A love song about physics, math, and two queer women? It’s true! Have a listen!
“Standard Deviation,” by award-winning Austin singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt, just might be the best song about queer women in STEM that I’ve ever heard. It’s also the only song about queer women in STEM that I’ve ever heard—but it’s a lovely and inspiring song in any case.
Schmidt explains:
Standard Deviation is a romance set in the multi-dimensional realm of theoretical physics, string theory, quantum mechanics, and descriptive statistics. It’s a song about the pushback that girls can face when expressing their smarts in traditionally male-dominated arenas. And it’s about the parallel between quantum entanglement and human entanglement. And it’s about how even the most guarded and unlikely heart has a matching perfectly twisted key somewhere that can open it right up.
And let’s face it, it’s about how sexy a smart mind can be when it’s set totally and wildly free.
This isn’t the first queer-inclusive song from Schmidt; his 2001 track, “God’s Love of Man,” offers commentary on how homophobic violence in the name of faith damages that faith. I haven’t seen anything online that indicates how Schmidt himself identifies, just the information that he’s married to singer-songwriter Carrie Elkin and they have a child. If he’s not part of the queer community himself, though, he seems a definite ally.
I first heard this song on the weird, wonderful, and queer-inclusive podcast Welcome to Night Vale, where it was a featured song in Episode 131, “Brought To You By Kellogg’s” (although it’s unrelated to the plot of the episode). Schmidt has also performed with the Night Vale gang several times before.
Have a listen, share it with your favorite geeky gal, or just blast it on your way to the next Lesbians Who Tech event.