How Agent Scully Helped Women In STEM

TV & Film

Apr 16

Agent Dana Scully — Image Source: Bob Freeman

The X-Files first aired in 1993, with Gillian Anderson playing one of two FBI agents tasked with investigating paranormal and alien activity. The show began with Scully being brought in to ‘debunk’ the X-Files, but her need for logic became its biggest asset, often grounding Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) when he was about to run off in the wrong direction. Dana Scully was the sceptical scientist daughter of a US Navy Captain, but paradoxically also a devout Roman Catholic. The character was ahead of her time, a female physics major, rare enough in the 90s, and she was an equally participating star of the show. Not just the nerdy friend or sidekick in a lab coat.

Back in 2018, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media surveyed two thousand American women. It looked at their attitudes to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and whether they watched the X-Files. The results documented what has become known as ‘The Scully Effect’.

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Scully And Attitudes To STEM

It appears that Gillian Anderson’s portrayal has had an impact on how STEM is viewed generally by women. According to the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a whopping 63% of women who watched the show say Dana Scully increased their belief that STEM is important.

But the results get even more remarkable. Half of the women in the study say Scully increased their interest in STEM, and medium to heavy viewers are 50% more likely to be working in the field than light/non-viewers.

There’s lots of anecdotal evidence to back this up, social media is full of testimonials. Gillian Anderson has said herself that fans are always talking about the influence of her character.

"We got a lot of letters all the time, and I was told quite frequently by girls who were going into the medical world or the science world or the FBI world or other worlds that I reigned, that they were pursuing those pursuits because of the character of Scully.’"

A massive 63% of women who work in STEM said that Scully was their role model. And it doesn’t stop there, as 91% of all those surveyed said she was a good role model. The values that Scully demonstrated in the show, compassion, intelligence, and of course the ability to take out bad guys twice her size, resonated with millennial women.

It seems like her productive relationship with Fox Mulder and Walter Skinner was also inspiring as 63% said that Scully increased their confidence that they could excel in a male-dominated profession. Gillian Anderson’s character may have affected all sorts of traditionally male industries that have never been documented, e.g. construction and law enforcement.

The Scully effect also has the potential to bleed down to the next generation. When presented with the statement: “I would encourage my daughter/granddaughter to enter a STEM field”, there was a 10% response difference between avid fans and occasional viewers. According to the study, the more you watch X-Files, the more likely you are to encourage your children to take up a science.

The Number Of Women In STEM

The number of women completing STEM qualifications has risen dramatically in the United States in recent years. In 2007 140,000 women graduated in the field, this increased by 43% in only seven years (200,000 in 2016) and today they make up approximately 47% of the entire US workforce. Now obviously, we can’t equivocally put this all down to Gillian Anderson, but the beginning of the sharp rise is well-timed. If Dana Scully has taught us one thing, it’s never underestimate what an angry woman with a mobile phone and a laptop can achieve.

Following Dana Scully, more iconic characters like Samantha Carter from Stargate SG1, Kaylee Frye from Firefly, and Amy Farrah Fowler from Big Bang Theory have started to carve out spaces on screen. The more the better. Normalizing their presence can only be a good thing, as Scully has shown, it has repercussions in the real world. But there is still work to do.