Cheerleaders and STEM? MTP

I ran across this on Tumblr and I couldn't post my reply on the reblog for some reason, so I'm placing it here.

It’s vital to encourage little girls (and little boys too) to pursue careers that make them happy and satisfied. This may be the wrong way to do it.

When I (girl who liked physics) saw this, all I thought was:

“Well, obviously cheerleaders can have STEM careers because they’re hot enough to balance out the brains and still get sexual and/or life partners if they want one.”

Boys don’t like girls who are smarter than them, other girls don’t like girls who are smarter than them; it’s hard enough finding someone to be with when you’re a genius, if you add unattractive it’s nigh on impossible. Having the body and looks of an NFL cheerleader would be the panacea to distract potential mates from the brainpower.

If anything, this seems more geared toward young boys, trying to convey the message that it’s OK to find females associated with “science” sexy, and that’s missing the point entirely.

Why YOUNG GIRLS don’t pursue STEM careers is the double whammy of not enough encouragement and the clear prejudice against girls who are smart, unless they happen to be gorgeous, as is the case here. Then they can do anything because the physical appearance covers a multitude of intellectual sins.

Honestly, for young boys they probably don’t care what these young women do in their lives, because they are still incredibly hot and NFL CHEERLEADERS. They are attractive enough to pursue any career and still find a mate, which is really all most people end up wanting in life. I’m not saying this is good or right or even what should be, I’m just saying this is the world we currently live in and showing girls hot women doing science may backfire and contribute to not only them choosing a less demanding career path, but later, body image issues as well.

tl;dr

If I had seen this ad when I was younger, not only would I have been reminded that I wasn’t hot enough to be a cheerleader, but also that I should not pursue science because I wasn’t hot enough to be smart either.