New Goldieblox ad urges world to stop underestimating girls

When we think of girls toys, we might think of pink things, pretty things, mini plastic cookers and dolls, teddies and glitter and stiff plastic ponies with brushable hair. Ultimately, we think in a preconditioned sexist way, because useful toys like building blocks and engineering games have already been shotgunned for the ‘boys market’.

A new campaign from Goldieblox promoting their latest “Toys for Future Engineers” range, urges people to get over this old-fashioned, 50s idea, and start giving girls a fighting chance of nurturing a career in engineering by offering them fun, practical alternatives to boring Barbies.

I have a funny feeling that lots of parents who believe in equality and baulk at the thought of gender stereotypes might just have had a great new idea what to get their daughters for Christmas…

http://youtu.be/UFpe3Up9T_g

According to recent statistics, less than 3 in 10 graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are women, and only 13% of STEM jobs are actually occupied by women. Even the most anti-feminist individuals out there couldn’t help but notice a correlation between early conditioning and later employment statistics.

At university as a woman, you’d enter the engineering building and men would be everywhere, looking at you awkwardly as if you didn’t belong. Sure, Goldieblox’s ad might just be a ruse to impress consumers championing these sexist issues in society, but the more companies and manufacturers that stop marketing all things pink and useless to girls and all things blue and practical to boys and start offering both genders a share of everything, the better chance women in the future will have of achieving a high-paying job that expects more of them than just looking pretty.