--- title: WATCH: Verizon's New Ad is About How We Discourage Girls description: Only 14% of teenage girls say they want to be scientists canonical: https://time.com/2871744/verizon-ad-feminist/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-13T19:26:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:28.726Z og:title: WATCH: Verizon's New Ad is About How We Discourage Girls og:description: Only 14% of teenage girls say they want to be scientists og:url: https://time.com/2871744/verizon-ad-feminist/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: WATCH: Verizon's New Ad is About How We Discourage Girls twitter:description: Only 14% of teenage girls say they want to be scientists twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch: Verizon's New Ad Is About How We Discourage Girls  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jun 13, 2014 7:26 PM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jun 13, 2014 7:26 PM UTC First Dove, then Pantene, now Verizon. The telecom company’s new schmaltzy ad is just the latest in long line of feminist-inspired TV spots cleverly designed to align big companies with popular women’s issues. The advertisement, voiced by Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, is meant to highlight the subtle ways young girls are discouraged from pursuing STEM at school. It’s in line with the Verizon Foundation’s work to encourage girls to pursue science careers, according to [AdWeek](http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-verizon-reminds-parents-girls-arent-just-pretty-pretty-brilliant-158269), and was produced in cooperation with Makers. And since only 14% of teenage girls say they want to be scientists, maybe the ad will help us all think twice about the way we talk to girls. While I admire the sentiment behind trying to encourage more girls to code, it’s a little suspicious that Verizon is getting on this bandwagon right after feminism is becoming a valuable brand. Still, anything’s better than the totally [horrifying advertising](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gMZ62PsvRM) we used to see from big companies. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2871744/verizon-ad-feminist/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2871744/verizon-ad-feminist/"},"headline":"Watch: Verizon's New Ad Is About How We Discourage Girls","datePublished":"2014-06-13T19:26:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:28.726Z","description":"Only 14% of teenage girls say they want to be scientists","url":"https://time.com/2871744/verizon-ad-feminist/","keywords":["Living","feminism","Branding","Media","Science topic","STEM","Verizon","engineering"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2871744/verizon-ad-feminist/","name":"Watch: Verizon's New Ad Is About How We Discourage Girls"}}]}] ```