Empowered, sexy, and in control!

That's what Nerdgirls are all about!

Whether decomposing a Hamiltonian into eigenvectors, or developing ribosome scanning technology - they're hip. girlish and self-aware!

Go away, mustachioed, hunchbacked, old feminist crones - no need for you here! Underrrrrrrrr control!!!!

OMG, ROTFLMAO!

The two women engineers I know are really hot. Brains are the greatest aphrodisiac.

When I was a little girl, the other kids called me "Mrs. Spock" because they thought I sounded like Mr. Spock, and I did math for fun and stress relief.

I guess nowadays that could count as the beginning of a diagnosis for Asperger's.

I've done a lot of reading on the geek personality and I've discovered that feminists are always going to be a little confused and disapproving of the way any geeks, male or female, end up wrapping our pointy geek heads around the socially-constructed concepts of gender.

I myself find it fascinating, Jim.

Its true, women may be turned of the sciences because they perceive a threat to their femininity, and showing a bunch of women who are clearly outwardly feminine can reverse that trend. However, I wonder if women can let go of the idea that displaying femininity is equivalent to sexualizing one's self? Why does it seem like women must do something, but also be sexy doing it to gain attention in the masculine world?

When I watched the video, I found that there was more of an emphasis on looks as a display of femininity than on how these women were displaying the non-visible traits. To me, what was truly feminine was what these women were doing. Working on solar-powered engineering projects is a display of caring (about the environment and people in general).

Caring is not a uniquely feminine characteristic, but it is a trait that I feel, represents femininity. The fact that the Nerd Girls are displaying this characteristic without having to me nurses or teachers should be applauded.

It's great that these women are intelligent and confident, but isn't it typical that they had to rely on sex appeal to get any coverage in the media?

Tired of it.

As someone who has spent over 20 years in engineering at multiple fortune 50 companies, i have a lot of experience with the lack of females in engineering. I'm not sure what "act like a man" means, but performance evaluations are based on your contribution compared to your peers. Since it's fairly well documented that women want more time off, they often are not as productive as males. This problem is not going to go away until women want to compete against males, we get rid of that pesky free market capitalism, or create "special" rules for the girls. Well we actually do have special rules...but that's a different topic.

Overall I find this whole article terribly hypocritical. Using hotness to sell engineering ? And you approve? Onion Newsflash: Women empowered by everything they do !

I am totally for anything that keeps it in the mind of the public that girls can be scary smart geeks too.

Male geeks are highly visible in our increasingly tech-dependent society.

The Larry Summers debacle led to an overly simplistic public discourse that effectively rounded off female geeks to zero.

No more rounding off! We are not equal to zero.

Since it's fairly well documented that women want more time off, they often are not as productive as males.

I have a Ph.D. in physics and I've been married to a physicist for over 20 years and I can tell you this from long years of personal observation:

Geek men can afford to be workaholics and make workaholism the workplace standard because either they accept not having any life at all outside of work, or they marry a woman who bears the burden of creating that extra life for them.

I wouldn't brag about that behavior as if it were admirable and some sign of gender superiority.

It's dysfunctional behavior and I have seen that it often leads to a lot of therapy and antidepressants and drug and sex addiction among workaholic geek men.

And then there are the ones whose personal lives are so bereft and social skills are so dismally undertrained that the only way they know how to interact with women is to sexually harass their female underlings.

I've seen it all. Workaholism is not the answer.

Bringing more women into this environment makes the men healthier, and in the end this boosts productivity in the long term.

Larry Summers had no effect on my view of female geekdom. I find single women who are engineers very effective. I find married engineers, especially with children, not so much. I know this is a life balance issue, but the reality is, when I evaluate engineers it really comes down to productivity, which is often directly related to ability to travel, work weekends, stay late at night...etc.

I'm glad someone was as confused by that article as I was. On the one hand, yay for girls in science! But I hate the oversexualization -- physically -- involved in this article. I did watch the clip, and I still have some tepid feelings about this. Even the way Newsweek refers to these women: former cheerleaders, prom queens, pretty and blonde; all these descriptions focus on the women's attractiveness as opposed to their intelligence. I'm a nerd in a whole other way: I'm a gamer girl. You think engineering is oppressive, try gaming and being taken seriously. No, I don't mean to minimize the harassment seen by female engineers, but it's a valid point in its own right. And I'm not just talking about video games; I play a wicked game of Dungeons and Dragons and can pontificate for hours about the intricate details of Vampire: The Requiem. I've been called every derogatory name in the book while in gaming stores by my male nerd counterparts. That, or they just stare at my chest.

People aren't machines. You run them like machines and eventually they will break down.

That's one reason why there are so many depressed middle aged male engineers in this country.