It’s time for the Big Game or more importantly time to watch those phenomenal commercials! I happened to catch the Volkswagon Superbowl Commercial as it was released earlier this week.
The commercial begins with a Dad driving with his middle school age daughter. The dad observes that his Volkswagen just surpassed 100,000 miles. The daughter’s reaction is “so”. The dad goes on to say that when a Volkswagen hits “100,000 miles a German Engineer gets his wings”. The ad goes on to show a number of men dressed in white lab coats sprouting wings. The ad is funny but why couldn’t Volkswagen show at least one woman engineer? There is one woman in the commercial, she is wearing a lab coat but she is portrayed as a victim not as an engineer who sprouts her wings.
According to the VDI, The Association of German Engineers women comprise 13% of the engineers in Germany. Here in the USA the numbers are about 1 in 10. Germany and the USA are dealing with a shortage of engineers. In fact the President’s Council on Science and Technology estimates that the USA will have a deficit of more than one millions science, technology, engineering and math professions over the next decade.
While I recognize that the commercial is intended to sell the reliability of Volkswagen automobiles (and I do think it is funny), I have to point out this is subtle but very real gender bias.
Many of us are working hard to increase the number of women in engineering and other technical professions. The subtle message in this ad is that engineers are men. The really sad thing is that over 100 million people will be watching the Super Bowl and will see the Volkswagen commercial. Almost half of the viewers will be women. Many of the viewers will be parents and children. Each of these people will once again be subtle reminded that engineering is only for me.
Well the good news is that GoldieBlox will have a Super Bowl commercial. Cannot wait to see that one.
#SuperBowlCommercials #bethatengineer #LeadershipLabforWomeninSTEM
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