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I don't get this company. Encouraging girls to do technical stuff is awesome (just as awesome as encouraging boys!), but why are their building toys all purple

I don't get this company. Encouraging girls to do technical stuff is awesome (just as awesome as encouraging boys!), but why are their building toys all purple and pink and girlie? That seems like a contradiction to me. We have a 5 yo daughter and immerse her in all kinds of technical stuff (along with our 2 yo son), like building toys, 3d puzzles, math games, chess, etc. I would love for her to be a killer engineer! But I have no interest in these pink building toys. There are so many far better gender-free toys. Knex, Superstructs, Legos, Magnatiles, Tegu blocks, etc., are just a few that are far more appealing to me as a parent. As a society, we do seem to have a "princess problem," but I just don't see how pink building toys can solve it.

pera 13y ago
I don't see how a color could be a problem...
- brianfinkel 13y ago
  I don't think the color is a problem, other than it appears to be the chief innovation from this company. It seems to me that if you want your daughter to get traction with STEM, you need to provide her with interesting, high quality materials and spend time exploring them with her. Maybe I'm missing something, but i think there are already superior, better priced materials than these, so where is the value here?
- brianfinkel 13y ago
  Also, if you're going to eschew the princess thing, then why adopt the princess palette?
GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
"But I have no interest in these pink building toys." They're not for you, dogg.
bbarn 13y ago
This might seem unrelated, but in the bicycle racing world, most of your high end manufacturers now all make a women's specific model (for differences in body morphology, etc). When they started doing this, some manufacturers went all in, made really great well thought machines for actual racing women. Most though, took their men's model's, shrunk them a size, and painted them pink, purple, baby blue, or put floral print on them. It's a process described as "Shrink and Pink" in a not so positive connotation. It actually seems to HURT sales from ancedata figures gathered from friends who run or work at Bicycle shops in my area. The common opinion is that making something pink or girly colored off puts more women than it draws. In the last 2 years especially, women's manufacturers have responded.. with normal non-pastel colors.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
abledon 13y ago
The pink engineering pieces don't solve the princess problem. It does bypass it. A young girl who has learned in her schools social circles that girls only play with cute 'girly' looking toys that are pink (gender roles enforced in our society), would more likely agree to play with these 'feminine' engineering toys. This is a good attempt at targeting parents who are rigid and scared of shaking gender norms.

pera 13y ago

I don't see how a color could be a problem...

brianfinkel 13y ago
I don't think the color is a problem, other than it appears to be the chief innovation from this company. It seems to me that if you want your daughter to get traction with STEM, you need to provide her with interesting, high quality materials and spend time exploring them with her. Maybe I'm missing something, but i think there are already superior, better priced materials than these, so where is the value here?
brianfinkel 13y ago
Also, if you're going to eschew the princess thing, then why adopt the princess palette?

GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago

"But I have no interest in these pink building toys." They're not for you, dogg.

bbarn 13y ago

This might seem unrelated, but in the bicycle racing world, most of your high end manufacturers now all make a women's specific model (for differences in body morphology, etc). When they started doing this, some manufacturers went all in, made really great well thought machines for actual racing women. Most though, took their men's model's, shrunk them a size, and painted them pink, purple, baby blue, or put floral print on them. It's a process described as "Shrink and Pink" in a not so positive connotation. It actually seems to HURT sales from ancedata figures gathered from friends who run or work at Bicycle shops in my area. The common opinion is that making something pink or girly colored off puts more women than it draws. In the last 2 years especially, women's manufacturers have responded.. with normal non-pastel colors.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

abledon 13y ago

The pink engineering pieces don't solve the princess problem. It does bypass it. A young girl who has learned in her schools social circles that girls only play with cute 'girly' looking toys that are pink (gender roles enforced in our society), would more likely agree to play with these 'feminine' engineering toys. This is a good attempt at targeting parents who are rigid and scared of shaking gender norms.