Young girls are breaking out of their princess trappings and can now play with engineering toys designed for challenging their minds.
What is nice about the video is that girls don’t have to leave their favorite things behind as they pursue problem-solving toys. Put on your ballet slippers and grab the teddy bear.
In many ways, this is more marketing than anything else. Girls are free to explore science and engineering through books, and the Internet — even with items found around the house.
But marketing is important. Young girls are often thrust into pink painted rooms and given dolls as well as other gender-based playthings.
A Sanford University engineer started a company to both function as a role model for young girls while also offering some toys that defy usual gender boundaries.
A change in perception about girls and subsequently women is a major undertaking that must include families and schools as well.
Segue to Larry Summers: In between helping to crash the economy on separate occasions, he was President of Harvard. He was actually quoted as saying that women don’t have the same aptitude for math and science as men.
“It does appear that on many, many different human attributes—height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability—there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means—which can be debated—there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren seems to have a firm grasp of fiscal analysis.
Back to topic.
So grab your tiara and see what is available for girls, and boys, to develop their abilities.
Watch the GoldieBlox commercial in the video below:
