From Vox Magazine: Read This: Science... for her!

Published in 11/27 print issue of Vox magazine and published on voxmagazine.com

If Cosmopolitan and a science textbook had a child, it’d probably be the feminist pseudo-guidebook, Science…for Her!

Comedian Megan Amram’s book takes on the notion that women only understand science when genes are jeans and when textbook pages are light enough for a woman’s delicate hands to turn. With her trademark manic wit, Amram skewers both these gender stereotypes and the publications that bolster them. And she chose the “masculine” field of science as the vehicle for her conceit.

Amram, a writer for NBC’s Parks and Recreation, read biology and chemistry books to get a feel for the topics.

“I grew up thinking women are doctors; women are scientists,” she says in an interview with Daily Life. “I’m very grateful I grew up like that. I didn’t even realize it was feminism until I was older.”

She found comedic inspiration in the exclamatory and sex-obsessed tone of women’s magazines. One such example: a Glamour cookbook entitled 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know, which suggests that if a woman is able to master a specific chicken recipe, her boyfriend will propose.

The chicken recipe’s legendary properties remain inconclusive, but Amram isn’t interested in research: Like any great satire, Science…for Her! extends an absurd idea to its logical conclusion. She adopts a sexist persona to brutally lampoon sexism, the driving force behind these enduring and limiting gender stereotypes. Hers is an empowering point of view.

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