NPR ran an interview with astronomer and Cal Tech professor Shrinivas Kulkarni yesterday, and overall it's relatively mild. But less than two minutes in, Kulkarni manages to say something dumb: "Many scientists, I think, secretly are what I call 'boys with toys'." It's one of those quotes that makes you cringe and roll your eyes simultaneously. Even NPR's Joe Palca cautiously repeats the phrase back to Kulkarni. Twice. "Boys with toys," he muses, "Boys with toys."
But with his ill-advised, off-the-cuff remark, Kulkarni touches on a big problem: defaulting to a certain gender (usually male) when referencing a diverse group of people is not only dated and closed-minded, it also doesn't make sense — and many people don't even think twice about it. The idea of STEM fields as "boys clubs" isn't unfounded, but Kulkarni seems to have forgotten all about his female colleagues and students. Luckily, Twitter, oasis of calling people on their shit, has decided to call Kulkarni on his shit.
Last night, the hashtag #girlswithtoys was born, with female scientists around the world sharing photos of themselves working with tools, machines, and concepts from their fields. Besides effectively proving a point, the photos are also a really interesting way to get a sneak peek at all the bonkers equipment scientists use on a daily basis.
I put a navigation sensor test on STS-134, in CDR chair of Endeavour as we finished testing install #GirlswithToys pic.twitter.com/gLP7MnGtAN
— Nujoud Merancy (@nujoud) May 17, 2015
My first telescope run happened when i was in high school. I was quite literally #girlswithtoys pic.twitter.com/dW5DhB6Hys
— julie k h (@jkru) May 17, 2015
having fun with the 6.5m Magellan 'big toy' telescope with @leyattbetre #girlswithtoys #hellyeah pic.twitter.com/cQyiTnzpsq
— Anna Frebel (@annafrebel) May 17, 2015
I see a lot of women with their science equipment & #GirlsWithToys (via @AstroKatie!) on twitter, so here's mine! pic.twitter.com/nSlwEr8A2L
— Sun Viewer (@SunViewer) May 17, 2015
#GirlsWithToys Me checking out water pump & hole melter in Antarctic lake ice so we can send a diver down pic.twitter.com/4BGwJNLREs
— Dawn Sumner (@sumnerd) May 17, 2015
In mass spec lab now reading the #girlswithtoys stream. This awesome toy is a thermal ionization mass spectrometer! pic.twitter.com/bGF8T7pbz5
— Rita Parai (@HeNeArXe) May 16, 2015
Hey look I'm helping build a new dark matter detector. #GirlsWithToys http://t.co/jE92aUbpJO pic.twitter.com/gk25jvxsM0
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) May 17, 2015
This is what an astronomer looks like. And this member of the #girlswithtoys club has been around for a long time. pic.twitter.com/NryOAv5Xkh
— Aomawa Shields (@aomawa) May 17, 2015