A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook this morning. It shows a woman who is an engineer, she lives in a male dominated world and wants to change it. She has created a toy for little girls where she combined a book set with a building set in an attempt to encourage young girls to play with it, and develop spacial reasoning from a younger age. She believes her toy will help girls develop an interest in engineering from a much younger age.
Take a look at the video on this link:
http://www.upworthy.com/move-over-barbie-8212-youre-obsolete?g=3
I think that while we can definitely see some things that are problematic, that it is a move in the right direction.
What are your thoughts on GoldieBlocks?
I found it very interesting that some women are trying to recruit more females into the male dominated field. Women's perspectives are definitely valuable in the engineering field. Im doing the final assignment on the topic of feminist economists, and I found that the number of females practicing economics and engineering dropped between 1950s to 1990s. This is probably related to the emergence of the consumer culture and mass advertisement. So, I think focusing on the child toy, like this lady did, is a good start to make a change.
ReplyDeleteI found this to be interesting too. The way we become gendered starts when we are born and as we all know, is shaped by what we are exposed to – like the toys we play with. To have young girls play with toys and be able to construct and build things in order to develop their spatial reasoning, I think is awesome. But like you said Chirstina, there are some problematic things – like the look and the name of the toy being very much gendered itself. However I do agree that it is a step in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteHow do we start to actually close the gender wage gap? Of course there are many reasons for why it exists, and there isn’t a single solution to closing it, but one way is by getting both more women in male-dominated jobs, and too men, in female-dominated jobs, so that opportunities and salaries can become more equalized. And often, it is women who are steered into majors (within the arts) that automatically starts them off in a career that is lower in pay. I don’t want to say that young girls do not learn an interest in things like math and engineering, but it is likely still that young boys are more steered towards them, as it has been suggested by past research. However, if girls are equally influenced to get involved in such things, then perhaps they will be more inclined to choose a major that will lead them to a more lucrative career and that will help balance these male-dominated professions.