Pretty scientist Jane Goodall

A new study from CU-Boulder has blown the lid on the disastrous side-effects of being a pretty lady — people don’t think they are scientists.

Beginning with the non-stereotypical, non-judgmental hypothesis that pretty women are not taken seriously, as scientists, researchers began their daring experiment of showing pictures to 80 people of men and women and asked them to rate the subjects on a scale of masculine to feminine.

We were as shocked as you, PeakNation™, that such forward-thinking social psychologists would be wasting our time to determine if the more feminine a woman appears, the less likely she is thought to be good at math, engineering, or conducting scientific experiments on gender bias.

“There are some accounts of women in STEM fields who not only feel like they can’t wear makeup or a dress, but also can’t talk about wanting to have kids,” (lead author Sarah) Banchefsky said. The researchers believe this is the first study rigorously examining the relationship between being viewed as a scientist and a person’s gendered appearance.

So the conclusion of the study is that women should not be like women if they want to be taken seriously in a scientific field? It seems to us, that would only perpetuate the stereotype that researchers set out to prove.

The study found no impact of gender appearance with males, but then again we don’t know whether the men in the photos looked like dorks or were wearing pocket protectors, because quite frankly, we believe that would have biased the entire study.