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This is the BBC. This

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outside the UK.

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Thank you for downloading the More or Less podcast.

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We're your weekly guide to the numbers in the news and

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in life, and I'm Kate Lambell.

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Today, we're all about a girl looking

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at a film and asking it to, well,

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to accurately represent women and the jobs

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they do. My name is Veronica Carlin, and

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I am currently the Director of Learning at Elder

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Research.

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There are two things you need to know about Veronica.

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The first is that she's a data scientist, which

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means she falls into the big wide job

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category called STEM. STEM

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stands for science, technology, engineering

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and mathematics. And

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the second is that she loves a

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good rom-com. I am a hopeless

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romantic at heart. I think

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there are parts of me that absolutely love

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romantic comedies, largely

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because I just like to

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be separated from reality for

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a few moments in a world where love

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conquers all. When I was a little girl,

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I would pretend I was a princess trapped

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in a tower, and then this knight on a white horse

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would come charging up and rescue

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me.

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Romantic comedies, rom-coms.

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We're talking Pretty Woman that you just heard, when

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Harry met Sally. My favourite rom-com is

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absolutely Crazy Rich Asians. So

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your family is, like, rich?

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Quite comfortable.

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That is exactly what a super rich person

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would say. It's a modern take

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on Cinderella, but what I love

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about it even more is that she is an economics

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professor who specifically studies

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game theory. And for Veronica,

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there's one thing she loves about

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rom-coms. Typically and historically

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when women are in films, they are secondary

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characters, and they're there to advance

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the plot lines of the male characters. However,

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in romantic comedies, because the female

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is the lead, there's a lot of complexity

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to her. So we see her friendships

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evolve, her career, things

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that she likes, and things that are unique

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to her specifically that have nothing

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to do with any other characters in the

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movie. And that really is

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unique to romantic comedies of

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the genre. So it matters to

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Veronica what kind of jobs the female heroes

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of rom-coms actually do, where the women

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like her, women in STEM are represented.

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And scientist stereotypes have always been there

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in rom-coms, the trope of the emotionally

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distant rationalist being softened

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up by love. That's even there in

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one of the very first rom-coms, Bringing

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Up Baby from 1938, starring Catherine

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Hepburn and Cary Grant as a bumbling

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aloof archaeologist. I

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hope you realise that you've made a perfect call

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of yourself in front of everyone. Have you finished? Yes,

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yes I have. Thank you very much. Bye

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bye. But

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that scientist role is almost always

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a man. So Veronica had a hunch

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that there wouldn't be a lot of rom-coms whether lead

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woman was a chemist or doctor or engineer.

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And being a data scientist, she set to work figuring

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out what was going on.

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In the rom-com of this story, we'd have a montage

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here of Veronica checking

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spreadsheets in a fabulous outfit, drinking

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frothy coffee and typing frantically on

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a computer.

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Veronica had to identify what it means

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to be in STEM. STEM really

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bleeds into a lot of other fields.

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So

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is someone in agriculture

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in STEM? Right, like

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there's growth patterns and

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biology that's associated, but is farming

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STEM.

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She used a National Science Foundation report

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to pin down the job definitions and the

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United States Bureau of Labor Statistics

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numbers to work out the percentages.

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Of the entire US workforce, 23%

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of the workforce is STEM and 8%

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is female.

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8% of the whole US

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workforce is women in STEM. Now

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Veronica is just interested in women in the

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workforce because we're just talking about female

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lead characters here who make up 48% of

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the workforce in the US. So you slightly

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more than double that 8%. So

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if everything is

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equal, then in

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theory, 16.5% of all rom-com movies should have

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some

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lead

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role in

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a STEM position. So if we produce 100

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movies, either 16 or 17 of them should have

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a female lead that's

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a doctor or

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a research scientist or a data

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scientist.

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Then she used the internet movie database

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IMDB to identify all the US-made

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rom-coms.

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So I didn't want to compare women

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from 1950 in

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these roles if that wasn't really representative

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of women in STEM roles. So I had to make

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a cut off and that was 1990 to 2019. There were over 200

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films, 249 to be exact in my data set.

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And

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she just had to go through each film and

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identify how many lead women had

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jobs in STEM. So how many

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were there?

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Only 12 of them. And

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so to be clear, remember

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we said that if we had 100 films,

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then 16 or 17

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should have been women in STEM. We

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have 249 here. And so we're only getting 12 films with

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women in STEM. And

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that is significantly

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below the number of women in

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STEM in the

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real workforce.

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That ratio seems off, but

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Veronica wanted to absolutely nail

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it down.

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In stats we have this thing called statistical significance.

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And what that means is... Time for

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another montage.

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So that was determined

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mainly with called binomial distribution.

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And so binomial distribution was able to

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then determine a p-value

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in statistics, a p-value

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in this case, I had a p-value

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of significantly below 0.05.

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What that means in layman's

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terms is essentially there is no

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way that this happens by chance,

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at least not in a

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probable way.

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If you're wondering, the most popular job for

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a heroine and a rom-com is a writer or

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journalist. But trust me, there is not

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that much romance going on in more or less

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towers. Nevertheless, this analysis

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warmed our cold hearts. But,

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I mean, romantic comedy portrays unrealistic

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image of modern life is hardly a surprise.

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So

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does it really matter?

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According to Veronica,

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it is particularly important to get

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STEM representation right.

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In the 1990s, the X-Files was a very

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popular TV show, with agents Mulder

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and Scully getting caught up in all kinds of adventures,

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often including aliens. Surveys

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of women who work in STEM years later

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found that Scully, a strong female character,

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had been a role model for them, seeing her on

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screen that helped increase their interest in

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science and technology.

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This was called the Scully Effect because

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Dana Scully was one of the two main characters

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who really thought about logic,

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reason, and she

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was a medical doctor. And she had this profound

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influence on women.

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And so since rom-coms are

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typically targeted to female

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audiences, seeing more

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women in STEM roles in

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these types of films could have that same

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type of effect on young

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women going into the workforce or

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in women deciding to change

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careers.

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signs that things are changing.

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Just last month a new rom-com came out

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called The Other Zoe.

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It features a computing student who gives up

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their over-rational preconceptions

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and finds love. You have to go

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after what you want and be brave. Oh my

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god you're just giving me rom-com advice now.

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No it's so fun. So

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it is now a woman playing out

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the stereotype of a scientist who through

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the power of love learns how to have

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fun and embrace life. We might have

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to wait a little bit longer for a fun

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free-spirited scientist in a rom-com who

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can teach their love interest how to have a good

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time.

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Thanks

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to Veronica Carlin whose research

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was first published in an essay called How

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to Lose a Girl in Two Standard Deviations

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published by Significance magazine. That's

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all for this week. If you see any stats you'd

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like us to take a look at you can get in touch by

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emailing more or less at bbc.co.uk.

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In the meantime we will always love

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Paris. Goodbye.