Girls in Engineering- Comic that explains it all

[JamesBrown]

This is a really interesting thread. I am currently working for Hasbro, one of the two major toy companies. Interestingly Hasbro dominates the Boy market, and Mattel controls the Girl market (almost entirely because of Barbie)

Starting with a couple of interesting facts. The boy market sells as many dolls as the girl market every year, we just call them action figures. However a huge number of robotic/animatronic toys are marketed towards girls, they are just wrapped in fur and made to look like animals.

I have a question for the women who have posted. There is no question that boys are more likely to buy engineering type toys than girls. I mean things like robot sets, Lego sets, etc. Why is this? Is there something in our culture that tells girls that building things is not feminine enough, or is it just marketing and branding? Lego's major branded kits are: Star Wars, Batman, SpongeBob SquarePants, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Spider-Man, Ben 10, Toy Story and Thomas the Tank Engine. Most of which are considered boy brands in the toy industry (Harry Potter and Toy Story are Unisex). This leads me to believe that the lack of attraction to the product is not the product itself but the branding. Girls are less likely to watch Star Wars or Ben 10. Do you think that if Lego branded a kit as My Little Pony or Barbie (Never going to happen since both licenses are owned by competitors), where you could build houses and such for theme play in those brands, girls would be more attracted to it? I know that in one case my cousin (5 year old girl) loves Star Wars and loves the Lego Star Wars sets. I don't think that she is tom-boyish in her toy preferences. I think she simply likes the Star Wars brand and likes Legos because they are essentially Unisex. It is worth noting that young children regardless of gender build with blocks, some how that is lost around school age. I think that the issue is simply branding and marketing of building toys for this age group.

Working on the same idea, since there is little media directed towards girls that prominently features robots do you think it is possible to disguise robots as something that culture pushes towards girls. For example, If a robot kit came with Fur that could be used to cover the creation would that be more appealing to girls? This would allow them to build there own pets, the animatronic pet market is already directed towards girls. This would allow the engineering play to be disguised as making pets, the same way that it is disguised for boy as making star wars characters (or Transformers or any other brand) then at an older age when the role play aspect is not as significant the higher level building kits (Mindstorms, Vex) could be marketed as Unisex.

This turned out longer than expected but I kind of got on a roll.

I also would like to note that to date, the two smartest, and most talented engineers I have met are both women (both chemical engineers).

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

I have a question for the women who have posted. There is no question that boys are more likely to buy engineering type toys than girls. I mean things like robot sets, Lego sets, etc. Why is this? Is there something in our culture that tells girls that building things is not feminine enough, or is it just marketing and branding?

A lot of it is in the packaging and what the product is capable of. I'll give 2 examples that I've witnessed:

1. our team has developed a camp that we offer several times a year to children of different ages. This amounts to about 1/2 of day for the 'beginners'. They are in small groups and each group works with one of our students as their mentor. Last summer I was at one of the camps and took some photos and I kept returning to this one small group - all girls. That's just how it worked out. I noticed that they had taken the legos they were using and made a face on the floor - big large face - and I was concerned about the actual building and programming of the project but the mentor seemed fine. Later, I asked about it - one of the girls had just started moving the pieces around to create the face while they were still working on their robot. The group had that as well as a robot, plus one of the girls had programmed it to play Happy Birthday. When they left the camp, the girls skipped out of the shop - happy. They had had a very productive and a very fun day. And their mentor had given them the space and guidance they needed to have that.

2. We sold Hexbugs as one of our fundraisers. I worked the table a couple of times and I noticed that the boys would come up and say, 'cool' and go running off to find the adult with the money so they could show them. The girls would watch/observe and then ask, 'what does it do?'. The girls seemed to want the bugs to perform a task rather than just move. When told what they would do, the common movement that I saw was a shrug and they'd kind of slide away, still thinking. One of our parents is really great at explaining the different Hexbugs and what they were capable of doing and it appeared that many of the young girls wanted a small task involved. We sold to both, boys and girls, but the girls seemed to ask more questions.

Many children are problem solvers. I think that is one reason that puzzles are so fun. That said, I have seen parents decide that a problem can only be solved a certain way and tell the child how to do it, rather than present the problem to be solved (or the opportunity) and let the child/children go for it.

You also have to look at the part of the marketing that sets up the product to be sold and how that impacts the sales in the media and also in the aisles of the stores. The team was doing a demo in the lobby of the movie theater when Wall-E was showing. I was standing over by the area where families were lining their children up to drive one of our BEST robots. A little girl had been waiting very patiently with her mom and I was getting concerned that our batteries were just about out of power so I began talking with the little girl about what she liked about Wall-E. She immediately, without any hesitation, said, 'he has a toy like mine - a square.' She was around 4. The toy she had that her mother said she has almost worn out was a Rubik's Cube. Did she find that toy on the Barbie aisle in a toy store or was she (or the giver) in a different aisle or area?

Jane

Edit: Mikell, high five!

