Women Scientists Theme Week – Page 2

Beverly Crusher (‘Star Trek: TNG’) and Dana Scully (‘The X-Files’): The Medical and the Maternal

The impact of Dr. Beverly Crusher and Agent Dana Scully cannot be understated, not just on the landscape of female representation on television or the portrayal of women scientists but the way they also drove young women to pursue STEM fields in reality. …They transcend mere descriptors like woman, lover, mother, caregiver, skeptic, scientist — because they’re all that and more.

This guest post written by Carly Lane appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists. | Spoilers ahead.

In the vast, diverse spectrum of science fiction worlds, it often seems as if no role, no profession, is off-limits to female characters. To that end, it has often been cited as a deeply progressive genre for fictional women, depicting the importance of their contributions as being equal to their male counterparts. When compared alongside the investigation of extraterrestrial life or the exploration of worlds other than our own, a strong and competent woman doesn’t seem that extraordinary by comparison.

Although science-fiction has been guilty of relying on outdated sexist tropes on occasion, it should be celebrated for the avenues where female characters are allowed to become more developed and three-dimensional. It’s these women that we often look up to as role models, even though they sometimes come from a future very far away from our own. Two of those characters appeared on television shows which spanned nearly fifteen years — Dr. Beverly Crusher, from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Dana Scully, from The X-Files. Maybe not surprisingly, there’s more that links these two fictional ladies than the fact that they share the same hair color, or that they both have backgrounds in STEM fields. Over the course of their respective programs, they were allowed to become fully realized characters who had journeys independent of any influence from men — and though both women do have important relationships with several men in their lives, it isn’t what defines them.

When we’re introduced to Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) at the start of The Next Generation we learn two things up front: first, that she’s a single mother to young son Wesley (Wil Wheaton), and second, that she has a personal history with Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), who captains the Starfleet vessel the USS Enterprise. In spite of the tie that binds them, which is revealed to be the death of Crusher’s husband Jack, the doctor assures Picard that it will in no way affect “the way [she] serves [him], the vessel or the mission” as Chief Medical Officer (“Encounter at Farpoint”).

And, for the most part, it doesn’t — at least not early on. In fact, it seems like she’s barely joined on with the Enterprise before she accepts a position as head of Starfleet Medical less than a year later. Granted, the decision of the character was heavily informed by the departure of actress Gates McFadden at the end of season one; both McFadden and Crusher returned to the show for season three after fans campaigned to bring the character back. While the reason for Crusher’s return is never provided in dialogue, we see the toll her absence has taken — especially in her relationship with her son Wesley, who had remained on the Enterprise as acting ensign. The interactions between them are initially strained and awkward, and eventually Crusher goes to Picard to ask him about how her son has been during her time away (“Evolution”).

Mother and son don’t resolve their tension right off the bat, either; when Crusher suggests to Wesley that he might have taken on too many responsibilities, he snaps at her, invoking her absence. “I’m here now, Wesley,” she says, and over the course of the remaining episode Wesley allows himself to rely a little more on his mother for a change. It’s one of the few instances in TNG where Wesley does lean on Crusher in some way; more often than not, when it comes to asking for advice or venting his problems, we usually see Wesley seek out a male member of Starfleet, or even Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), the proprietor of Enterprise’s bar Ten-Forward. Whether that was unintentional or stemming from the belief that an adolescent man shouldn’t be running to his mother with his problems, it definitely contributed to a number of missed opportunities for more meaningful interaction between Crusher and her son.

On the other hand, TNG doesn’t define Crusher solely by her role as a mother — and it shouldn’t. As Chief Medical Officer on the Enterprise, she’s the head of the team responsible for administering care not just to the other vessel’s crew members but also to the alien races they encounter over the course of their mission. Her background in science and medicine requires her to be familiar with unique anatomy, to develop cures for foreign illnesses, or to handle emergency medical situations with a calm demeanor. As a certified bridge officer, she is afforded command of the bridge on several occasions in the absence of other crew members. She has her own friendships forged outside professional boundaries, namely with ship’s counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis); the two women frequently go to each other for advice and recommendations. She also finds herself pursuing potential romantic attachments, though they don’t tend to last beyond the confines of an episode. And she even dances around a potential relationship with Picard, even though neither of them truly act on what appear to be mutual romantic feelings. Over the course of TNG, we’re afforded the opportunity to glimpse Crusher as a mother, a doctor, and a woman with feelings and strong convictions.

While Crusher’s journey begins as that of a mother and branches outward, the story arc of Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is something of the opposite. In The X-Files, it’s the skeptical Scully who serves as an avatar for the audience, our way in; it’s through her science that the FBI intends for her to debunk the X-Files and thereby discredit former golden boy Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) as a result. She’s immediately defined by her science, by her medical background; the frequency of Scully introducing herself by her profession in early seasons is a long-running joke among die-hard X-Philes, but there’s some part of it that’s almost necessary due to the occasional sexism she faces from men working in her field. When a male detective questions “the wisdom of assigning female law enforcement officers to certain types of cases” during a murder investigation, Scully assures him that his “concern” is misplaced (“2Shy”). Fortunately, she doesn’t find herself on the receiving end of any gross comments from her partner Mulder; although the two of them usually disagree on the whodunit, their verbal sparring matches are often a means to allow both parties to bounce potential hypotheses off one another.

It takes some time, but inevitably we learn that Scully occasionally harbors thoughts of having a social life, building relationships, and perhaps even starting a family someday outside of her work on the X-Files. Her attempts at dating never quite end the way she expects (“The Jersey Devil,” “Never Again”). Her alien abduction comes with its own set of side ramifications after Mulder learns that some of her eggs had been harvested during the process, eventually leading to the creation of a child (“Emily”). Scully experiences an overwhelming sense of connection with the girl and is heartbroken when Emily dies from a genetic infection, especially since this comes in the aftermath of Scully learning of her own infertility as the result of her abduction — or so she thinks.

Scully’s desire to be a mother again never truly goes away, and when she eventually decides to have a child through in vitro fertilization she asks Mulder to be the donor (“Per Manum”); although the initial attempt at in vitro fails, Scully later learns she is pregnant shortly after the alien abduction of Mulder, suggesting that the two were intimate long enough to conceive naturally (“Requiem”). While she is overjoyed to finally have a child of her own, Scully soon realizes that she and her son William will never find peace given the threats to his life that exist in her world, and makes the devastating decision to give him up for adoption so that he can grow up safely. In the revival of The X-Files, we learn that Scully frequently reminisces about the life she could have had with William if he had stayed with her, but the question of whether she will ever be able to reunite with her child even after all this time is still open-ended.

After all, as often as we’ve seen Scully try to leave the X-Files (and Mulder, by extension) behind and start anew, something always seems to occur to bring her back in somehow. And there’s value in that, in depicting a female character who wrestles with her convictions both as a woman of science and a woman of faith, in allowing her to explore her own wants and needs while not necessarily prioritizing that of her male partner’s. On The X-FIles, it never felt as though Mulder and Scully were on anything but equal footing; in his absence, she’s given the opportunity to fully champion the truth she had originally been assigned to dismiss.

The impact of Crusher and Scully cannot be understated, not just on the landscape of female representation on television or the portrayal of women scientists but the way they also drove young women to pursue STEM fields in reality. (Scully even has this effect partly named after her.) Maybe it’s because they’re impossible to sum up in just one word; they transcend mere descriptors like woman, lover, mother, caregiver, skeptic, scientist — because they’re all that and more. It’s the full representation of the many facets of their character that’s given these fictional women their long-lasting appeal for so many years already, and hopefully for many more years to come.

Carly Lane is a writer based in New York City who specializes in obscure pop culture references and miscellaneous geekery. Her work has been featured on The Mary Sue, Teen Vogue, The Toast and more. You can find her on Twitter at @carlylane.

‘Splice’: The Horror of Having It All

…’Splice’ could very well be a cautionary tale for the career woman considering motherhood. From the outset, the film shows Elsa as an ambitious scientist who loves her job – and who loves her life exactly the way it is. … This presents the central conflict of Elsa’s character: her repressed desire to be a mother, and her larger desire to remain in control of her own life, body, and career.

This guest post written by Claire Holland appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists. | Spoilers ahead.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape]

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

That’s the question Clive (Adrien Brody), a genetic engineer, poses to his partner in both work and life, Elsa (Sarah Polley), regarding the possibility of having a child together. The rest of Splice goes on to answer that question, and the perspective is not an optimistic one.

While sporadically debating the pros and cons of making a baby the old-fashioned way, the two scientists create a creature, eventually named “Dren,” by splicing genetic material from different animals – including human genes from Elsa, who becomes a de facto mother. Splice explores a number of fraught topics, including the politics of male-female relationships, the nature of motherhood, and the ethics of genetic engineering and abortion. One of the less explored topics, however, is what the film says about the working mother, specifically. While the waters are a bit murky on the subject, look at it in the right light and Splice could very well be a cautionary tale for the career woman considering motherhood.

From the outset, the film shows Elsa as an ambitious scientist who loves her job – and who loves her life exactly the way it is. Her boyfriend Clive is the one who wants to change things, gently but insistently prodding Elsa about altering their lives to make room for a baby. Elsa makes it clear that she’s not interested in doing so, stating, “I don’t want to bend my life to suit some third party that doesn’t even exist yet.” She also suggests they wait until they “crack male pregnancy,” suggesting that she may never be interested, for a variety of reasons. However, Clive continues to pester Elsa to change her mind. It’s apparent that Clive represents the good, “normal” man who wants expected things like a nuclear family, blissfully unaware of the lasting effects a child would have on his female partner’s body and career. Elsa represents the abnormal, and implicitly wrong, approach to living as a woman: putting herself before her womb.

Elsa takes the ultimate gamble when she inserts her own genetic material into the amalgam that is Dren. This presents the central conflict of Elsa’s character: her repressed desire to be a mother, and her larger desire to remain in control of her own life, body, and career. Splice goes on to suggest that these two desires are inherently incompatible, and further, that attempting to “have it all” is a punishable offense.

When it comes to pseudo-motherhood, Elsa can’t do anything right, at least in Clive’s opinion. At the beginning, he reprimands her for treating Dren “like a pet” rather than a specimen. Clive’s fear illustrates how stereotypically female attributes, such as the ability to nurture, are considered weaknesses in a male-dominated profession like science, and the working world in general. Elsa sees potential in Dren that reaches far beyond the original goals of the experiment, but the film only presents this new facet of her character as a negative. It makes Elsa emotional, and therefore a danger to the sterile work world she inhabits.

As Dren (Delphine Chanéac) matures and becomes more volatile, she grows closer to Clive, who she begins to see as a potential mate (and, disturbingly, vice versa), and becomes resentful of Elsa’s restrictive presence. Clive remains critical of Elsa’s reactions to parenthood as she begins to shift from doting mother to controlling mother, suddenly finding her not maternal enough for his liking. Although we discover that Elsa has deep-seated issues with her own mother that hinder her ability to parent effectively, we also see that as the only parental figure left in the equation, she is obliged to become more and more domineering in order to keep their unauthorized experiment under wraps.

It’s at this point that Elsa becomes fundamentally unable to reconcile her roles as mother and scientist. Faced with a wild, fully grown Dren who doesn’t want to be told what to do, Elsa reestablishes control the only way she knows how: by force. She knocks Dren unconscious, ties her down, and surgically removes the stinger she has on her tail. Elsa then uses the stinger to synthesize the protein her team has been attempting to make all along. It is her greatest accomplishment, and also her coldest, most calculating moment, divorcing her entirely from the mother figure she once represented to Dren. It seems that in order to find success in her job, Elsa has to renounce her maternal side completely.

In the final act of Splice, Dren transitions from female to male (the final part of her life cycle, foreshadowed earlier in the film). Dren then rapes Elsa, for reasons left unexplained. Perhaps it’s simply Dren’s animal instinct, but it comes across as punishment; punishment for being too ambitious in realms not traditionally female (Elsa’s career, science), or punishment for not finding fulfillment in the roles women are “supposed” to find fulfillment (motherhood and wifedom). No matter how you splice it, the film does not treat Elsa’s non-conformance with much kindness or sympathy, and for better or worse it reads as a blaring warning sign to women like her: attempting to “have it all” can be deadly.

See also at Bitch Flicks: ‘Splice’: Womb Horror and the Mother Scientist

Claire Holland is a freelance writer and author of Razor Apple, a blog devoted to horror movies and horror culture with a feminist bent. Claire has a BA in English and creative writing, but she insists on writing about “trashy” genre movies nonetheless. You can follow her on Twitter @ClaireCWrites.

When Will Black Women Play Leading Scientists More Often?

In movies and on television, the absence of Black women as scientists is glaringly obvious. …The response on social media to the vocation of Leslie Jones’ character in ‘Ghostbusters’ offers an opportunity to ponder: When have Black women been cast as scientists in laboratories, creating and inventing significant and outlandish developments, and leading investigations? …Where are the Black women playing scientists in films in the 21st century?

This guest post written by Tara Betts appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

In movies and on television, the absence of Black women as scientists is glaringly obvious. This became more obvious when the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot caused an outcry around Leslie Jones — the only Black Ghostbuster — being cast as a municipal worker, rather than a scientist like her white women costars. Even though Jones’ occupation is identical to Ernie Hudson’s role as Winston in the 1984 original, the response on social media to the vocation of Jones’ character offers an opportunity to ponder: When have Black women been cast as scientists in laboratories, creating and inventing significant and outlandish developments, and leading investigations? Black women have been stereotypically cast as servants and sex workers in too many films to name here, but we should be asking: Where are the Black women playing scientists in films in the 21^st century?

Some of the smaller, less central scientist roles played by Black actresses include Kerry Washington as Medical Officer Marissa Brau in 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2007), Alfre Woodard as Lily Sloane as Zefram Cochrane’s (played by James Cromwell) assistant in Star Trek: First Contact (1996), N’Bushe Wright as hematologist Dr. Karen Jenson in Blade (1998), and Dr. Billie Worth (Rosalind Cash) seeking the cure to cirrhosis with Dr. Henry Pride (Bernie Casey) in Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, the 1976 blaxploitation version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Most recently, Viola Davis seems to have cornered the most roles as a Black female scientist. Davis played Dr. Helen Gordon in Solaris (2002) and as Major Gwen Anderson, a psychologist in Enders Game (2013). Davis also plays Amanda Waller in the recently completed Suicide Squad movie. Angela Bassett portrayed the same role in Green Lantern (2011) but this version of the character was a scientist, rather than a government official.

The upcoming 2017 Hidden Figures (starring Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monáe, Octavia Spencer), Sanaa Lathan in the 2004 film AVP: Alien vs. Predator, and Janet Jackson in the 2000 comedy The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps approach representations of Black women as scientists in ways that have yet to be replicated more often. But there is also room for more believable portrayals across STEM-related disciplines. These roles are some of the only leading roles where Black women scientists received top billing, rather than as supporting characters who assist other scientists.

In AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Lathan portrays Alexa Woods, an environmental technician and expedition leader for a group of archaeologists, which makes her more than a scientist. She leads her fellow scientists and eventually prevails against two nearly unstoppable adversaries. Throughout this film, Alexa is a quick-thinking, resourceful heroine in escalating crises. Her final challenge lies in preventing any aliens from rising to Earth’s surface. Otherwise, the Predators and humans know that life on the planet will be completely destroyed.

Alexa’s first scene displays her endurance as she climbs the Lho La icefall in Nepal. In the middle of ascent, her ringing cell phone startles her, but she calmly and quickly secures herself in order to answer the call via the ear piece tucked beneath her cap. She, along with a team of experts, is flown in directly from the mountaintop via helicopter to meet with Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) to hear a description of the mission. Weyland’s satellites have discovered an unusual heat signature in Antarctica, and thermal imaging reveals a massive structure with hundreds of rooms built around a central core beneath the edifice. The pyramid itself displays characteristics from structures from Aztec, Cambodian, and Egyptian structures. Woods’ doubt about the safety of the mission leads her to turn it down. But Sebastian de Rosa (Raoul Bova) and Graeme Miller (Ewen Bremner) convince her to take the mission by asking if they have a better chance of surviving with her. The lack of experience of other scientists in her hazardous field and de Rosa’s gentle request convinces Alexa that she can work toward keeping the crew safe. Inevitably, Alexa is the only expert who can take on the mission with Weyland Industries to find what may be the earliest pyramid, 2,000 feet below Bogataya Island.

