On Women in Science on the Box - The Grimm, The Bold and The Bang (Part 2)

Last time I began this mini series talking about the representations of women in STEM in TV and film by talking about the positives I came across in Grimm (if you haven't already, you can read that here).
As with my first post the following disclaimer still applies:
I have not done an extensive survey on all women in STEM in TV shows and films now and in the past. This is purely an observation from my perspective on some of the media I've consumed recently and also, a musing on what makes female characters in a STEM professions or related roles good or bad.

So, let's begin to look backwards and sideways to find where the representations of women in STEM have come from and whether there is a sense of progression or regression.

I would be extremely remiss to look at this topic and not talk about a certain Star Trek series. Voyager had its television début in 1995 and it did something no other Trek incarnation had done before. It had a female captain. Not only did the USS Voyager have a female captain, it also had a female chief of engineering in B'Ellana Torres and what career path did Janeway take to get to the captain's chair? She was a Science Officer! And that's not all, when Seven of Nine is introduced she becomes the Astrometric's Officer. In short Voyager is a ship full of women in STEM, who are treated (for the most part) in the same way as the rest of the crew.  A much better look at the wonder of Voyager than I've written can be found here, it's a great read and made me feel oh so nostalgic for the days of Trek watching on BBC2 (except when it was swapped for live snooker). It wouldn't be fair to mention Star Trek's women in STEM without commenting on Deep Space Nine (where the protagonists boldly sat where people have sat before) which had Jadzia Dax, as scientific officer. However, I unfortunately don't really have much recollection of what sciencing Dax actually did... But, Voyager didn't appear in a vacuum. In 1997 Stargate SG1 began, featuring Captain Samantha Carter, astrophysicist and officer in the US Air Force. Unfortunately, she is SG-1's only female main character, which is a shame, but I suppose they at least made Sam a good one. This grouping of characters from sci-fi are, in my opinion, a positive set of representations. Ok, they may not be doing modern day science, but they show women in STEM at the forefront of knowledge and expertise on a new frontier. Not to mention all these TV shows aired in the nineties, which, when we're still talking about perceptions of what a scientist is, is both good and bad. On the one hand we have had a set of really positive images, but its looks like they haven't spread into the public conciousness, an interesting thing in itself. 

A genre where women in science are represented very well, is Crime Drama. From Silent Witness to Bones to Hannibal, both in the past and present there's a lot of female characters working in forensic sciences. Long running Silent Witness has featured a female pathologist in every season, beginning with Prof. Sam Ryan and continuing until today with Dr Nikki Alexander. I've only seen later seasons of Silent Witness, so I can only comment on Nikki, but she always came across to me as a touch on the lifeless side. She has work, but what else is there? On a similar theme we also have Bones, which has Dr Temperance 'Bones' Brennan as a forensic anthropologist. On the one had, Bones is the lead character, but she also falls victim to the classic tropes of social awkwardness and lack of empathy. However, in contrast the series also features Dr Cam Sayoran as the head of bone's research institute and fellow pathologist. For my money Cam is a must more positive example of women in STEM as she is feels more believable and real, but she I don't think she gets enough screen time to compete with the rest of the cast. Next, let's think about Hannibal, the dark crime thriller which features Prof. Alana Bloom, a professor of psychology and Special Agent Beverly Katz, a forensic investigator. Beverley is the focus of the three strong FBI forensics team followed in  Hannibal, and it's great to see that she is treated in the same way as her male counterparts. The flip side is that she doesn't get a lot of personal development compared to Alana, but from the screen time she does get, we see Beverley as brave, capable, clever and not afraid to take risks. Even though Nikki in Silent Witness and Cam in Bones have more screen time than Beverley, I'd struggle to write a list like that about them. Alana Bloom is one of my favourite characters in Hannibal full stop, but she's not very science-y. She's an academic but we don't really see her doing research, apart from occasionally when she interacts with Will Graham so its hard to really see her as a scientist, which I think is highly unfortunate, considering how well other aspects of her character are handled.

I think the main thing that has crossed my mind while writing this post is that its important to think about how everyone in STEM roles is represented, not just women. So far I've looked at a lot of good examples of female representation, where many of my examples also have some great male characters in STEM careers too, with Bones, Stargate, Hannibal and Silent Witness being pretty good in these respects. However, I think where things fall down, is where characters are scientist first, human second. That's something that particularly comes to my mind some of the Crime Drama's I've talked about; they are full of character's defined by their jobs, which isn't very reflective of real life. I think it's also becoming clear that the best characters, like those in Grimm, are those who have more to them then their work. On the whole I think there is a growing trend towards writing scientists with lives, but I also don't think it would be fair to say that women in STEM career's were 100% poorly represented in the past especially when we have the greatness of Voyager to look back on. However, I think there is room for improvement in how all STEM professionals are represented in the media and it's that shift away from mindless stereotyping for major and minor characters which might just be on the rise.

Next time we get to the big one. We're looking at The Big Bang Theory... This could get very interesting.