If I asked you to close your eyes and picture a genius, who would you see? A scraggly-haired scientist in a lab? A tech guru like Steve Jobs, or a rule-breaking, superhero inventor like Tony Stark? One way or another, it would probably be a man.
This is hardly surprising. In popular culture, genius, and particularly scientific genius, tends to be seen as a male trait. From Sheldon Cooper to “Doc” Emmett Brown, almost two-thirds of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) characters in TV and movies are men (and 80% are white). They’re the guys who blow up the asteroid, fix your flux capacitor, or explain that unicorn, cinnamon swirl neutrinos are going to ruin your day.