The team arrives at the abandoned whaling station on the Antarctic island. They discover that some sort of advanced thermal equipment has cut a perfectly angled tunnel straight toward the pyramid just before their arrival. As they begin to descend into the tunnel, Weyland loses his grip and starts plummeting toward a possible collision with the rocks and pyramid below. Alexa clearly notes his sliding body and lowers an ice hatchet onto the loose, unused hood of Weyland’s parka. In doing so, she saves the wealthy initiator of the project who, at times, sounds like a fatherly/great white benefactor standing in for Alexa’s late father, who died from complications related to a mountain climbing injury.

After losing Sebastian, the last member of her team who helped her figure out some of the written hieroglyphs, Alexa undergoes a significant hunting ritual of the Predators. She surrenders one of the artifacts, approaches a surviving Predator peacefully, and kills one of the aliens. This unlikely alliance places a Black woman in a role that is nearly nonexistent in U.S. cinema: a leader who survives an animal-like alien onslaught and a technologically-advanced hunter who could easily eliminate human life. Lathan could have reprised her role as Alexa Woods in the 2007 sequel Alien vs. Predator: Requiem or in other films, much like Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in the Alien franchise. But that opportunity never arose.

Before the release of the suspense-filled sci-fi action film AVP: Alien Versus Predator, Eddie Murphy starred as the lead in the 1996 remake of The Nutty Professor, which was originally a Jerry Lewis film made in 1963. Unlike the chemistry student Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett Smith) in Murphy’s first Nutty Professor, Denise Gaines (Janet Jackson) is Sherman Klump’s colleague in the sequel The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. In her opening scene, Jackson dons wire-framed glasses and a blazer. Throughout the entire film, Jackson is covered in long sleeves and long skirts, like a modest academic who would rather downplay her physical attributes and draw attention to her intellect. Sherman wedges his way into a crowded lecture to listen to Denise explain her research as she points to an overhead projection featuring illustrations of DNA chains. Her research is related to a potential process for genomic extraction. An extraction such as this would remove risk factors from an individual’s DNA in order to prevent genetic health problems in the future.

In the next scene, Denise enters Sherman’s lab to pull him aside and talk to him one on one. As they walk under wide collegiate arches together, Denise tells him that she’s been invited to take a position at University of Maine, but she’s not sure if she wants to take it since she wants to stay because of her feelings for Sherman. In some ways, this reflects the difficulty that women faculty, including women of color STEM faculty often face, the challenge of finding a spouse. “Sherman, I’m not talking about research. Sherman, you’re very special to me. You are kind and decent. You are the most brilliant man I’ve ever known.” When Gaines says this and disregards Sherman’s size, the implication is that she loves him, not some conventionally attractive appearance he could have. Gaines’ perception of Sherman is reinforced after an outburst from Buddy Love, his bullying, overtly macho Jekyll-like, alter-ego. When Sherman proposes to Denise, he impresses her by writing/spraying “Marry Me” in the sky with a simulated hormone. It is his decency and intellectual prowess that leads to Denise accepting his proposal. They celebrate this happy moment after class in a lecture hall while they sip champagne out of beakers, and Chaka Khan’s “Tell Me Something Good” plays in the background. Their giggles and sips are followed by a major professional success when the boss of both Sherman and Denise, Dean Richmond (Larry Miller), notifies them that their research led to receiving a multi-million-dollar research grant from a fictional pharmaceutical company.

Although Denise is Sherman’s peer, not just his fiancée, her role is downplayed to emphasize the scenes where she participates in wedding festivities for her plans, including dinner with both sets of parents, trying on Sherman’s mother’s wedding dress, picking up an altered dress, and attending a bachelorette party complete with a fireman stripper dancing to Sisqo’s “Thong Song.”

Although there are some thoughtful moments that portray masculinity as a scholarly, sensitive man like Sherman Klump or his loving father Cletus, who can be tender with the wife he desperately wants to please, they are caricatures of Black people that stereotype plus-size people and older Black women by Murphy dressing in drag. When he plays Mama Klump and the hyper-sexual Granny Klump, the humor resides in creating a plus-size, undersexed mother and a representation of an older, lascivious Black woman with oversized, flapping breasts and bad dental health. This reliance on Granny Klump’s appetites as an ageist source of humor makes the sexuality of older women look absurd and completely undesirable. The women in the film (who aren’t Murphy in drag) are Denise, a couple of women that Sherman briefly greets on campus, and a few women of various ages in a club where Cletus tests out Sherman’s youth formula during a night out. In fact, Sherman’s nephew Ernie Klump, Jr. (played by Jamal Mixon) is the only person in the Klump family who is actually plus-size, and he has the least to say in the film. When he does speak, it is often to punctuate a moment of comic relief.

Aside from these shallow sizeist and stereotypical portrayals of Black people (especially Black women and Black families), one of the underlying messages is that a good woman can help save you. After convincing Dean Richmond that he can fix his declining intelligence and secure the pharmaceutical contract, Sherman takes a small amount of the youth formula and checks his computer to check the details of his rapidly progressing brain damage, which will only be reversed by ingesting some of the genetic material of Buddy Love. This isn’t necessarily consistent with science, but it offers a simple plot point.

After Dean Richmond and Sherman hurriedly leave to capture Buddy Love, Denise enters the laboratory to leave a note for Sherman. She understands the life-altering results of the file that Sherman carelessly left open. The details of the file reveal the genetic extraction that Sherman performed on himself without telling her, and she follows them to save Sherman. When she finds Sherman, he is barely able to speak, and they discover that some of Buddy Love’s genetic material has been absorbed into a water fountain. Denise forces Sherman to drink from it to restore his deteriorating intelligence. Even though she has access to the laboratory and she understands the file, Denise’s intellectual and scientific talents are primarily showcased in that first classroom scene where she is teaching, not necessarily in applied sciences, like Sherman.

Lastly, in Margot Lee Shetterly’s upcoming book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (William Morrow, 2016), she focuses on the “women computers” of the Langley Research Center, of what would become NASA, who performed calculations that led to John Glenn’s walk on the moon. These women included Katherine G. Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Kathryn Peddrew, Sue Wilder, Eunice Smith, and Barbara Holley. In 2014, two years before the book’s publication, the book rights were sold and plans to launch the new film Hidden Figures began.

As more Black women assume the roles of scientists in major motion pictures, a better job can be done to make them instrumental, rather than ancillary, to the plots of such films.

See also at Bitch Flicks: 5 Women Scientists Who Need Their Own Movie ASAP

Tara Betts is the author of two full-length poetry collections Break the Habit and Arc & Hue. She is also the author of the chapbooks 7 x 7: kwansabas (Backbone Press, 2015), the upcoming Never Been Lois Lane (dancing girl press, 2016), and the libretto THE GREATEST!: An Homage to Muhammad Ali (Argus House/Winged City Press, 2013). Tara’s writing has appeared in The Source, XXL, Black Radio Exclusive, Essence, NYLON, and the blog for Ploughshares.

‘Mission Blue’: “No Ocean, No Us”

Audiences have to look to documentaries like ‘Particle Fever,’ about the discovery of the Higgs boson, to see women scientists in prominent roles on film. The Netflix documentary ‘Mission Blue’ focuses on one woman scientist, Sylvia Earle, a former chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and pioneering oceanographer and marine biologist who is on a quest to save the world’s oceans from dying.