--
Regarding the high maintenance comment.
Many girls and women are not high maintenance, have never been, and will never be. It is frustrating to hear, read, and contend with that comment/mentality. If males seek a high maintenance image/icon/role model as their ideal of what a woman is, then they are only looking at a small subset of the diverse interests, skills, talents, and demands that are available to women. If young girls and women are looking at icons to emulate that fit within that mindset, they are often looking at a role model that works in the extremes.

Over the past few years, I've heard the philosophy about not giving power to a word or a phrase. I don't buy it. If the suggestion is to listen to the phrase and then order the person who said it to go do something, then what messages are being encouraged/sent and - are they mixed messages? Why make the situation worse or add drama?

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

2. We sold Hexbugs as one of our fundraisers. I worked the table a couple of times and I noticed that the boys would come up and say, 'cool' and go running off to find the adult with the money so they could show them. The girls would watch/observe and then ask, 'what does it do?'. The girls seemed to want the bugs to perform a task rather than just move. When told what they would do, the common movement that I saw was a shrug and they'd kind of slide away, still thinking. One of our parents is really great at explaining the different Hexbugs and what they were capable of doing and it appeared that many of the young girls wanted a small task involved.

This is an interesting observation. I am not really sure what to make of it though. What I find interesting about it is how it compares to Zhu Zhu pets. Which offer essentially the same play pattern as Hex Bugs but come in a more relate able wrapper (they look like hamsters). The Zhu Zhu pets were extremely popular with girls (and fairly popular with boys). I wonder how much of this (if any) relates to media. There is little media for girls that give them a reference for robotic bugs, however there is plenty that give them a reference for small animals.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

There is little media for girls that give them a reference for robotic bugs, however there is plenty that give them a reference for small animals.

Media manipulates. That is its job. It does it well.

That's why there is such a need for wise mentors in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math.

Jane

P.S. When responsible media learns to help children explore the possibilities of thinking - then they will be working with the mentors and not in direct opposition.

[oddjob]

The stereotypes are there because they reflect actual circumstances. Until this generation, most females were stay at home mothers, and hence, young girls were given baby dolls to dress and toy kitchens to set appropriate expectations. Meanwhile, the boys had toy soldiers and cars so they could learn to fight in war and drive to work. As society changes, the stereotypes WILL change over time. Even so, on average, there are real measurable differences in brain development for males and females so what exactly is "equality"?

Obviously we are talking about most of the modern societies, not the parts of the world where women can't show their face in public, can't attend school, are forced into arranged marriages to bigamists, "honor" killings if they don't conform, etc.. That clash of civilizations has not been resolving itself peacefully, but keep hope alive and it's perfectly ok to judge one is better than the other.

[JamesCH95]

Both of my parents are PhD engineers. My mom is also PE, has a couple patents, and has won several awards related to her research. When I was 7 I told my mom "You know mom, boys can be engineers too" after the 3rd SWE conference I had been to. Clearly I do not have prejudices against women, let alone women in engineering.

I want to just share two anecdotal experiences:

In my senior design class we split into three teams to design machines that all had to perform a similar task. It just so happened that (in teams of five) there were no girls on one team, two girls on one team, and four girls on the third team. I know from observation that on the team with four girls, the girls spent an inordinate amount of time arguing about what to do and did not finish their project by the end of the semester. The team with 2 girls finished, but the machine broke on test day. The all-male team finished (barely) and their machine survived test day.

A contrasting story:

I also was a designer for my college's Chem-E car team. In that competition the team was roughly half-girls. They dominated both the design presentation, the safety presentation, and ran the pit and car preparation with an iron fist. In two years our team had a top-10 finish and were national champions with a nation safety award and national+regional design presentation awards.

My point with these two stories is that many people are biased by their own experiences. I know the single guy on the design team was totally fed up with all the girls on his design team that wasted a ton of time needlessly arguing, whereas I was incredibly proud of the girls on on the chem-e car team and would work with them again in a heartbeat.

Perspective is everything, and I think precious few people have had the unique perspective I grew up with. Don't get too worked up at male engineers who might have a slanted view on women in engineering, work to show them that they are wrong.

Also: don't argue with stupid, there are some things you can't fix. *don't feed the troll*

[Madison]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

Both of my parents are PhD engineers. My mom is also PE, has a couple patents, and has won several awards related to her research. When I was 7 I told my mom "You know mom, boys can be engineers too" after the 3rd SWE conference I had been to. Clearly I do not have prejudices against women, let alone women in engineering.

I want to just share two anecdotal experiences:

In my senior design class we split into three teams to design machines that all had to perform a similar task. It just so happened that (in teams of five) there were no girls on one team, two girls on one team, and four girls on the third team. I know from observation that on the team with four girls, the girls spent an inordinate amount of time arguing about what to do and did not finish their project by the end of the semester. The team with 2 girls finished, but the machine broke on test day. The all-male team finished (barely) and their machine survived test day.

A contrasting story:

I also was a designer for my college's Chem-E car team. In that competition the team was roughly half-girls. They dominated both the design presentation, the safety presentation, and ran the pit and car preparation with an iron fist. In two years our team had a top-10 finish and were national champions with a nation safety award and national+regional design presentation awards.

