Scientists speak their brains: Please don’t call us boffins
- Reference: 1680098995
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/29/scientists_boffins/
- Source link:
The 150 year-old organization's survey of 1,000 young people and 1,514 adults found using the term “boffin” to refer to scientists was confusing and heavily gendered. It could be putting people off studying science as more than 10 times the number of respondents thought the term described a man compared with the number who thought it described a woman.
Commissioned by the IOP and conducted by Censuswide, the survey also found that more than a third of all respondents had never heard of the term “boffin”, while 18-24-year-olds are nearly 80 percent more likely to view it as an insult than a compliment.
[1]
In a statement, Rachel Youngman, the deputy chief executive of the IOP said: “Words like ‘boffin’, often accompanied by a picture of a man working on their own in a lab, send a message that science in general and physics in particular, is for lone, brilliant, eccentrics rather than being a modern, accessible discipline where working in teams is so important.
[2]
[3]
The implication was that the pictures of wild-eyed elderly men being run together with the word was the reason behind the association with the male gender.
“‘Boffin’ gets used to describe literally anyone with the slightest technical expertise - the IOP’s own monitoring of the term over the last 12 months has found it used for racing tipsters, political pollsters, dermatologists, astrologers and car designers, as well as physicists, biologists and chemists – it is baffling, clichéd and our excellent journalists can do better.”
[4]
She said in UK and Ireland, the formal study of physics struggles to attract girls, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, people of Black Caribbean descent, people with disabilities, and LGBT+ young people into the subject.
[5]Here's a fun idea: Try to unlock and drive away in someone else's Tesla
[6]Wannabe space 'superpower' UK tosses £1.6M at eight research projects
[7]Gen Z lingo and search engines: A Millennial Odyssey
[8]McDonald's pulls plug on Wi-Fi, starts playing classical music to soothe yobs
[9]Boffins are studying Martian clouds to avoid another Opportunity episode
“We need to do absolutely everything we can to break down the barriers young people face and the language used by our media can play a really important role in that,” she said.
Not all the UK media were receptive to the call, however. The Daily Star — a UK tabloid proclaiming to be the “home of fun stuff” – refused to play ball, saying that “mega-brainiacs have got this one badly wrong” on its front page splash.
El Reg has something of a vested interest here, as an ardent user of the term in knock-about fashion. Although we'd never deny it's a [10]sexist world , in technology as everywhere else, at times we have found the word to be a term of endearment for researchers studying in scientific and engineering fields we love to discuss, and [11]we apply the term to men, women, and non-binary folks, old and [12]young . Some researchers have even [13]complained when we have failed to refer to them as boffins.
The origin of the term – although this was not cited as a reason for it being gendered in the survey – is uncertain. There is lots of confusion about where it started – some say in [14]Dickens ' time, while others claim it originated or WW1 or [15]WW2 .
[16]
As ever, thrash it out in the comments and give us your considered opinion. ®
Get our [17]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZCRgnkt9CyeM2TkYpUy3LwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCRgnkt9CyeM2TkYpUy3LwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZCRgnkt9CyeM2TkYpUy3LwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZCRgnkt9CyeM2TkYpUy3LwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/15/tesla_key_mixup/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/uk_space_research_funding/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/16/gen_z_lingo_bing_ai/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/31/mcdonalds_classical_music/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/18/martian_clouds/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2016/02/11/female_devs_experience_discrimination/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/02/us_patent_crispr/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/04/rudra_sarsawat_ubuntu_projects/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2014/06/11/damn_you_iel_regi_call_me_a_boffin_demands_enraged_boffin/
[14] https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2013/08/14/boffin/
[15] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.1992.0037
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZCRgnkt9CyeM2TkYpUy3LwAAANI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Hmmm
"more than 10 times the number of respondents thought the term described a man compared with the number who thought it described a woman."
I wonder if they did the same study, and asked with "Scientist" what the results would be?
It's not that the word "Boffin" is a problem, it's just that people expect scientists to be men. And they mostly are, unfortunately.
However, that's a reflection on reality. People expect that because that's what they see.
We might be able to change that, by encouraging more girls to go into STEM subjects.
Although, perhaps we'll never get to 50/50 as men tend to be more interested in things, and women more interested in people. Perhaps, just a gut feeling. Could be wrong.
We would start using the term "boffinx" and that would solve everything, and keep everyone happy, right?
...said in UK and Ireland, the formal study of physics struggles to attract girls, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, people of Black Caribbean descent, people with disabilities, and LGBT+ young people into the subject.
"We need to do absolutely everything we can to break down the barriers young people face and the language used by our media can play a really important role in that," she said.
Absolutely everything? What do you mean? Even educate them?
