Women Are Battling Sexism in Science With Fake Beards
Close your eyes and imagine a paleontologist. What you’re seeing, it’s safe to assume, is a hardened, dust-covered dude, brush in hand, beard on the face, surrounded by dinosaur remains. It’s a strongly ingrained image, and one that even Ellen Currano, a tenured paleobotanist at the University of Wyoming, held onto tightly when she was a child dreaming of becoming a scientist.
“My childhood role models were the dinosaur paleontologists featured on television or in National Geographic,” she recalls in an article for Paleontology Online. “I desperately wanted to be a field paleontologist like the grizzled men who were showcased.”
Currano persevered and made it, despite the fact that in her field, women hold only 16 percent of jobs, with just 5 percent in leadership roles. And it hasn’t been easy. As she noted in a recent interview, “There are days when I wish I could just slap a beard on my face and go to work.”
Now, in an effort to spark conversation around sexism in science, Currano, along with filmmaker Lexi Marsh and photographer Kelsey Vance, has launched The Bearded Lady Project: Challenging the Face of Science, a documentary film project and photo portrait series. An exhibition is now underway, with further touring dates scheduled and an ongoing fundraising effort to help finalize the film’s production and release.
So why beards? Currano, Marsh, and Vance believe that an important element in bridging the gender gap is appearances and exposure. And what more iconic image do we have of the field scientist than a face full of whiskers? With The Bearded Lady Project, that image is being challenged in a way the team hopes will spark conversation with wry humor, as opposed to more combative means. The fake beards are aimed at getting people to talk about how to get more women interested in science — and how to get more men aware and receptive to the challenges women face in the field.
“I think that what this project does really well is that it’s weird and quirky. … That’s what art does really well — everyone will read into this in a different way,” Marsh explained to Science.
The reaction among men so far appears to be good, if surprised. “Overall, it’s been pretty positive on the male end,” Marsh explained. “There’s some confusion, which I think is really interesting and important: ‘Why does my colleague whom I respect feel the need to wear a fake beard?’ There’s this slow understanding that there are issues at play that aren’t being discussed and acknowledged.”
If The Bearded Lady Project is successful in what it aims to do, then perhaps the next time you close your eyes and imagine a paleontologist in the field, you’ll see one of these women in your mind — without the beard.
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