The push to get girls interested in and exciting about STEM careers is increasing these days, and there are a few standout companies and organizations who lead the charge. Reshma Saujani’s Girls Who Code non-profit, Google’s Made With Code initiative, and of course toy company Goldieblox, created by California engineer Debbie Sterling.
Not too long ago Goldieblox released a new video in time for the holidays, debuting their new “Goldie” doll who was created to smash stereotypes, and be somewhat of an antithesis to Barbie who is still ridiculously popular amongst girls.
In that video we hear the song “I’m Alive” by the band Metric playing in the background while we see a young girl going against the pink princess production line to create her own exciting future. Well Goldieblox weren’t done with their message, and have released a new animated video called ‘Lightning Strikes’ showing Goldie designing a car for a derby race with her friends.
The song is actually sung by Emily Haines from Metric, who also composed the original track.
The premise of the song is to empower girls with lyrics that teach them failure is not wrong. In fact, failure is what drives innovation, and the less we conform to the idea of perfection and more to the notion of trying despite the outcome, the more girls will have confidence to enter fields which are largely based on theories, hypotheses, and many attempts before finding one that works.
The teaser video cites statistics from from the American Association of University Women, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, and Psychology Today an uses them as captions in the video.
“Studies show that fear of failure keeps girls from trying new things.”
“Studies show that mindset is learned not inherent in girls.”
“Engineers know that failure leads to innovation.”
“Only 14% of engineers are women.”
“Girls perform more poorly on maths tests when reminded of their gender. This difference disappears when girls are told that gender doesn’t matter.”
“Studies show that praising effort over achievement makes girls more confident and motivated.”
You get the idea. What Goldieblox is trying to do is encourage mainly parents, but also teachers and guardians to do is encourage girls to take risks, teach them to fail and make them understand that this is what leads to success.
Thomas Edison, famous for inventing the first (incandescent, not electrical) light bulb was also famous for his numerous failed attempts. Over 10,000 to be exact! But like Forbes.com points out, it was those many failures that drove him to continually innovate, not give up.
Later Edison became famous for saying “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
Don’t we all agree that this is something we should be teaching out daughters from a young age?
Just to show you what we are up against in this current day and age with kids, a recent British survey run by publishing company Kids Educational Books found that 1 in 5 UK girls say that their dream job is Elsa, from ‘Frozen‘. They surveyed 950 parents and kids and the overwhelming response was that girls would rather be a Disney Princess, than become someone who can actually change the world and contribute something meaningful to society.
This limiting, false and damaging idea of an aspiration is exactly what Goldieblox is trying to fight against.
“In engineering, and in life, failure is a huge part of any great success. No real innovation happens without it. The problem is, girls are less likely to try new things when they’re not sure of the outcome, and are less likely to invest in the power of practice and effort; they believe that they are either born with any given skill set, or they’re not,” says the video description below.
Check out the full video below and whether you are 4, 14 or 44, share this with every woman and girl you know:
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