Come for the Giggles, Stay for the Ists.

Here’s the story: A Nobel Prize winning scientist commented that “Three things happen when they [women] are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them they cry.”

Now, I don’t want to sound like a woman in a lab, but I am so in love with the Twitter response from scientists. Scientists are posting their grittiest, grottiest work pics, along with the hashtag #distractinglysexy. Don’t take my word for it; check out the tweets!

The response is smart, catchy, positive – and my favourite part? Funny. What the dude said was sucky and sexist, but the world needs joy and education, not more reminders that there are dark places, closed minds and people who still don’t get it. (And I don’t mean we pretend these things don’t exist. No way. Sexism is real. Abuse is real. Pain is pain. Let’s bring them into the open, spark understanding, challenge old beliefs with the kind of information that will wriggle into people’s brains in a new way. Change the world through humour, wisdom, and experience.)

I scrolled through the #distractinglysexy tweets for the giggles but stayed in awe of pages and pages of vets, archeologists, cytologists, biologists, geologists, physicists, and every other kind of ist you can imagine. Women scientists. Role models. Everyday superheroes.

The response oozes awesomeness. We get to see the women who are out in the world in cutting-edge, dirty-cool, goggles-on careers. Not only #distractinglysexy, but funny, talented, and doing the work.