>the closer this role model is to your inherent and unchangeable properties (age, sex/gender, origin, social class), the more it can inspire you. //

Citation?

I call bunkum on that. TBH it seems both sexist and racist to say one can only be inspired by people of one's own characteristics (in science).

In this case the sex and race are irrelevant to Bouman's contribution AFAICT.

If you were talking about someone like Payne-Gaposchkin, then she overcame a deal of sexism, fair enough.

The whole she did it and had ovaries, omg, seems so condescending and unnecessary.

Dude where does it say we can only be inspired?

> The whole she did it and had ovaries, omg, seems so condescending and unnecessary.

it's not omg she had ovaries, it's omg she did it, knowing she's going to get shit on by people (e.g. these comments) instead of applauded for what her and her team did for science. That's how it's inspiring to me.

>A 'role model' is someone who shares your background and is successful in an area of interest where you would like to participate/contribute

That may be your personal definition, but that is not the actual denotation of "role model". Some definitions I found are:

"a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. "

and

"a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others"

There is no mention or qualifier of it needing to be someone who shares one's background

This is exactly the kind of comment that make these threads toxic.

Gender, like it or not, shapes the life experience of an individual. Why would you not want to have a role model that had a similar life experience to your own?

Except, inevitably, when a woman expresses that desire, it gets called "toxic feminism", and the justification is, wait for it: the personal anecdotes and experiences of a male.

I am shocked that in 2019 there is still so little self-awareness around this.

So the personal life experience of a male doesn't count for anything? THAT is what I would call the actual toxic attitude. What makes women unable to have male role models, but men able to have female role models? Is there a difference between men and women, then? Is that what you are saying?

By that logic, why shouldn't I as a man say "fuck women in STEM", because apparently we will never be able to communicate about anything meaningful anyway. People who make it clear they don't care about my opinion, why should I want them in my life?

I stated my reasons why I think focusing on gendered role models is misleading and harmful. Fine, you may disagree. But calling it toxic and "mansplaining" - that's not furthering discourse, and frankly, if that is your attitude, STEM may be better off without you anyway. After all, science is about keeping an open mind, among other things.

>So the personal life experience of a male doesn't count for anything? THAT is what I would call the actual toxic attitude.

Ah yes, the classic: "I'm not toxic, you are!".

Where in my original comment did I say the male perspective, anecdotal as it may be in a given context, counts for nothing?

I didn't.

What I did say was that a singular, anecdotal male perspective was not appropriate as a justification for depicting a woman desiring a similarly-gendered role model was somehow indicative of "toxic feminism".

>What makes women unable to have male role models, but men able to have female role models?

No one said they couldn't, but you're depicting what was said as far more benign than it really was. You didn't ask an open-ended question about it, you specifically categorized said desire as "toxic feminism".

>if that is your attitude, STEM may be better off without you anyway. After all, science is about keeping an open mind, among other things.

Maybe one of the STEM fields will be able to develop a device that can accurately measure the immense amount of irony bundled up in that sentence.

Same merry-go-round as usual in these threads:

Subtly patronizing comment(mansplaining if you will), someone points out "hey that's kind of toxic", original commenter retreats to victimhood and "I'm not toxic, you are! No one has an open mind about this kind of thing etc...", and around we go.

If you want to pretend like STEM doesn't have a centuries-long history of fairly uneven footing for other genders and minorities, and accuse everyone of suddenly being close-minded and toxic, fine, but you're going to have a hard time cashing in the victim card when someone points out the ridiculousness of it.

You twist all the words - I suspect you are not really reading, just rerunning your stereotypes in your head.

I did NOT say desiring a female role model is toxic feminism. Feminists claiming women need female role models is toxic feminism. There is a difference.

And that is what feminists claim, because they need this claim to support their victim narrative of why fewer women are in STEM.

No point commenting your other stuff, because you completely misrepresented what I said.

And by the way, you directly called ME toxic, whereas I made a general comment about feminism.

Yes, "role models" are a good indication of how weak or strong our social capital is. Our society is increasingly fraying apart, so much so that people are now unwilling to view others as fundamentally sharing the same humanity and social outlook as themselves, unless they happen to share some shallow but somehow salient features like gender, ethnic background, religion, sexual orientation and so on and so forth, that make them a part of some increasingly narrow "tribe". This kind of thing used to be seen as a significant social faux pas, but increasingly we see it being accepted.