It seems to me that if STEM subjects are perceived to be difficult or boring then young people may be reacting to a bad rep rather than terms like 'boffin'.
Perhaps if a career in boffinry was seen to be financially rewarding then more might want to pursue such a course.
Paging Ms. Streisand
If they want people to call them boffins more frequently, they are off to a running start.
Re: Paging Ms. Streisand
Indeed so.
'Boffin' for me is an old, almost defunct term - I haven't heard it being used for many a year
The current terminology is 'Geek' or 'Nerd', I believe.
*deep sigh* ... and there, lower down El Reg's front page "Boffins claim discovery of the first piezoelectric liquid"
Just to prove me wrong.
Re: The current terminology is 'Geek' or 'Nerd', I believe.
Of course, different people will have different opinions on these names. For myself, although "boffin" seems a bit old fashioned, it has never had particularly negative associations, which were largely along the lines of "some sort of sciencey type, who we don't really understand, but has done something clever" - and that may have just saved the day in some old war film or 50s scifi movie - and so I would not mind particularly being called a boffin.
On the other hand, I consider "geek" or "nerd" to be essentially terms of insult or abuse, specifically because of how those words were being used when I first heard them. I therefore am not particularly keen on their current widespread usage, but seeing as nowadays - at least in most media output - the implication seems not to be abusive in intent, I see little point in making a big issue of it. And I certainly meet people who say that for them "geek" or "nerd" have never had any negative associations, and who will happily identify as one.
I, for one, would be honored!
Weird. I would be quite proud to be referred to as a "boffin" (if I weren't just a lowly engineer). There are people who find it insulting? I also had no idea it was a "gendered" term.
Re: I, for one, would be honored!
Likewise, it never occurred to me it was gendered. I just assumed it was multi-gender, in the same way as formal terms such as doctor, professor, engineer, or informal terms such as expert, whizz, genius.
Extending the thinking, even terms at the other end of the scale, such as idiot, are gender-neutral.
Meh
"while 18-24-year-olds are nearly 80 percent more likely to view it as an insult than a compliment."
Probably due to what is banded about as science at the moment. Things more akin to fad or fashion than intelligent work, and when someone who appears a boffin shows up he gets criticized for the clothes that dont conform to modern over-sensitivities. Example of over-sensitivities is the stupid idea of boffin to be a gendered term. But its all about the feelz isnt it?
Whereas
BOFHin does tend to produce a stereotyped image of a male in my mind.
Eloi vs Boffins
I have considerable sympathy for this. Boffin is a term created by the lorded classes to identify and segment the technical classes. In doing so, it means they can be ignored in any decision of strategic importance.
In Germany (and lets face it they have a considerable better record is promoting science in industry), the term Herr Engineer and Herr Professor is used. the terms give equal footing to the management ranks, rather than the UK terms which is designed to conjure up absent minded blokes who see less sunshine than an average Morlock.
It seems to me that it is a classic British device of creating class division and is used to create segmentation and a silo mentality.
And in other news...
The article headline presented just to the left of this, in my browser, mentions “Cambridge boffins”.—-> icon.
Hmm...
Can't say I've ever considered boffin to have any gender - they're just clever folks who come up with (usually) good ideas.
As for the concept of someone sitting alone in a lab, tinkering with their latest creation - it may be a cliché, but it may also have some grounding in fact. How many of us have sat up all night fiddling with our latest hobby project? How many other folks would want to? It's just part of what makes us tick. Is it an essential trait? No, of course not, but boffinry tends to attract people who get engrossed in their work. Rather than trying to change that, maybe we could try showing folks how engrossing it really is.
Deter people from studying in the field?
I thought they were called farmers, not boffins.
Icon alert!
"“Words like ‘boffin’, often accompanied by a picture of a man working on their own in a lab, send a message...."
We won't always have Paris, but perhaps a small reparation would be a new boffin icon. Gender ambiguous, naturally.
more than 10 times the number of respondents thought the term described a man compared with the number who thought it described a woman
I wonder what response they'd get if they asked about the term "scientist" or "physicist".
Young boffin
So they don't know what it means, and they think it's an insult.... Must have been tough growing up.
Out with the old word, in with the new
So we switch from boffin to brainbox, egghead or whatever. The IOP can run another study and find that over 90% of the population think replacement word is heavily gendered too. The problem is not the word but people's perception. The place to start is to find the cause of people's perception. My first guesses would be Sheldon Cooper, Brian Cox and Spock. Even when writers decide to make a scientist female we get Susan Calvin, Bennett Halverson, and Temperance Brennan more often than Jane Foster, Jemma Simmons or even Dr Harleen Quinzel.
Hmmm
Rachel Youngman is complaining about gendered terminology?
Until I see someone referred to as a boffinne or boffiness I'm hard pressed to say boffin is a strictly gendered term, no?