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!
I saw this on Kickstarter a while back. I think it's awesome. My husband is an engineer so we definitely want our daughter to know that girls can be engineers too.
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