Bringing a Feminine Aspect to Astronomy
Notation: A = Amara F = Fiorella [ ] = extra comments by Amara
A: Tell me more about your idea of bringing the feminine aspect into your music and astronomy presentation.
F: These aspects that I'm bringing to my work now, and want to bring into my future work, are probably a sum of events that started when I was a child and continued when I was a student at the physics department at Milan. In order to be accepted, you had to repress your female point of view, your feminity, you had to look like a lot like the other professors. So for me, the discovery of my femininity, and how I can combine it with astronomy is a recent discovery.
I didn't know until recently that cosmology in the very beginning of human history was a more feminine cosmology. The view of the sky long ago was more feminine, with a "mother goddess." Then with Christianity, the female perspective was pushed aside, the male deities dominated. So we moved from a feminine cosmology to a male cosmology. So this feminine view is a point of view that I really want to share with people. I'll have a chapter of that in my book.
Plus, it took a lot of time to get in touch with that feminine side because I needed to make a name for myself first as a scientist. I actually got in touch with that feminine side through music. Science tended to make me a little "stiffer," make me more analytical, more rigid. And music is so erotic, so passionate... So through music, I was able to say, "OK, I'm bringing Fiorella to science" and Invisible Universe is a good example of that. In fact, my clothes in my CD-ROM is, in some sense, inspired by the astronomical objects. For example, with the beautiful Andromeda Galaxy, I felt an impulse to wear a red/purple, tight, dress with an open slit because Andromeda is such a beautiful object, I wanted to look beautiful while I was talking about this object! But I really believe in the beauty of the cosmos, and I hope to bring it to alot of people.
[What does it mean to bring the feminine aspect to science? How did the ancient goddesses become dominated by the ancient gods and what other influences did religion have on astronomy? How did religion influence women's involvement in astronomy? Even though this is a very complicated (volatile) subject, I write a few thoughts about it in the Sidebars: Cosmological Mythology and Women's Historical Role in the Sciences.]
A: Were women commonplace in your academic environment?
F: Well, in Italy, it's even worse than other places because it is such a "macho" society. In this society, the men want to dominate, and the only role for women there is to be either a wife or maybe a mistress. My classes started large, but there were almost no women. And by my last year at the University, I was always the only woman attending my cosmology, astrophysics etc. courses. But unfortunately, it was not a situation happening only in Italy.
When I was growing up, and a young girl, perhaps 11 or 12 years old, I looked for role (female) models. I couldn't find any role models in the city where I was living. So I turned on the TV and saw movies. For example, [I saw] movies made by George Lucas, like Star Wars. The main character was a man. Then I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind, hoping to find a female leading character- an intelligent, sensual, beautiful woman, that was also a scientist. AGAIN, the main character was a man. All of the movies from America had male leading characters. What was even worse, was that the movies that I liked- sci-fi movies- were dominated by male leading characters. I really love very much the work of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, but they had an old idea of what women could do for their characters. Maybe they are afraid to do something completely unconventional like having a female as a main character?
So by observing all of these media pictures, I realized that I wanted to get out of the laboratory, I wanted to change my course from being a professor, to that of being an entertainer. I wanted to entertain with science, astronomy, to sing about quantum physics, I wanted to make people dance! I want to reach them in a big way because, for me, one of the most gratifying moments I receive are when I lecture at such places like Santa Monica College, Morrison Planetarium, Griffith Observatory, Orange County, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc and a young girl approaches me and says: "I want to be like you." That is the most important achievement for me- the main goal, that is to show people what else they can do with their lives. Especially what other women can do with their lives. They see that it's "cool" to be a biologist, and how glamorous it can be, plus they can see how much power that knowledge can provide. For me, it's not meaningful to see actresses like Melanie Griffith or Sharon Stone on TV or movies because it doesn't take anything or effort to be like that. You just need to show off your body while you're young and that's it! But knowledge in your head is like power in your hands. You can make judgements, you are faster in your thinking, you can perceive reality in a completely different way. And once you taste that power of knowledge, you can't go back.
When I lecture, there is a transformation in my character. I start out looking very scientific with a lab coat, hair up, with glasses and slowly I turn into a completely different glamorous, sensual image. The girls in Hollywood who come to my lectures get really excited when they see that. They see what they might be able to do. They see that I can invent music with atoms- hydrogen atoms, and make it fashionable. That's a great achievement to show them the different choices that they can make in their lives. And I can say from personal experience that these things can be accomplished without using drugs, or violence. You can escape a situation in which you are unhappy. I like to use an analogy that the rap music folks use. That is, by not using crack or doing violence, and by using your mind, you can come out from the ghetto. If you are able to push yourself, you can come out and do something extremely important for people. All by studying, and using the college and university. Achieve that status. From that status, you have a thousand possibilities to be what you want to be. Then you can help other people and show them the possibilities. Invent a new way to get out and use education!
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