Are tractors and dinosaurs just for boys?

I recently read an article on MummyPages about how an eight year old girl in the UK has taken on a shoe company to complain about the lack of gender neutral footwear for kids.

 

Eight-year-old Sophia Trow put pen to paper when she went to buy new shoes and was told the dinosaur shoes were “just for boys and did not fit girls’ feet”. Sophia’s mum tweeted her letter to the shoe company and they now plan to expand and develop a unisex range of shoes.

 

Sophia’s mum who also has another younger daughter says: "I don't want them hampered by expectations that tell them how they should behave as girls - I want them to be able to do whatever they want to do and become strong women."

 

I encountered a similar situation not too long ago with my five-year-old daughter who loves Lego. I wanted to buy her some of her own as she enjoyed playing with a neighbour’s Lego set. I went to the toy shop to make my purchase and was greeted by the Lego ‘friends’ range, which is especially aimed at girls, in muted soft pink and purple pastel tones. The sets include a juice bar, a café and a shopping mall, because let’s face it, shopping and drinking coffee is all girls do, right? 

 

In the end I bought Jake & The Never land Pirates Lego, and she loved it.

 

Why do girls need ‘special’ Lego anyway? What was wrong with the old Lego in the first place? It’s been loved by boys and girls for decades for good reason. I’m of the opinion that if it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

 

We marked International Women’s Day at the weekend, and it was widely lamented that there are not enough women working in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and maths.) According to the Central Statistics Office numbers, there are less than 25% of women working in these industries.

 

Surely we have to ask ourselves if we can do anything to change this. Shouldn’t it start with our attitudes about gender in regards to our own children and what types of stereotypes we are reinforcing ourselves? Who says robots and tractors are just for boys?

 

There is progress being made in some ways however, with Coder-Dojo coding clubs set up in most counties in Ireland for kids of all ages and genders. This is where girls and boys can learn to write code, the language of the internet, and even develop their own apps! It also fosters entrepreneurship, creativity and learning in a fun way. That can’t be a bad thing for any child, whether they’re a boy or a girl.