Tag Archives for Women in STEM

Welcome to the future! Where we can land a spaceship on a comet… but still think its ok to wear a horribly sexist shirt on TV #shirtgate #cometlanding

The ESA has truly made science history!!! Twitter and everyone else is celebrating the successful landing of Philae on Comet #67P from the Rosetta Spacecraft! !

Unfortunately, the ESA also made science history today for having poor and sexist garment choices be a part of their press interaction. One of the main project scientists for ESA’s Rosetta project, Matt Taylor, decided to wear the shirt shown in the tweets below on TV coverage of the historic landing. UGH! For more perspective on this, check out this great post by Small Pond Science!

His shirt says to girls watching from their elementary classrooms: Science is not for you. You shouldn’t be an engineer sending robots into space.

His shirt says to women in STEM: I have no respect for you as a professional. When I look at you, I see a sex object, and not a colleague.

UPDATE: While it is important to talk about the many reasons Matt Taylor’s decision was so far from ok, it also strikes CauseScience that publicizing the bad behavior of a man is also a dis-service to the women of Rosetta Mission (they should be getting the press). Check out the CauseScience follow up post celebrating the women of the ESA Rosetta Mission!

UPDATE 2: CauseScience has left up as many comments as possible. However, a number of comments had to be taken down due to either language or content that was not appropriate for this blog audience. Comments were not taken down for criticizing or disagreeing with this post. If commenters cannot comment using appropriate language, their comment has no place here.