Like many Americans, I was deeply concerned about the national trend away from science and facts (the earth is flat, right?). But it wasn’t until my daughter came home and casually announced that science wasn’t for girls that I decided I had to do something.
Her comment was surprising, to say the least. It was counter to everything we have told our girls over the years, yet somehow she had accepted this false idea so easily. It was my first real taste of the power the world has to limit and restrict the ambition and role of women.
I realized I was just another naive father seeing the true scope of a very old problem.
I explained to my daughter that science is a process any curious person uses to find truth in the world and share what they find with others. “You are the most curious girl I know” I told her. “Not only can you be a scientist when you are older, but you are a scientist right now.” After she went to bed, I began writing her a book.
My original intent was for her to read it to herself and her sisters, but ultimately I decided to publish “A Most Curious Girl.” It is my hope that another girl might find it, resist the false narratives she is being sold and see her true place on the world’s stage of leadership, innovation and discovery.
Our children look to us to show them whats true and how to empower and defend others. Worry and handwringing from a distance is worthless. Write, speak, teach, volunteer, run for office. Do something big. Do something small… but do something.
The price of inaction is far too great.
John Simanowitz