Are Girl-Focused Engineering Toys Reinforcing Gender Stereotypes?

theodp writes: VentureBeat's Ruth Read casts a skeptical eye at the current rage of toy segregation meant to inspire tomorrow's leaders in STEM: "Toys geared at girls serve to get them interested in coding and building when they're young, hopefully inspiring their educational interests down the road. But these gendered toys may be hurting women by perpetuating a divide between men and women." Read concludes, "Ultimately, girls (who will become women) are going to have to learn and work in a world where genders are not segregated; as will men. That means they need to learn how to interact with one another as much as they need to be introduced to the same educational opportunities. If STEM education is as much for girls as it is for boys, perhaps we should be equally concerned with getting boys and girls to play together with the same toys and tools, as we are with creating learning opportunities for girls."

Comments

Re:Equality

[antiperimetaparalogo]

Both genders should have the same opportunities. They don't necessarily have the same interests.

And the more "gender equality on opportunities" for a society, the more evident the -biology based- gender differences on interests becomes (since boys choose boy toys/jobs and girls choose girl toys/jobs, because they feel free to choose what they like): a great documentary (first watch it after a fellow Slashdoter posted a couple of months ago) from -maybe the most "gender equality" society of the world- Norway (with English subtitles), called "The Gender Equality Paradox", with -among other things- scientists proving the gender biological differences (with "toy experiments" on children), plus... "religious feminists" ignoring science!

note: the documentary was made from a usual extreme political correct Norwegian person... not a sexist Greek like me - so: watch it!

Re:A mixed bag

[microTodd]

Well, here's my anecdote with a sample size of n=2. I have a son and a daughter.

When I bought my very first LEGO set for them, it was a generic box of plain shapes. Something like this.

My son played with them. My daughter didn't. So I bought this and mixed the pieces in. The "draw" of the cutesy pieces drew my daughter in. Now she plays with all the pieces.

So...yeah. I guess what I'm saying is, I don't think they just "color it pink". Probably a bunch of focus testing and playtesting occurs so they know what draws girls to the toys.

Now, a related question...why did pink and cats draw her in? Is it innate? Or is it something she was taught by society? To that question, I have no answer.

Re:Equality

[I'm New Around Here]

No, not everything where men currently dominate. Not mining, not oil rig work, not farming, not anything involving manual or dangerous labour.

There was actually a lawsuit a while ago about a company that wouldn't let women work in the car battery division. Because of the risk of lead getting into the workers' systems, and the effects of lead on a developing fetus, no woman of child-bearing age was allowed to work there, unless she had her tubes tied.

Of course, the job paid more than other areas, because the men and older women who worked there were exposing themselves to lead poisoning every day.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03...

other stories of it: https://www.google.com/webhp?c...