My point with these two stories is that many people are biased by their own experiences. I know the single guy on the design team was totally fed up with all the girls on his design team that wasted a ton of time needlessly arguing, whereas I was incredibly proud of the girls on on the chem-e car team and would work with them again in a heartbeat.

Perspective is everything, and I think precious few people have had the unique perspective I grew up with. Don't get too worked up at male engineers who might have a slanted view on women in engineering, work to show them that they are wrong.

Also: don't argue with stupid, there are some things you can't fix. *don't feed the troll*

In my mind, these groups represent different mixes of people and personalities and the gender of the participants probably had little to do with how successful they were.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Madison

In my mind, these groups represent different mixes of people and personalities and the gender of the participants probably had little to do with how successful they were.

I do not disagree with you, correlation does not mean causation. My point is that it is very easy to reach a different/incorrect conclusion if you only have half of a data set.

[MadeAtMidnight]

Changes in any field takes time, but over 50% of our last medical student class are female.

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

This is a really interesting thread. I am currently working for Hasbro, one of the two major toy companies. Interestingly Hasbro dominates the Boy market, and Mattel controls the Girl market (almost entirely because of Barbie)

Starting with a couple of interesting facts. The boy market sells as many dolls as the girl market every year, we just call them action figures. However a huge number of robotic/animatronic toys are marketed towards girls, they are just wrapped in fur and made to look like animals.

I have a question for the women who have posted. There is no question that boys are more likely to buy engineering type toys than girls. I mean things like robot sets, Lego sets, etc. Why is this? Is there something in our culture that tells girls that building things is not feminine enough, or is it just marketing and branding? Lego's major branded kits are: Star Wars, Batman, SpongeBob SquarePants, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Spider-Man, Ben 10, Toy Story and Thomas the Tank Engine. Most of which are considered boy brands in the toy industry (Harry Potter and Toy Story are Unisex). This leads me to believe that the lack of attraction to the product is not the product itself but the branding. Girls are less likely to watch Star Wars or Ben 10. Do you think that if Lego branded a kit as My Little Pony or Barbie (Never going to happen since both licenses are owned by competitors), where you could build houses and such for theme play in those brands, girls would be more attracted to it? I know that in one case my cousin (5 year old girl) loves Star Wars and loves the Lego Star Wars sets. I don't think that she is tom-boyish in her toy preferences. I think she simply likes the Star Wars brand and likes Legos because they are essentially Unisex. It is worth noting that young children regardless of gender build with blocks, some how that is lost around school age. I think that the issue is simply branding and marketing of building toys for this age group.

Working on the same idea, since there is little media directed towards girls that prominently features robots do you think it is possible to disguise robots as something that culture pushes towards girls. For example, If a robot kit came with Fur that could be used to cover the creation would that be more appealing to girls? This would allow them to build there own pets, the animatronic pet market is already directed towards girls. This would allow the engineering play to be disguised as making pets, the same way that it is disguised for boy as making star wars characters (or Transformers or any other brand) then at an older age when the role play aspect is not as significant the higher level building kits (Mindstorms, Vex) could be marketed as Unisex.

This turned out longer than expected but I kind of got on a roll.

I also would like to note that to date, the two smartest, and most talented engineers I have met are both women (both chemical engineers).

As a preschool teacher, I see my four and five year olds playing with all sorts of different toys.

Currently, the girls are playing more with the LEGOS than the boys are...they're building houses and zoos and hotels. When the boys play with the LEGOs they tend to build houses, zoos, and robots and cages and lately jails.

Then the block area is open, I see the boys mostly playing there...it's usually a 4-0 or 3-1 ratio. When there ARE girls playing there, it's usually to build zoos and houses. When it's the boys, they build pirate ships, jails and zoos.

I have a set of Polly Pocket toys (about as close to Barbies as I'll allow in my classroom) and surprisingly it's been played with pretty equally the past two weeks by both the boys and the girls.

I also have a spare parts bin...made up of lots of FIRST Robotics leftovers: aluminum pieces, large bolts, chains, etc...both the boys AND the girls will play with these pretty equally, though the boys are more likely to create a rock band out of it, and the girls are more likely to set them up to create houses, zoos, etc...

So, from what I can see, it doesn't really matter what the toy is: the girls are going to play a more organized game with them (USUALLY)...for example: they'll set the house up and then pretend to be family members and play for an hour that way. The boys tend to be more hands on with their play (USUALLY): setting up a block somethingorother and then coming to tell me about it and show it off, then crash it all down to build something else.

When they play together, (which I encourage, but don't enforce) they tend to have a better combination of the play: the girls build different things than just houses and zoos, but the boys go along with their playing house and imaginary games for a bit. And then, what usually happens is the boys get bored, knock the house down, and the girls cry.

Now...all this happens without me ever encouraging them to play with one thing over another, or to play with specific people over other people. It just seems to be natural. My classroom is designed specifically to combat gender-sterotypes...and yet, they happen anyway. It could be that it's coming from home. It could be that boys and girls are different, and that's just how it is.

If I was in the toy company and wanted to reach as large a population as I could, I'd go with producing zoo animal stuff. It seems to be pretty neutral.