This (slightly edited) repost by staff writer Ren Jender appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

When characters on TV shows or in feature films encounter “a scientist,” that person is usually a man. The rare times when actresses play scientists in mainstream films (besides the obvious recent example of Ghostbusters) they’re more likely to be a punchline than a real character, like Denise Richards in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough. Audiences have to look to documentaries like Particle Fever, about the discovery of the Higgs boson, to see women scientists in prominent roles on film. The Netflix documentary Mission Blue focuses on one woman scientist, Sylvia Earle, a former chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and pioneering oceanographer and marine biologist who is on a quest to save the world’s oceans from dying.

If that last sentence seems like an exaggeration, you should probably see this film. Earle, (now 80, but 79 when the film was released nearly two years ago) has been scuba diving as part of her research for the past 60 years (where she got her undergrad degree was one of the first places to adopt this “new” technology) and has seen firsthand the destruction that pollution and overfishing have wrought — even in areas “in the middle of nowhere” we (and she) think might be unaffected. She points out plastic bags and bottles she encounters on the ocean floor along with long stretches of dead coral and hardly any fish in places where both previously flourished.

She asks, “How can we use the ocean and not use it up?” She’s not afraid to take on the fishing industry, describing her stint at NOAA: “I went to one meeting of the fisheries council. And I was never allowed to go again.” When she warned of the (still) impending extermination of bluefin tuna (because of overfishing) she earned the nickname, “The Sturgeon General.” She resigned from her government position so she could further ocean conservation without being tethered by politics.

The film isn’t all doom and gloom. We also see, in some stunning underwater cinematography (both reminiscent of the Jacques Cousteau documentaries and surpassing them) places where ocean life is plentiful: huge schools of fish that seem like shimmering silver walls along with harmless whale sharks and sea turtles touchingly unwary of divers. Earle is a great advocate of everyone exploring the ocean in this way, theorizing that people care more about wildlife and its environment if they can see it: if wildflowers, birds, trees and deer were hidden away from us we might not have many protections for them either. Earle points out that even though she’s not “big and muscly,” she’s been diving her entire adult life and was able to convince her own mother, at 81, to give it a try. She loved it.

The film shows us the deep sea animals that Earle first encountered over 30 years ago in a special atmospheric diving suit she, along with her third husband, helped design. The natural flashing luminescence of fish and other sea creature at these depths look like city neon signs and gaudy Christmas displays all at once.

We also hear of Earle’s own journey first as a child allowed to explore, alone and for hours at a time, the wild places around her home (as few children now get the chance to do) and later her career as a scientist. She is careful to include herself when she says repeatedly that no one foresaw the depletion of a resource — the ocean and its inhabitants — that seemed too vast for human beings to impact. But now Earle says, “No ocean, no life. No ocean, no us.”

Earle became a scientist before second-wave feminism, when hardly any women entered that profession and we see in the media coverage of her accomplishments (when she was often the first or only woman but usually called a “girl”), the sexism of the era, which she undoubtedly encountered on the job as well. But the film’s co-director and interviewer Fisher Stevens (yes, the same one who acted in films like Short Circuit — but more recently was a producer for The Cove) doesn’t ask about these instances, only gushes about how “beautiful” she was. Earle is polite to him, but, at 79, she might be wondering when she will finally be excused from the unofficial beauty pageant all women are subjected to.

This film could use more women. We barely see Earle interacting with other women scientists or divers in Blue (except very briefly in Australia and in vintage footage of her time as part of an all-woman team of researchers) though many more women are in the field now than when she started her career. Not enough women are behind the scenes either: the film was directed and written by men. When we consider Earle is not just a scientific pioneer, but also writes books about ocean conservation for the general public (including one released to coincide with this documentary — as well as children’s books) and is an effective enough speaker for lay audiences that she won a substantial monetary award as part of TED Talks, the omission of her from the film’s writing team is baffling. If her own writing had been included, some elements, like a casual mention of the acidification of the ocean (thanks to carbon dioxide emissions) might have been better explained.

I also would have appreciated more of Earle’s take on her personal life. She was married three times and had three children (with the addition, for about a decade, of stepchildren too) but as her daughter (who now runs the deep sea equipment company Earle founded) tells us she “wasn’t June Cleaver.” Earle was taking part in underwater expeditions halfway across the world from her family at a time when wives and mothers were expected to make their homes and their husbands (and their husbands’ careers) their first priority. Her marriages suffered because of her absences, even though each of the husbands shared her interests. In this era of Lean In and “having it all,” I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to hear in more detail about the experience of someone who attempted this balancing act before most of the so-called “experts” were born.

When we see the “Happiness is being in over your head.” sticker (illustrated with a scuba diver) in her office we think Earle may be a lot more interesting than the documentary makes her (an impression that Earle in interviews seems to confirm), but she’s still able to get in some good, informative quotes like, “What we’re doing to the ocean, what we’re doing to the planet as a whole comes back to us in bigger storms, more powerful storms, more frequent storms.”

A better film might have tied in Earle’s past status as an outsider (when she was one of the few women in her field) and rebel (in not conforming to the ’50s and ’60s cultural expectations of what a wife and mother should be) to her current role as an environmentalist. When we see (in graphic footage) gleeful fisherman cutting the fins off living sharks and then dumping their mutilated bodies into the ocean to die, we can’t help thinking that this boys’ club gives its members permission to behave badly — as most boys’ clubs do. Because she’s never been one of the boys, Earle can see their cruelty — and its consequences — more clearly: she even films a fishing boat “vacuuming” up its catch — from the vantage point of the fish.

In spite of its flaws, Blue is well worth seeing — and succeeded in making me want to try scuba diving. Some of the shots in the film seem more magical than the brightly colored, hologram illustrations in my childhood copy of The Little Mermaid. As Stevens accompanies Earle through storybook seascapes I thought, “This is the ‘beauty’ he should be gushing over.”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1wp2MQCsfQ”]

Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

‘Jurassic Park’: Resisting Gender Tropes

Yet in rewatching ‘Jurassic Park,’ it struck me that not only is Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler a portrayal of a female scientist that is largely unseen in film, but she is, on numerous occasions, keenly aware of her gender and how this leads to her treatment.

This guest post written by Siobhan Denton appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

Largely, Steven Spielberg is not known for overtly feminist portrayals of women in film. His work primarily focuses on similar motifs, chiefly that of father/son relationships. Yet in rewatching Jurassic Park, it struck me that not only is Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler a portrayal of a female scientist that is largely unseen in film, but she is, on numerous occasions, keenly aware of her gender and how this leads to her treatment.

A paleobotanist, Dr. Ellie Sattler is clearly respected in her field of her work. Unlike previous female scientists, Ellie is not merely present to fulfill the Male Gaze, or to act as a plot device driving the narrative forward. Too often in film and TV, women scientists are there to either look attractive, or to simply proffer information to their male counterpart without little discussion. Here, Ellie is not only an expert in her field; she is respected by her colleagues.

Take for example the scene in which Ellie offers her ideas as to the reason the triceratops is ill.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JylK4HuKMvQ”]

Both Ellie and Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) are overcome with emotion, seeing the real life incarnation of a species to which they have spent their lives devoted to. But while Alan remains enamored, Ellie quickly acts, readily questioning the other men around her as a means to solve the reasons behind the illness of the animal. She does not act subservient or submissive. While Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) balks at the nature of Ellie’s investigations (determining the animal’s food source by inspecting its droppings), Ellie remains unfazed. Until this point, Ian has seen Ellie as a potential love interest, and while he acknowledged her education, he readily used his interactions with her to both showcase his own knowledge, and as an opportunity to educate Ellie. He attempts to highlight her intellectual failings because she, as a paleobotanist, does not have an understanding of chaos theory.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-mpifTiPV4″]

It is not until Ian witnesses Ellie demonstrating her own knowledge that he acknowledges that her function is not to simply act as a love interest, prompting him to remark upon her “tenacious” nature. This remark, acknowledged by Ellie’s colleague and partner Alan, is said both admiringly and begrudgingly — almost as if Ellie’s refusal to conform to the role of an archetypal love interest is both pleasing to see and frustrating.

It would have been easy for Dern’s character to have simply performed the role of love interest for the men in the film, and indeed the men in the film often try to impress upon her (and each other) that this is the role that she can perform. Ellie is aware of this, and makes this clear when Ian, again demonstrating his intellect, remarks, “God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.” Ellie’s wry response, in which she states, “Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth,” demonstrates her awareness of her gender and her status.

