Girl Toys and Boy Toys

Have you ever noticed that the "girl" toys are all princesses and babydolls, while the "boy" toys are actually somewhat educational and require them to build something?  This was always a huge issue with my mom when I was a little girl.  In fact, she actually made me play with my brother's toys too!  Now, don't get me wrong, I had plenty of Barbies and babydolls.  Although my first Barbie was actually a gift at a birthday party to which I exclaimed, "Ooh, Barbie!  My mother wouldn't let me have these!"  Can you imagine the poor mother who brought the gift??  After that it was all over :)  Now that I'm older, I completely understand what my mother was trying to instill in me.  Neither my mom nor I are feminists by any stretch.  In fact, my mother left her job when she had children to pursue a more traditional role as stay-at-home mom.  But she always pushed me to excel in school and that I could do anything I wanted to do.  I found a statistic at this website that "fewer than 3 in 10 graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are women."  Granted I work in a field that is largely dominated by women (roughly 70% of veterinary graduates are now women), but I realize that it is a problem.  Do I think that every woman should graduate in a science field?  Absolutely not.  I am constantly blown away by the creativeness and caring nature other women exhibit in their field.  I just think we should push our girls to excel in anything they do, and not shy away from a career path because it's a "boys job."

So why am I on my feminist soapbox?  I found this video the other day and I absolutely love it!  It was produced by a company called GoldieBlox, that aims to change the fact that girls toys are severely lacking in the educational side of things.  It was started by a female engineer with the same gripe my mom had back in the 80s!  Hmmm, too bad Mom didn't get this idea back then...






Go vote for them here to win a commercial spot during the Super Bowl!