Who are the Female Heroes of today?
The pony-gate scandal fascinates me due to the interest given to its trivia. It has piqued my scientific curiosity concerning the human brain and the paradox of its complexity and how poorly this potential is utilised.
I recently attended a public lecture at Waikato University from Warwick Holmes, an Avionics engineer who worked on the European Space Agencie’s Rosetta space project, where, after 10 years of orbiting the solar system 4 times, the landing craft touched down on a comet after travelling 16.5 billion KM. That’s around an hours travel from Earth at the speed of light. This feat is incredible and an outstanding achievement. It not only reflects the brilliance of the crew who worked on the project for 25yrs but it also has ongoing importance in discovering how life began. This comet is made from matter created before that of our solar system 4 billion years ago. I eagerly await the outcome.
The point of this post is to juxtapose the media’s poor coverage of this event last November as well as the recent visit of Mr Holmes in comparison with the coverage of the pony-gate affair. We live in a dumbed down society where scientific achievement is poorly reported.
Over the past 300 years there have been three females who were Mathematicians, Chemists and Physicists, and played a major part in uncovering the mysteries of the atom thereby leading us toward the splitting of the atom, our understanding of sub-atomic particles and the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson. Emilie du Chatelet, Lise Meitner and Marie Currie are female heroes in the real sense. Against many odds they forced their way to the top of their field and contributed to humanity in an immense way. My daughters have never heard of them apart from Currie who she thought was a doctor.
This leads me to ask…..Where are the female heroes in today’s society that girls can use as a role models? Ah yes, we have those in the vain of Louise Nicholas and recently the pony-gate girl Amanda Bailey to name a couple. These have been promoted to this high profile position by The NZ Herald. Remember, it was them that put up Louise Nicholas as New Zealander of the Year. These woman are simply moaners and contribute NOTHING to our society except a false sense of justice.
Don’t get me wrong….. I still keep the Herald because it comes in handy when the Kids want to vomit in the car.
There is a simple answer to this.
Websites (new sites) operate on clicks. The more clicks the more leverage you have to induce advertisers.
The technology information is reported and catalogued and you can find it if you go looking, however the phenomenon we are seeing is the use of the female brain to click on the popular and follow the trend.
Thus you have young girls believing they are seeking greatness by being part of the group, the fashion, the trend, the womenhood et al.
Thus the system encourages the female to fail in the sense you mention above and we are even less likely to see true greatness in the sciences.
There are some women who do achieve greatness in science even in NZ. Ingrid Visser is one, although you are not likely to see her dedication to science promoted because she is not in the mould of Auntie Helen.
You have to be like Auntie Helen you know!
Comment by Downunder — Sun 26th April 2015 @ 9:00 am
Have to say Jacqualine Rowarth from I think Waikato now is a very good leader and commentator.
Comment by al — Mon 27th April 2015 @ 10:00 am