Barbie can do anything–she can be a doctor, an astronaut, an athlete, even a presidential candidate–but everyone knows that the important thing about Barbie is how she looks doing those things. Will sent us a referral to a new reality show, The Nerd Girls, featuring a band of “knock out brainiacs.” From the website:
Nerd Girls are as complex as the codes they crack.
They are she-brains who love equations, high heels, lipgloss and gadgets…
Nerd girls dig digits and boys ask for theirs.
They are Nerd-a-licious.
“She-brains.” Get it? Because brains are a masculine trait, you have to modify it to make it make sense when used to refer to a female. From the news story:
These girl geeks aren’t social misfits; their identities don’t hinge on outsider status. They may love all things sci-tech, but first and foremost they are girls—and they’ve made that part of their appeal.
Never forget, first and foremost, girls are girls (but boys are people… that’s why we can just call them “brains”).
As they say: “They’re not your everyday girls!” ‘Cause I guess your everyday girls are dumb… or engineering students that happen to be less attractive.
One Comment
I am so glad someone else got this impression from this show, especially seeing as I’m a female engineering student. I watched it with a (female) friend with the same major, and our reaction was something along the lines of “what does looking good and impressing boys have to do with efficient design?”
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[...] mentions that women are often told to let their appearance “do the talking.” And, in another post, we’ve talked about how women are encouraged to do anything, as long as they look good doing [...]