海角大神

What do Oscars host Chris Rock and a British science competition have in common?

They're both courting controversy over gender equality.

Chris Rock鈥檚 suggested that the Academy Awards should get rid of "his" and "hers" acting categories. In the UK, some are railing over a boy being awarded the top prize in a science聽contest that was originally created for girls only. 聽

聽鈥撀燼n energy company initiative based on the notion of getting girls interested in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) 鈥� ended up delivering its聽聽to a 13-year-old boy this week.

Meanwhile, in Hollywood Sunday night, Mr. Rock gave a nod to the #AskHerMore campaign for inspiring his remarks. The tag was created to raise awareness and get interviewers to go beyond asking stars about which designers they were wearing on the red carpet in favor of more substantive, less objectifying questions to women at the Oscars.

鈥淭hink about it,鈥� Rock said in his Oscars telecast opening monologue. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no real reason for there to be a man and a woman category in聽acting. There鈥檚 no reason! It鈥檚 not track and field. You don鈥檛 have to separate them. You know Robert De Niro's never said, "I better slow this acting down so Meryl Streep can catch up!"

Pretty Curious had previously drawn fire on social media for its use of 鈥減retty鈥� as an adverb in its聽聽campaign where attractive little girls look into the camera and say 鈥淚鈥檓 pretty鈥︹�� with a pause before the punchline 鈥溾��curious about science.鈥�

鈥淔ollowing last year鈥檚 Pretty Curious program, which aimed to inspire girls about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, EDF Energy launched a social media competition open to all children called the Pretty Curious Challenge,鈥� responds聽Steph Aukstikalnis, external communications director for EDF Energy, to an email query on why the competition was altered. 鈥淥ne of the many EDF Energy initiatives aimed at inspiring young people, this challenge was an extension of Pretty Curious and aimed to help children understand the world of STEM and share their talents.鈥�

Chess grandmaster Susan Polgar, who founded the first all-girl national chess tournament in the US 鈥� the聽聽13 years ago, says in an interview that sticking with the all-girl format would have been more productive for retention of girls in STEM, not to level the playing field but to foster confidence and networking among girls and women in STEM.

鈥淕irls generally feel more comfortable (up to a certain age) doing activities with others of the same gender,鈥� Ms. Polgar says. 鈥淭herefore, an all-girls event usually leads to more participation.鈥�

Heather Metcalf, director of for research and analysis at the聽聽(AWIS) in Washington, D.C., says in an interview that the EDF Energy "Pretty Curious" campaign, smacks of 鈥減ink washing.鈥澛�

鈥淯nfortunately, this kind of recruitment strategy, especially when it comes to young girls and STEM is not uncommon,鈥� says Ms. Metcalf. 鈥淭here are lots of situations where we see marketing towards girls that focuses a lot on appearance.鈥�

A case in point, says Metcalf, are chemistry sets marketed towards girls as a recruitment tool.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e all about making fizzy bath balls, lip gloss, all beauty products as the kind of science appeal to girls, when really it鈥檚 just reinforcing these gender roles and stereotypes around appearance,鈥� Metcalf says.

,聽research director and STEM educator at Norfolk State University in Virginia,聽says in an interview, 鈥淎lthough I think that it is imperative and important to have girls compete in an atmosphere where there is primarily girls, this can be fundamental and we don't want to stop at just gender specific competitions for either girls or boys.鈥�

鈥淲e need to teach and expect the best idea to win, regardless of gender,鈥� Dr. Okpodu says. 鈥淚n an ideal world, if there was a way to be gender neutral, it would be the best way. However, that is neither realistic or practical."

Ciara Judge, a 17-year-old winner of the 2014 Google Global Science Fair, weighed in on the "Pretty Curious" 2016 winner,.

"To those criticising the idea that a聽contest to promote females in STEM聽would have a male winner, I ask: is allowing a girl to win by default really a way to promote girls in STEM?

There is no worse feeling on earth than feeling like your success is because of your gender, or feeling like to token female and I have been in that situation more times than I care to count."

But Metcalf says AWIS research shows that for adults, 鈥淭here鈥檚 a high degree of bias that鈥檚 very resilient within the recognition of women in STEM fields.鈥�

鈥淥ur [AWIS] research has shown that women are over-recognized for their roles in teaching and service and under-recognized for their scholarly and research roles,鈥� she adds. 鈥淲ith respect to proportion and nominees in an award pool, men are eight times more likely to win a scholarly award than women. Without respect to proportion in the pool, men are two times more likely to win.鈥�

Metcalf also points out that the creation of female-only awards 鈥渢ends to make them marginalized and less valued awards.鈥�

She concludes, 鈥淚 feel like there鈥檚 still a lot of work to be done here, for sure.鈥