A more upbeat thing I found on the internet

[rmd]

This had me quite literally squeeing in my house as I watched this video of the SCIENCE CHEERLEADERS. Darlene Cavalier used to be a professional cheerleader, and is now a science writer and all around nerd-enabler. She started Science Cheerleaders, a group of former pro-cheerleaders who have gone on to careers in science and engineering.

Breaking down stereotypes about scientists *and* cheerleaders?

Fuck yeah.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I noticed a huge bias like that in my head. I had read a bit about it before seeing the video, which may have let me have the initial squee. :)

There are lots of instances of people trying to get the message out that "smart people can be hot" -- nude calendars populated by oncologists, stuff like that.

The thing that I find *utterly* fabulous about this is that it's also sending the complementary message: "hot people can be smart". That right there is awesome. It's breaking down expectations in *both* directions.

I mean, the stereotype of "cheerleader," particularly "*professional* cheerleader" is not an intellectual powerhouse. I sort of assume they generally have a background in dance and maybe gymnastics, so they're categorized in that athletic-not-nerdy part of my first-impression human taxonomy. (It used to be more like "fuck you, pretty girls, you are like the people that didn't like me and i bet you're really dumb", but I've substantially moved past that unless I'm having an internal back-in-highschool moment of some sort.)

The woman who founded this group also did "citizens for science" and some other similarly cool stuff, so she's clearly all about making science accessible and increasing scientific literacy. yay!