While Ellie is Grant’s partner, her narrative is not dependent on her involvement with him, and indeed, much of her narrative development takes place away from Grant. Returning to the compound while Grant is left to look after the children (arguably taking on the maternal role), Ellie is compelled to offer her help in order to reboot the system. She is aware of the dangers, but does so anyway. Her action, which she quickly undertakes with little debate, is decisive. She knows that her help is needed and despite her fears, she rapidly offers her services. Both Muldoon (Bob Peck) and Arnold (Samuel L. Jackson) accept Ellie’s participation without question. It is only John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), far older than the rest, who questions her decision. It is interesting that it is Hammond who expresses his displeasure with her involvement in the mission, largely given the noticeable generation gap between the three men in the room. Perhaps this is Spielberg’s attempt at noting the necessary progression in the treatment of women. Ellie herself explicitly draws attention to Hammond’s objections, bluntly stating, “Look … We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back.”

Ellie is willing to get involved and does not require rescuing, unlike her partner Alan, who spends the majority of the film both fulfilling a maternal role, but also hoping to find safety. Ellie is already safe through her decision to stay with the triceratops, but she is prepared to risk this in order to guarantee the safety of others. Ultimately, it is Ellie that rescues Alan, Lex (Ariana Richards), and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) as it is through her actions that they can retreat from danger.

Despite this, Alan does still attempt to protect Ellie, requesting that she try to reboot the system while he holds the velociraptor at bay. Ellie recognizes that Alan will not be able to hold the door on his own, so once again acts to help him, and in doing so fulfills the same role as him. As the pair hold the door together, their roles are no longer gendered. Notably, it is the other female character in the room that saves the four here. Lex’s superior technological knowledge successfully reboots the system, meaning that she, along with Ellie, has helped to save those remaining on the island.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFJekvpaua4″]

Importantly, Ellie is not an overtly sexualized character nor is she there to serve as simple set decoration; her clothes and styling are functional and appropriate to her job. She is allowed to be intelligent and brave without acting hysterical or panicked. The film affords her a fully developed, engaging, and interesting role.

Given that such a representation can be present in a successful film, it seems even more of a misnomer that so few female scientists are depicted on-screen. As has been noted, the original Jurassic Park is arguably more positive in its portrayal of women than the recent Jurassic World. Why this regression?

It is easy to list some of the representations of female scientists, as if the exception proves the rule, but until such representations are entirely normalized, not enough work is being done.

Siobhan Denton is a teacher and writer living in Wales, UK. She holds a BA in English and an MA in Film and Television Studies. She is especially interested in depictions of female desire and transitions from youth to adulthood. She tweets at @siobhan_denton and writes at The Blue and the Dim.

5 Women Scientists Who Need Their Own Movie ASAP

Issues around equal gender representation in film are compounded by many female researchers’ accomplishments being erased from history, resulting in very few women being key players in scientific biopics. As a woman studying for a science degree, this absence is as painful as it obvious. So in a bid to restore balance (and an excuse for me to nerd out), here are 5 female scientists that deserve to have their stories told on the silver screen.

This guest post written by Maddie Webb appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

I am a fan of biopics. And, judging by the success of films like The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game, biopics about scientists are definitely viable projects for Hollywood. However, issues around equal gender representation in film are compounded by many female researchers’ accomplishments being erased from history, resulting in very few women being key players in scientific biopics. As a woman studying for a science degree, this absence is as painful as it obvious.

So in a bid to restore balance (and an excuse for me to nerd out), here are 5 female scientists that deserve to have their stories told on the silver screen.

1. Katherine Johnson and the women of NASA — Physicists

NASA is awesome. That’s probably one of the least controversial statements ever, but did you know that it was a group of African American female mathematicians that gave the USA the edge in the space race?

This first one is a bit of a cheat since it’s already being made into a movie, but since it seems to be flying under the radar of even my most devoted cinephile friends, I’m using this list as an excuse to talk about it. Hidden Figures, is the sophomore effort of director Theodore Melfi, written by Allison Schroeder, and the film adaptation of a book of the same name written by Margot Lee Shetterly.

Taraji P. Henson has taken a break from owning season 2 of Empire and is set to star as Katherine Johnson, the physicist turned space scientist badass whose calculations were so accurate, NASA would call her to verify their own computer-generated numbers. Johnson graduated high school at the age of 14 and graduated college at 18. At NASA, she calculated launch windows and space flight trajectories. She has also “co-authored 26 scientific papers.”

Janelle Monáe and Octavia Spencer, who are also playing scientists, round out the leading ladies roster and the film is expected to touch on the civil rights era from the unique perspective of women working inside an institution like NASA. In a world where the representation of Black women in positive roles is still lacking, there’s plenty to get excited about in this story.

2. Ada Lovelace — Mathematician

How this women’s story still doesn’t have a film adaptation I will never know. Largely abandoned by her famous but useless father Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace is widely credited with writing the first algorithm designed to be performed independently by a machine. In other words, a woman born in 1815 was the first person to write computer code. HOW IS THIS NOT A MOVIE?!

It’s also a tragedy. Lovelace by all accounts was a woman ahead of her time and her genius went unappreciated by her overbearing mother, her indifferent husband, and even Charles Babbage, the man who invented the counting machine she wrote the code for. She died aged 36 from uterine cancer and it wasn’t until the beginning of the digital age that she was rightfully recognized as a pioneer of computing.

Her prominence in civil society would also the perfect excuse for a film to include some famous historical faces. Lovelace moved in the same circles as Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday, and fellow lady scientist Mary Somerville. Plus doesn’t everyone love a good period film?

3. Rosalind Franklin — Chemist

Sometimes history forgets people; sometimes people “borrow” your work and never give you proper credit. Thus goes the story of Rosalind Franklin, an X-ray crystallographer whose work was instrumental in the discovery of the structure of DNA, the importance of which cannot be understated in modern biology. Trust me on that one.

Born in 1920 to an upper class Jewish family in England, Franklin became a research associate at King’s College in 1951. She ruffled a lot of feathers in the scientific community and left her post after just 2 years due to clashes with her superiors. Fellow researchers Watson and Crick used the images she produced in her research (and was forced to leave behind at King’s) without her knowledge to help determine the structure for DNA and win a Nobel prize, which Watson later admitted should have also been awarded to Franklin.

One reason why this story is a more likely candidate for a film adaptation is that a play about Franklin’s life, Photograph 51, starring Nicole Kidman recently concluded a very successful run on the West End. It would certainly be interesting to see a film about a Jewish woman dealing with institutionalized sexism but also the growing anti-Semitism in 1930’s Europe and the repercussion of World War II.

She will never get the Nobel Prize but that doesn’t mean Rosalind Franklin shouldn’t get her time to shine.

4. Vera Rubin — Astronomer

Vera Rubin is a pioneer astronomer in the field of galaxy rotation and dark matter, one of the most important concepts in modern physics. And if absolutely none of the previous sentence made any actual sense to you, welcome to the world of theoretical physics.

At the age of 22, Rubin presented her first thesis on galaxy rotation and was essentially laughed out of the room. Her peers mostly dismissed her argument; the resulting paper she authored was rejected by the major astronomy journals of the time. On top of that, she was later barred from pursuing her theories further at Georgetown’s Applied Physics Lab “because wives were not allowed” there.

It turns out Rubin’s thesis was right. Not only is Rubin credited with providing research and evidence of dark matter, the Rubin-Ford effect, which “describes the motion of the Milky Way,” is named after her and fellow astronomer Kent Ford.

Rubin is pretty much a modern-day Alexander Hamilton in regards to her work ethic. As of 2013, she has at least co-authored 114 peer-reviewed papers, while somehow finding time to raise 4 children who also all have PhDs. Basically, she’s the head of the science equivalent of the Von Trapp family, and if you don’t want to see that film, then there is simply no pleasing you.

She’s also the definition of a role model; an outspoken advocate for encouraging more women into STEM fields and combating peer review gender bias, while staying endearingly humble about her own achievements.

