarni, a planetary science professor
Like, yikes, dude. Girls to science too, man.
This has prompted women working in the STEM fields to use the hashtag #girlswithtoys as a direct rebuttal and the results have been glorious.
A very pregnant me with the engineering model of the @MarsRovers at JPL in March 2009 #GirlsWithToys #SelfieToSpace pic.twitter.com/zH4uU0teyq
— Emily Lakdawalla (@elakdawalla) May 18, 2015
#girlswithtoys I bloody well used that telescope later that day. pic.twitter.com/fmAIkJ9n2x
— Alice (@PenguinGalaxy) May 16, 2015
I play with Mars rovers. #girlswithtoys pic.twitter.com/j6N5tscc8U
— Tanya Harrison (@tanyaofmars) May 17, 2015
Hey look I'm helping build a new dark matter detector. #GirlsWithToys http://t.co/jE92aUbpJO pic.twitter.com/gk25jvxsM0
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) May 17, 2015
Shrinivas Kulkarni might not actually have meant to imply that women aren't part of the science world, but it is that form of casual sexism which fuels major outdated views about women working in this industry.
If you want to feel good about life, head over to the #girlswithtoys tags and prepare to feel majorly proud.
