Construction Toy Company Click-A-Brick Discouraged By Report Saying STEM Toys Overwhelmingly Targeted Toward Boys
Construction toy company Click-A-Brick is discouraged by a recent report from the Institution for Engineering and Technology that says science, technology, engineering and math toys are three times more likely to be targeted at boys than girls. It also implicates search engines in gender stereotyping.
Las Vegas, United States – December 14, 2016 /MarketersMedia/ —
Construction toy company Click-A-Brick says a new report that finds science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) toys are three times as likely to be targeted at boys than girls is discouraging.
The report comes from the Institution for Engineering and Technology (IET), which also found that toys targeted toward girls are still overwhelmingly pink despite recent campaigns to prompt toy companies to stop making all girls’ toys pink.
IET points to gender bias in toys being perpetuated by internet search engines and toy retailer websites themselves. The organization performed an analysis of leading search engines and toy websites and found that 31 percent of STEM toys were listed as boys’ toys compared to just 11 percent for girls. In addition to that, when IET performed searches with the terms “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys,” it found that 89 percent of the toys listed as being for girls were pink compared to one percent for boys.
“The marketing of toys for girls is a great place to start to change perceptions of the opportunities within engineering,” Mamta Singhal, a toy engineer and IET spokeswoman said. “The toy options for girls should go beyond dolls and dress-up so we can cultivate their enthusiasm and inspire them to grow up to become engineers. The toy industry is changing slowly and over the years more gender-neutral toys such as science kits have started appearing. Toys can really influence what a child does in later years, therefore STEM toys are a natural move for the industry.”
Co-Founders of construction toy company Click-A-Brick Jason Smith and Georg de Gorostiza say it is disappointing to see that toys are still being targeted at boys and girls rather than at children in general.
“Despite a lot of effort from various groups out there, we’re still seeing these archaic gender stereotypes placed on toys,” Smith said. “What we like to do is to label all of our sets as being for boys and girls. Just because one set comes with instructions to make a mermaid and flowers doesn’t mean it’s the ‘girls’ set. We believe any child, regardless of gender, should feel comfortable playing with any of our sets. We get lots of photos from girls who want to show us what they’ve made with Click-A-Brick and we’re extremely happy that they enjoy building with them as much as boys enjoy building with them.”
Smith added that because STEM toys generally don’t have any gendered components to them, it doesn’t even make sense for a company from a business standpoint to try and dissuade half of its potential customers from buying its products.
For more information, please visit http://www.clickabricktoys.net/
Contact Info:
Name: Rob Swystun
Email: fun@clickabricktoys.net
Organization: Click-A-Brick Toys
Release ID: 154249
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