In her own words: “Fame is fleeting, my numbers mean more to me than my name. If astronomers are still using my data years from now, that’s my greatest compliment.”

I say we give her a movie anyway.

5. Flossie Wong-Staal — Biologist

Maybe as a biologist I’m just biased, but Flossie Wong-Staal’s life story in my opinion would make the most interesting film.

Born Yee Ching Wong in communist China, Wong-Staal fled to Hong Kong with her family when she was 5 years old and she was given the English name Flossie after a typhoon that hit the family’s home. The name turned out to be appropriate, since in her professional life, Flossie was a force of nature.

Moving to the U.S. alone at only 18, Wong-Staal was the first female member of her family to go to college. After earning her PhD in molecular biology, she went on to become a world-leading expert on HIV. She was the first scientist to successfully clone the virus and helped prove that it caused AIDS, which was the medical and geopolitical issue of the time. Her continued research made it possible for the development of an HIV test, saving countless lives worldwide. Wong-Staal also founded her own pharmaceutical company and still works today, as if she wasn’t cool enough already.

From a cinematic perspective, it would be interesting to see the AIDS epidemic from the perspective of the scientists that try to combat one of the most deadly viral outbreaks in modern history. Additionally, a film based on the achievements and contribution of an immigrant in Western culture would be appreciated, considering the current political climate.

So there is my personal list of the women in STEM that I’d like to see on screen. Hopefully in the future some of these ladies will get the recognition they deserve and inspire more girls to follow in their footsteps; what a legacy that would be.

Photo of Katherine Johnson by NASA in the public domain.

Image of Ada Lovelace; portrait by Alfred Edward Chalon in the Science Musuem, London in the public domain in the U.S.

Photo of Dr. Rosalind Franklin by Robin Stott via the Creative Commons License.

Photo of Vera Rubin and others at the Women in Astronomy and Space Science 2009 Conference by NASA in the public domain.

Photo of Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal by the National Institutes of Health in the public domain.

Maddie Webb is a student currently studying Biology in London. If she doesn’t end up becoming a mad scientist, her goal is to write about science and the ladies kicking ass in STEM fields. In the meantime, you can find her on Twitter at @maddiefallsover.

‘Contact’ 20 Years Later: Will We Discover Aliens Before Fixing Sexism?

But the entire gist is still pretty radical: A big-budget film about a woman leading a monumental mission that, if successful, would be the most important discovery of our time. ‘Contact’s feminism is all the more stunning to watch two decades after its release because of its stingingly accurate portrayal of sexism in science and refusal to appease the hetero-male gaze.

This guest post written by Maria Myotte appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

The math is unequivocally on the side of the alien enthusiasts. “You know, there are four hundred billion stars out there just in our galaxy alone,” Jodie Foster’s Dr. Ellie Arroway explains to Joss Palmer, played by a luxuriously coifed Matthew McConaughey in the 1997 hit movie Contact. She continues, gazing upward toward an expansive, clear night sky drenched in stars. “If only one out of a million of those had planets, and if just one out of a million of those had life, and if just one out of those had intelligent life, there would be literally millions of civilizations out there.” She’s explaining to him why after years of finding nothing at all she remains committed to searching for definitive proof of extraterrestrial intelligent life. Aliens exist, but they’re not easy to find.

Ellie Arroway is the protagonist of Contact (co-written by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan), making this film one of very few to have a woman scientist at its center. There are some tells that it was released almost twenty years ago – creepy, obtuse email communication, giant computers, the use of multiple scrunchies – but the entire gist is still pretty radical: A big-budget film about a woman leading a monumental mission that, if successful, would be the most important discovery of our time. Contact’s feminism is all the more stunning to watch two decades after its release because of its stingingly accurate portrayal of sexism in science and refusal to appease the hetero-male gaze.

We are introduced to Arroway as a young girl, hanging with her Dad and paging truckers across the country. She is enthralled with radio signals’ abilities to contact truckers farther and farther away. When we see Arroway as an adult, she wears casual, comfortable clothing. Her hair is almost always pulled back from her face as she listens for any discrepancy in the vastness of space sounds. She is never objectified, nor is a romantic relationship foundational to the plot. Arroway’s romantic dalliance with Palmer flits throughout the film, but their relationship is defined by their philosophical opposition – she is a woman of science and empirical proof, he is a “man of the cloth without the cloth” and eventually a religious advisor to the President. Their conflict frames an essential tension of the movie. When they are together, they are not flirting, fighting, or dry or wet humping. They discuss in depth their personal and professional passions, like real people do as they get to know each other. The single, near-sex scene shapes more of Arroway’s personality. The morning after she sleeps with Palmer, he implores, “How can I contact you?” She says, “Leave your number,” and she skedaddles off to do science. This is the 90s, so he scrawls his number on a sticky note and underlines the words “Please Call.” She never does, because she gets her funding pulled and immediately starts a sojourn to raise money to continue her life’s work.

During her quest to find “little green men,” Arroway deals with ridicule from her male colleagues and supervisors, challenges with funding, and warnings that she is committing career suicide. Her supervisor, an older man and science big-wig, Dr. David Drumlin, scolds her early in the movie, reducing her career to two possibilities, “One… there is intelligent life out there, but you’ll never contact it in your lifetime, and two… There’s nothing out there but noble gases and carbon compounds, and you’re wasting your time. In the meantime, you won’t be published, you won’t be taken seriously and your career will be over before it’s begun!” The same warnings were levied at the woman Arroway’s character is based on, Dr. Jill Tarter, the former long-time director of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and all-around mega-inspiring galactic badass.

But, unlike Dr. Tarter (yet), Arroway ultimately finds stunning proof of alien life in a three-dimensional radio signal containing instructions for building some sort of spaceship beamed to Earth from somewhere near the star Vega. After Arroway takes in the realness of her discovery, she alerts her network. Men swarm her lab with interruptions, patronizing warnings, mansplanations, and of course, claims to her discovery. Her foil, Drumlin, who previously revoked her funding and access to satellites, appears almost instantaneously to claim the discovery as his own. At every pivotal moment where a decision, expert, or spokesperson is needed to comment on the findings, Drumlin subtly overpowers Arroway and becomes the face of the discovery. The series of quiet defeats she endures is a crucial representation of how gender discrimination in science careers functions. Today’s stunning lack of women, especially women of color, in leadership positions in science is not the result of a single, shitty, sinister apple. Rather, it’s a series of assumptions, biases, and privileges that results in a system and culture that vaults mostly white men into the most prestigious positions where they enjoy almost total immunity from being held accountable to discriminating against and harassing women. Although bias against women in the sciences is well-documented, the very folks who need to change their behavior to help fix the problem – dudes in science – don’t believe it’s really a thing, even when shown compelling evidence.

This toxic stew of denial and power produces a culture where it is extraordinarily difficult for women to speak out against discrimination or abuse. Perhaps that’s why every time Arroway should rip into Drumlin for being a despicable human, she doesn’t. The closest she comes to confronting him is after it’s been decided that he, not her, will be shoved into the alien orb they built from instructions in the radio signal and blasted off into space as Ambassador of Earthlings to meet whomever sent the invitation. He acknowledges that she must think “this is all really unfair” but explains that the “bottom-line” is that the world doesn’t work that way, to which she politely retorts, “Funny, I’ve always believed that the world is what we make of it.” A deeply unsatisfying moment.

Today, it seems to take a hoard of women publicly calling out problems simultaneously, like sexual harassment (Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes) before anyone begins to acknowledge that the individual in question might be guilty. In January of this year, a tidal wave of stories from women astronomers who have been sexually harassed poured into Twitter with the hashtag #AstroSH. A renowned astronomer at Berkeley left the faculty after being found guilty of sexual harassment over a period of ten years. The university’s Dean of the Law School also resigned under similar circumstances. And like so many other examples across sectors, the administration had intentionally kept the harassment cases secret. The ubiquity of the harassment and discrimination exemplified by the experiences shared online with #AstroSH is made possible by a network of people and institutions which opt to not believe women, ignore them outright, and cover up evidence of wrongdoing by the men in question.

