A little over a year ago a woman named Debbie Sterling put a project on Kickstarter to develop “engineering” toys for girls in the age group of 5-9. The Kickstarter funded all of its $150k in just four days and continued to receive donations until it had received over $285,000 in pledges. Needless to say it was a popular Kickstarter campaign and gained a lot of attention because of it’s “gender bending” goals, but many people do not regularly check Kickstarter and as such had not even heard about this project until recently. GoldieBlox teamed up with Brett Doar, who you might know from his Rube Goldberg contraption in the OK Go! music video, to make a new video displaying the power of “Girls!” If you’ve been Facebook the past week someone you know has shared this video on their wall and in your news feed. If you haven’t seen the video, AKA you don’t use the internet (just kidding!) watch below:
http://youtu.be/UFpe3Up9T_g
The video has gained a lot of attention in a short amount of time and for good reason; it empowers girls and lets them believe that they can be engineers, that it’s not just for boys. More and more I think that these kind of movements and ideas are gaining attention because women who were consistently told as children that they “could not” now have children of their own and they don’t want to hinder their daughters’ growth in that way. I was a tomboy as a little girl and wanted to do everything my brother did, but I was always told that I could not because I was to be a “proper girl” and proper girls liked the color pink, princesses, and barbie dolls. I am lucky that I have an independent spirit because I consistently fought against these standards and managed to do what I wanted versus what society wanted me to become. Some girls do not have that independent streak in them and follow exactly what they are told: like pink, become a housewife, husband before your own career, or, even worse, husband before yourself.
Now I’m not trying to say that liking the color pink is bad or that being a stay-at-home mom is bad either, but the perception that a young girl cannot grow into a “proper” or “respectable” woman because she does not have these ideals is insane. It is a view of older times and one in which we should have grown past as a society. In an interview with LA Times Sterling is quoted as saying that it was suggested that she go to college to become an engineer and she was embarrassed because she “didn’t know what it was. I was too ashamed to ask her because I thought it would seem stupid. But in my mind, an engineer was either a train driver or some dirty guy sitting alone at a computer.” Sterling attended Stanford and graduated with a degree in engineering, but imagine if her high school counselor had never suggested that she go to school for engineering… Not that Sterling couldn’t have eventually figured it out for herself, but she would have been stripped of that potential simply because of the belief that women are not meant to do jobs designated for men. Men have a very similar struggle, one that has come to light more and more in recent years with more men becoming stay-at-home dads or obtaining jobs that are designated “female roles.”
While I do not know if the GoldieBlox toys hold up, or if Sterling will be able to deliver the exact project she outlines in her Kickstarter, I do know that this is a step in the right direction. Not only has this video opened up the discussion in a multitude of ways because of the social media presence, but it can also show little girls that they can do amazing things and they’re not alone in wanting to do “what the boys do.”
This is a great video that I would love to see more discussion about, what do you think? Is Sterling going in the right direction? Did you or anyone you know support the Kickstarter campaign?
