Rewards are for Beauty Pageants, not for Preventing Global Warming

Recently a Washington Post article featured Jamie Ginn, a chemical engineer. Ms. Ginn is working on a computer model of a biorefinery to make fuel products out of corn.

I was pleased that they profiled an engineer that does not fit into the old stereotype of a nerdy guy with a pocket protector. But instead of achieving notoriety for her important work, Ms. Ginn was featured in the Post because she was Miss Delaware. Ms. Ginn has even had an "acceleration in her career" because of the pageant, not her work. Unfortunately, women are still judged in the workplace for their looks, and their technical contributions are marginalized.

Ms. Ginn was asked by the pageant judges whether global warming or terrorism was a greater threat to our nation. She replied, "They're interrelated." The article didn't state exactly how they were interrelated, however I have a hypothesis. Many terrorists are educated as engineers in countries that value engineers and their work. Meanwhile, the engineers in the U.S. that are creating alternate sources of fuel, so we won't need their oil in the future, are being pulled away to work on pageantry.