“Math class is tough,” declared Barbie in 1992, prompting a backlash from the American Association of University Women and a swift adjustment to the toy’s verbal repertoire. It wasn’t the first time the unrealistically proportioned doll had attracted criticisms of sexism, and it wouldn’t be the last. “Barbie babysitter” came with a book entitled How to Lose Weight, which contained the helpful advice: “Don’t eat.” And “slumber party Barbie” was supplied with a set of pink scales fixed at 110lb (50kg) – 35lb underweight for her supposed 5ft 9in frame.



In 2010, a Barbie book titled I Can Be a Computer Engineer clearly had good intentions, but attracted derision after suggesting that Barbie couldn’t achieve technological success without the help of male friends. (After she crashed two laptops, the boys took over, telling her: “Step aside, Barbie. YOU’VE BROKEN ENOUGH, NOW.”) Barbie manufacturer Mattel apologised and withdrew the book from online sale.

So you might think that by 2017, following a recent relaunch supposedly aimed at bringing Barbie into the 21st century with more varied body sizes and skin tones, important lessons about stereotyping and sexism might finally have been learned. Apparently not.

Step forward “engineering Barbie”, a doll designed to encourage girls into a field in which women are enormously underrepresented. So far, so good. Except the products that engineering Barbie encourages girls to build are limited almost entirely to the realm of fashion and household chores: dresses, a moving clothes rack and a washing machine. And, yes, they are all pink.

Created by toy company Thames and Kosmos, the Barbie STEM kit (it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) also offers girls age from four to eight the opportunity to build a jewellery holder and a shoe rack.

The contradictory messaging, which sets out with the aim of overcoming gender stereotypes before falling for them hook, line and sinker, is just the latest in a long line of very similar failures. The European Commission’s doomed “Science: it’s a girl thing!” campaign tried to excite girls about chemistry with a pink lipstick logo and a video featuring giggling, mini-skirted girls dancing amidst floating makeup. Then there was energy company EDF’s misguidedly named #PrettyCurious campaign, swiftly followed by IBM’s #HackAHairdryer.

How does this keep on happening? Who has enough awareness of these issues to sit in a production meeting and discuss the need for more progressive toys, but then doesn’t have the awareness to add: “Maybe it shouldn’t be pink and deal solely with domestic chores because that defeats the entire point”?

There’s really only one conceivable explanation: people still don’t see the problem with directing hugely stereotyped, patronising and limited messaging towards girls and young women. There remains a widespread consensus that the way to attract girls to a male-dominated field is to focus on hearts, cupcakes and high heels. While recent attempts, such as engineering Barbie, represent a major step forward in recognising that action is needed to tackle the underrepresentation of girls in science, technology and engineering, it’s ridiculous to think that the solution lies in perpetuating the very stereotypes that are partially responsible for the problem in the first place.

Luckily, there are some good examples out there, from Lammily, the doll with acne, stretch marks and cellulite, to Roominate, a range of building and engineering toys aimed at girls. Online resources such as coding websites and apps for kids and the Science Museum’s online games also provide great starting points for parents who want to expose girls to science and computing.

The more these sexist mistakes pile up, the harder it is to excuse the next misguided campaign. It’s surely not rocket science to realise that if we want to attract more girls to STEM, we need to ditch the stereotypes.