Similarly, Drumlin’s usurpation of Arroway’s discovery isn’t challenged by anyone. In fact, assumptions made by the gaggle of folks responsible for moving the project forward do a lot of this work for him. At the first public press conference about the discovery, we see Drumlin and Arroway standing off to the side of a packed room while then President Bill Clinton tries to keep his cool while explaining the brain-liquefying findings to reporters. Arroway nervously shuffles her notecards for the speech she is about to give. Her face is stressed, expectant. As the press secretary introduces the scientist responsible for the discovery, Arroway walks toward the lectern and passes right in front of Drumlin. He stays put. At the last minute, we hear Drumlin’s name announced, a surprise to both of them, but he doesn’t pass up the opportunity and confidently struts toward the front of the room to declare Arroway’s discovery as his own to the entire world. So, Drumlin’s not on a vicious, power-hungry bender; after mocking and obstructing Arroway’s life-mission, he practically crowd surfs into taking credit for it.

Arroway’s experience with sexism is not buried or subliminal; it is central to the plot. This means that the audience identifies with Arroway as she navigates these challenges and we root for her too. When Drumlin suffers a fatal injury during an explosion that destroys the machine before he or it has a chance to go anywhere, we know Arroway is about to have her day. And she does. She is dropped into the center of another machine where she eventually travels through a series of wormholes to the uber-advanced alien civilization that originally sent the message.

She manages to record the entire trip, verbally describing in detail what she sees along the way, like the wormhole transit system, the lights and structures from the alien civilization’s home planet, and the star’s solar system. She even talks with some sort of alien ambassador who takes the form of her Dad – a technology that turns their alien forms into recognizable humans which it says makes it easier for puny humans to understand what’s going on. When she wakes up on Earth, she’s told the machine malfunctioned. She was in the machine for only a few seconds. Instead of basking in triumph, her experience is literally put on trial.

Government officials accuse her of lying, having delusions, and being the victim of a bizarre prank. Arroway insists that her experience was real despite not having external evidence – ultimately forcing herself and the public to take her word for it, or take it on “faith.” But something else is happening too – a demonstration of how patriarchy conditions us to not believe women, even under the most spectacular and compelling of circumstances. This is made clear as we find out moments later that proof of Arroway’s journey existed all along – an otherwise unexplainable 18 hours of time recorded on the equipment she took on the trip – the same amount of time she guessed she was gone. In a hilarious because it might be true kind of way, Contact ends up showing how blasting through wormholes and meeting aliens might actually be more plausible than humans fixing sexism. It also celebrates real women in science today, like Dr. Jill Tarter, whose contributions too often get overlooked and omitted from history and pop culture.

Recommended Viewing: Join the SETI Search by Dr. Jill Tarter (TED Talk)

Image of Dr. Jill Tarter | Photo by Raphael Perrino via Flickr and the Creative Commons License.

Maria Myotte is a feminist writer, sci-fi and speculative fiction enthusiast, and progressive media strategist. In a parallel reality, she is a badass astrophysicist. Find her on Twitter at @mariamyotte.

Women in Science in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Female scientists are few and far between in the Marvel world. Of the 65 MCU scientists in a live action movie or television show, 18 are women. And of those 18, 2 are women of color… While those numbers may seem a bit low, MCU’s female scientists statistics are pretty much right on target with the national average. Women are greatly underrepresented in the STEM fields in the U.S.

This guest post written by Cheyenne Matthews-Hoffman appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

When you think of superheroes, you probably don’t immediately think of science. Superheroes are all about incredible power and defeating the bad guys; test tubes and the periodic table aren’t nearly as cool as a good city-destroying battle. Yet, nearly all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe superheroes are vastly influenced by science, some even donning the proverbial white lab coat themselves.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, is a franchise of feature films, short films, and television shows featuring crossover characters and plots from Marvel comics. For the past eight years, the MCU has made billions off of this immersive, action-packed world.

Starting with Iron Man in 2008, science has always been a huge component of the MCU. From the super serum that turned scrawny Steve Rogers into the super soldier we know and love, to Bruce Banner’s questionable method of trying his experiments on himself, there is more often than not a super brain operating behind our heroes’ super powers. And if the hero in question isn’t directly given their superhuman-ness from science, they are heavily assisted by scientists without whom they wouldn’t be able to succeed.

Yes, yes, all of this science is good (well, save for the evil scientists). But the MCU can make a couple improvements regarding their female scientists.

Female scientists are few and far between in the Marvel world. Of the 65 MCU scientists in a live action movie or television show, 18 are women. And of those 18, 2 are women of color — Dr. Helen Cho, who is South Korean, from Avengers: Age of Ultron and Agent Anne Weaver, who is Black, from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. While those numbers may seem a bit low, MCU’s female scientists statistics are pretty much right on target with the national average. Women are greatly underrepresented in the STEM (science, technology engineering, and mathematics) fields in the U.S. Although they are 48% of the workforce, they make up less than a quarter of STEM fields at 24% of STEM occupations, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration. The MCU’s 18 female scientists puts them at about 27%.

Although there are three times as many male scientists, the MCU’s female scientists aren’t there just for show. From astrophysicists to cellular biologists, these women often act as catalysts to the plot, if not the ones to ignite it in the first place. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Dr. Cho (the one Asian female scientist in the MCU) creates the Cradle and, under the force of Ultron, also co-creates Vision. Without her creation of the Cradle, Tony Stark’s massive failure in Ultron would have had to use some other super genius’ creation in its attempts to take over humankind. And without Dr. Cho, Vision wouldn’t be around to help stop Stark’s peacekeeping-turned-genocidal scientific abomination.

This wasn’t the only time an MCU film’s plot was initiated by the creation of a female scientist. In Iron Man 3, Maya Hansen begins research for a way to regenerate damaged human tissue and comes up with the extremely volatile Extremis, which is then bastardized by Aldrich Killian for a terror plot, prompting Stark to save the world yet again.

In both of these examples, key motivators to Tony Stark’s badassery are prompted by a woman scientist who either (spoiler alert) dies or is never heard from again. Iron Man is the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist with accolades up to his ears, but more than one of the film plots which culminate in him saving the day begin with the scientific genius of women.

Still, Marvel does a tremendous job of making its female scientists vital and smart. In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., biochemist Agent Jemma Simmons is Fitz’s equal; they are both nerdy scientists who say big words. In Thor, Jane Foster is shown to have massive respect in her field, even being considered for a Nobel Prize. In Agent Carter, Whitney Frost proves Red Skull isn’t the only scientist who can use their super brain for evil. So, it isn’t like Marvel does a terrible job writing lady scientists. But as important and smart as these women are, they are overwhelmingly white.

But again, the MCU is realistically on point with their representation of female scientists of color. Women of color make up less than 10% of employed scientists and engineers. Black women make up a whopping 2% of the STEM field. This would mean out of the 65 scientists in the MCU, there should be at least 1 Black women scientist, therein lies our one Black female scientist, Anne Weaver. Around 5.3% of employed STEM workers are Asian women, so there should be at least 3 Asian female MCU scientists. If you include Dr. Wu Jiaqi from the Chinese version of Iron Man 3, this gives us a total of two Asian women scientists (though Dr. Jiaqi is not credited as an MCU scientist). It’s not quite 3, but with numbers these small, it’s something. Latinx women are around 2% of the STEM field, so staying on track with the realistic numbers, there should also be 1 Latina female scientist in the MCU and none exist, although Claire Temple from Daredevil isn’t listed as an MCU scientist, she is a nurse and could possibly be worked in as representation there.

I know what you’re gonna say. “The MCU is doing pretty much everything right, right? Their numbers match up with real life numbers. Are you telling me I spent the last few minutes reading all those stats and percentages for nothing? What’s the problem here?!”

Yes, Marvel is doing its job keeping in line with the national averages and statistics for women and women of color who are scientists. And that’s awesome! But the MCU also has a giant green monster who smashes things and a guy frozen like a popsicle for 70 years who really loves America. Things in the MCU don’t really tend to reflect the outside world. In fact, they usually exceed it. It’s important for media representation to go above and beyond, because life really does imitate art.

