Indian-American astronomer and professor at California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), Shrinivas Kulkarni’s seemingly ordinary interview with National Public Radio in the US has turned into a trending topic after many female scientists took umbrage with this particular quote.
“Many scientists, I think, secretly are what I call 'boys with toys,' "
Kulkarni, brother-in-law to Infosys’ NR Narayana Murthy who is married to Kulkarni's sister Sudha Murthy, is an astronomy and planetary science professor at Cal Tech.
Following the publication of the story on May 16, the hashtag #GirlsWithToys was flooded with more than 17,000 tweets showing women in the field with their “toys”.
Below are tweets from female scientists around the world who prove that STEM is not only a man’s world:
#GirlsWithToys Me at JPL with the engineering twin of the @MarsCuriosity rover, which I help drive on Mars pic.twitter.com/qgCu17m3sC
— Dawn Sumner (@sumnerd) May 17, 2015Hey look I'm helping build a new dark matter detector. #GirlsWithToys http://t.co/jE92aUbpJO pic.twitter.com/gk25jvxsM0
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) May 17, 2015In mass spec lab now reading the #girlswithtoys stream. This awesome toy is a thermal ionization mass spectrometer! pic.twitter.com/bGF8T7pbz5
— Rita Parai (@HeNeArXe) May 16, 2015So apparently a senior astronomer went on NPR and referred to astronomy as "boys with toys." The response #girlswithtoys is pretty cool.
— Rachael (@rhaegal) May 16, 2015Here's Dr. Kathleen Lonsdale "playing around" in the lab during one of her regular 16 hour workdays. #GirlsWithToys pic.twitter.com/RY33FdPTiU
— skullsinthestars (@drskyskull) May 16, 2015#GirlsWithToys My dissertation project. Just the world's first UV fiber spectrograph. No big deal. #FIREBall pic.twitter.com/nTWqKXxoWS
— Sarah Tuttle (@niais) May 16, 2015500ft in the air at Arecibo Observatory: the world's largest single-aperture telescope! #GirlsWithToys #WomeninSTEM pic.twitter.com/oBk5IvrpqP
— Jess Shanahan (@Enceladosaurus) May 16, 2015How hard would it have been for @joepalca & @nprscience to interview some #girlswithtoys about why *they* study astronomy?
— Janet D. Stemwedel (@docfreeride) May 16, 2015Hell yeah! Loving all the posts with : #GirlsWithToys :D
— Lady J (@Lady_J_777) May 18, 2015Mulheres na Astronomia: Astrofísica @StephaJuneau e Radiotelescópio IRAM de 30 metros #girlswithtoys pic.twitter.com/H7tHEPgQsa
— Jorge Melendez (@intiwatay) May 18, 2015I play with Mars rovers. #girlswithtoys pic.twitter.com/j6N5tscc8U
— Tanya Harrison (@tanyaofmars) May 17, 2015