{"id":5193,"date":"2020-09-25T06:20:42","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T10:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/?p=5193"},"modified":"2020-09-25T06:20:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T10:20:42","slug":"female-scientists-in-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/2020\/09\/25\/female-scientists-in-public-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Scientists in Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting fact, I found when browsing online by using the key words such as \u201cscientists + gender\u201d, is that there are many articles and news named by involving \u201cfemale scientist\u201d, but merely none of them used the term \u201cmale scientist\u201d. For the only few of them, there\u2019s a \u201csingle\u201d before \u201cmale\u201d. Thus, an interesting question merges in my mind: <strong>How do public media shape the figure of female scientists (mainly in China)?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFemale scientists\u201d actually can be seen as a subpopulation of \u201cfemale\u201d or \u201cscientists\u201d. However, describe by using terms of \u201cfemale scientists\u201d, the public media subconsciously emphasis the aspects of \u201cfemale\u201d, which is \u201cthe other\u201d to \u201cmale\u201d. Thus, they usually care more on how these women balance between their work and family. In many news or reports, when mentioning female scientists, editor would add descriptions about how they take their responsibilities as mothers or wives, in order to make the report more \u201cattractive\u201d. The following is some examples I found as how Chinese public media describe female scientists. Some of them includes articles from <em>China Youth<\/em>: an official website fund by Chinese government.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In \u201cPing Chen: The Seeker of Hydrogen Energy Conservation\u201d (<em>http:\/\/agzy.youth.cn\/qsnag\/zt\/wjx100\/qnkxj\/201206\/t20120607_2212586.htm<\/em>), the author spent lines describing her clothing and outer appearance. This is a typical example of how public media emphasize on female scientists\u2019 appearance. Similar example also includes \u201cThe first naked actress in the history-a beautiful female scientist!\u201d (<em>https:\/\/www.sohu.com\/a\/218072908_216426<\/em>). The entire article focused on her experience and beauty, but only a few sentences on how she contributed to wireless communication. Female scientists\u2019 appearances in these articles are usually appealing, or charming and confident if they look ordinary. By describing the \u201cfemale\u201d aspects, media stress public\u2019s attention on the aspects other than the scientific achievements. However, in most of the cases, this won\u2019t happen if the scientist is a male. Describing a male\u2019s appearance, unless he is very charming, usually has few effects on audience.<\/li>\n<li>Family is also an important aspect in articles introducing female scientists. In \u201cJianying Hu: Better Technology, Better Life\u201d (<em>http:\/\/agzy.youth.cn\/qsnag\/zt\/wjx100\/qnkxj\/201206\/t20120607_2212493.htm<\/em>) and \u201cXiqiu Han: Scientists, As Well As the Mother of Her Kids\u201d (<em>http:\/\/agzy.youth.cn\/qsnag\/zt\/wjx100\/nkxjsh\/201206\/t20120608_2213957.htm<\/em>), editor described how they take part in or sacrifice their families. The family of their parents, or the family with their husbands and kids. Here are some (translated) quotations from these two articles:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cKids, interests and family are three motivation which promote me except from scientific research. I love to send time with my daughter drinking coffee, go shopping; while enjoy my work, it is crucial to share joy and happiness with family members\u2026\u201d<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 1.125rem\">\u201cTo be a scientist as well as mother of her kids, Xiqiu Han definitely sacrifice more than other women. How to find balance between work and life is probably still a question that she has to think about.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Think carefully, how if we change the second quotation into \u201cTo be a scientist as well as father of his kids, XXX definitely sacrifice more than other men\u201d? With no doubt that this is strange. When talking about men, media rarely link him with his families, as people usually think family is women\u2019s duty, which makes it difficult for women to be noticed purely due to her achievement in the field of science.<\/p>\n<p>A more explicit example, in \u201cHere female scientist comes! Female workaholics\u2019 secret to success\u201d (<em>https:\/\/news.china.com\/domesticgd\/10000159\/20190308\/35394766_2.html<\/em>), author spend more than half of the content making points about how family is important for female scientists.<\/p>\n<p>From these examples, we can see that when public media emphasis the trait of being \u201cfemale\u201d, the figure of female scientists usually strongly related to a complex group of characters including wife, mother, daughter. I don\u2019t mean by the support from family is unimportant, but without mentioning the support from family seems impossible in most of the cases when Chinese public media mentioning female scientists.<\/p>\n<p>Just like what we\u2019ve mentioned in the lecture, the early female scientists were usually mentioned together with their husbands or other family members, for example, Caroline Herschel and Marie Curie, as two typical cases. Comparing to the previous century, public media nowadays rarely show explicit sexual discrimination toward female scientists, but some implicit one still exists, such as calling them \u201cfemale scientists\u201d instead of \u201cscientist\u201d as I mentioned. This phenomenon implies a subconscious that \u201cscientists\u201d is unable to stand for \u201cfemale scientists\u201d, it\u2019s important to point out how these population is sexually different. This gradually becomes a gimmick that media use to attract readers, or in another way of explaining, they believe female scientists who can make achievements are <strong>STRANGE<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>How can gender discrimination be eliminated in public media when talking about science? It\u2019s really a hard question. What did public media do seem to be good when looking back through decades. By reporting female scientists\u2019 success, it encourages publics to pay close attention on how female can do as good as male did. However, the recessive dualism structure of male and female brings new problems to solve.<\/p>\n<p>How to report news related to female scientists? How to weaken the bond in conventional thinking that constructed between women and family? These need further investigation to take place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting fact, I found when browsing online by using the key words such as \u201cscientists + gender\u201d, is that there are many articles and &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11083,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[469613],"tags":[378978,4078,444611,444614],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11083"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5194,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5193\/revisions\/5194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}