Last October, Sarah Richardson, a Black postdoctoral fellow in synthetic biology, told US News that people tell her she “[doesn’t] look like a scientist” and that her “career was suffering because [her] colleagues also thought [she] didn’t look like a scientist.” Despite excelling in her field, she isn’t taken seriously because people don’t associate Black women with professions in science.

Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to go into space, got her inspiration to be an astronaut from watching Lt. Uhura on Star Trek. Seeing a woman that looked like her be so successful on television translated into her real life and motivated her to shoot for the stars, literally. Representation is important because it lets people see themselves be strong or brave or smart, and it can have a huge impact on self-esteem and self-worth. Representation in the media leads to real world change.

You might be wondering: What all does this have to do with the MCU? Marvel is a colossal game changer in entertainment media and they are a powerhouse of cultural impact. With DC Comics and Warner Brothers hopping at the chance to follow in the footsteps of the wildly successful empire, Marvel certainly has the influence to spark change. They have the means to change media as we know it, and they’re doing it as we speak. With Roxane Gay as the first Black woman to write for a Marvel title and upcoming movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel on the horizon, they’re certainly upping the ante when it comes to inclusion.

Wanting more than just realistic numbers of female scientists in Marvel isn’t a totally unreasonable request from the web-slinging, Hulk-smashing universe when progress is already going full steam ahead. And knowing how important and impactful it is for young women and girls of color to have strong representation of themselves on-screen seems like a pretty good motivator to bust out some safety goggles and get a few more ladies kicking ass in the chemistry lab.

Image of Captain America and Iron Man cosplayers | Photo by Greyloch via Flickr and the Creative Commons License.

Cheyenne Matthews-Hoffman is a freelance entertainment writer and digital content manager who is obsessed with an absurd amount of television shows. She is an advocate for accessible entertainment and sometimes develops websites. You can find her at @heycheyennehey on Twitter or cheyennecheyenne.com.

The Female Scientists of ‘The X-Files’

‘The X-Files’ consistently worked against the idea that women could not be capable scientists. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the character of Dana Scully inspired many young women to pursue education and careers in science and technology – what is now known as “The Scully Effect.”

This guest post written by Angela Morrison appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

In the world of The X-Files, female scientists are not treated as anomalies, or exceptions to the rule. Female scientists are prominent characters in many episodes and are (almost) always treated with great respect and regard. Not to mention, one of the two protagonists is the most kick-ass television scientist of all time – Dana Katherine Scully (Gillian Anderson).

Throughout the series, it’s revealed that Scully studied physics in university, and later attended medical school, before changing career paths to become an FBI agent – where she was eventually assigned to work with Special Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) on The X-Files. Scully is both a brilliant scientist and an empathetic and intelligent FBI agent. She uses her skills as a medical doctor to assist with anything and everything: she performs autopsies, comes to the aid of those who are injured (Mulder, most of the time), and identifies anomalies in blood and cell samples – frequently identifying them as alien.

Writers such as Caitlin Flynn at Bustle have noted the reversal of gender stereotypes within the partnership of Mulder and Scully. Oftentimes in television and cinema, women represent the irrational, emotional, and uncontainable, while men offer the voice of reason and rationality. In the case of The X-Files, Mulder’s work is highly emotional for him as he passionately believes in all of the supernatural cases that he and Scully investigate. Scully is the skeptic, always questioning and challenging Mulder. She strongly believes in science, seeking to find a rational answer for every strange thing the duo encounter.

What makes Scully so great is that she is a complex, emotional person while simultaneously a rational scientist. She is always sympathetic to what Mulder says (even if she does roll her eyes at him constantly), and over the course of the series, her skepticism softens (it does take a very long time). Scully is also a devoted Catholic (which Flynn covers in her article) — her religious beliefs do not necessarily align with her scientific beliefs. But this does not make her a hypocrite. She believes in facts and nature, and at the same time she is spiritual and devoted to her faith. Jennifer Still at Bustle notes that Scully is complex and contradictory – a layered and brilliant character. Scully never takes off her golden cross necklace – except when she is abducted in the second season, and Mulder wears it as a symbol of his faith in Scully. Mulder is an atheist, but he believes in aliens. Scully is a scientist, but she believes in God – and they both respect each others’ beliefs.

Scully does not exist solely to be eye-candy for viewers, nor to only be Mulder’s love interest. From the very first episodes, the creators of the show make it clear that Mulder and Scully see each other as equals, and they immediately trust and respect each other. Yes, they are both beautiful, and yes, the chemistry between them is the best thing ever, but these facts never overshadow the incredible work they do together. The show does not opt for an explicit and predictable romance subplot. Instead, we see Mulder and Scully’s friendship and professional relationship blossom and take unexpected turns throughout the series. This is much more interesting, and it also indicates that Scully is an actual complex human woman, rather than a plot device to move along the male protagonist’s story.

Scully is also never treated as a “damsel in distress” – she and Mulder are kidnapped/abducted and put in dangerous situations in equal measures, and they both come to each others’ rescue whenever they can. Scully is never portrayed as “weak” just because she is a woman; she and Mulder are always portrayed as equally competent during action sequences. However, Scully does face everyday sexism on the job. There are male characters throughout the series who underestimate Scully because of her gender. But the show always proves them wrong and Scully is never afraid to call people out – in fact, she even calls Mulder out in the season 3 episode “Syzygy”: “I’m driving. Why do you always have to drive? Because you’re the big, macho man?” And of course, one of the best Scully lines ever, from season 6’s “Dreamland II”, in response to being called “baby”: “‘Baby’ me and you’ll be peeing through a catheter!” Scully always fights back against low-key sexism and proves that women should never be underestimated.

While the show acknowledges that women face stereotyping and sexism every day, it is also optimistic in its portrayal of women. Since the first season, female scientists have appeared in many episodes. Mulder and Scully work closely with these capable, at times complicated, yet fiercely intelligent women. Season 1 episode 8, “Ice,” features Felicity Huffman as Dr. DaSilva, a toxicologist and episode 9, “Space,” Michelle Generoo portrays Susanna Thompson, a NASA communications commander. These are professional women, highly skilled in their respective professions. Both Michelle and Dr. DaSilva use their extensive knowledge to provide Mulder and Scully with clues for solving the mysteries at hand. In season 1, episode 11, “Eve,” Dr. Sally Kendrick (Harriet Harris) is an evil genius, a former fertility doctor who figures out how to clone herself. Her characters could be seen as a problematic portrayal – a “crazy woman” trope – but the series features both male and female villains.

In “War of the Coprophages” from season 4, Dr. Bambi Berenbaum (Bobbie Phillips), an agricultural researcher and insect expert, helps Mulder understand the nature of cockroaches, to assist him with a case involving aggressive cockroaches. In season 5’s “Kill Switch,” Kristin Lehman plays Esther Nairn/”Invisigoth,” a computer expert. Both of these characters are objectified – Mulder flirts with Bambi, and the Lone Gunmen (Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood, and Dean Haglund) are immediately attracted to Esther. Scully expresses some jealousy, but it is very mild (played for laughs, not drama), and it does not stop her from working together with these women to solve cases.

The X-Files consistently worked against the idea that women could not be capable scientists. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the character of Dana Scully inspired many young women to pursue education and careers in science and technology – what is now known as “The Scully Effect.” Representation in film and television is so important. Seeing characters such as Scully, Dr. Bambi Berenbaum, and even season 10’s Agent Einstein (Lauren Ambrose) — another medical doctor/skeptic — lead young women to believe that they are capable of following their dreams and being successful within the professional scientific community. Unfortunately, there’s a lack of diversity as the female scientists on The X-Files are all able-bodied, middle-class, white women. However, Scully and the other female scientists on the show have been kicking ass since the 1990s, proving that women — in both real life and on-screen — can be highly intelligent and complex human beings.

Angela Morrison is a Canadian cinephile who was raised by a female scientist (her mother, a medical laboratory technologist). She has written for Bitch Flicks before, for the Ladies of the 1980s theme week. She also writes about cinema on her blog.