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).