We’ve all seen this ad for GoldieBlox, right? It’s making its way around social media these days and seems to pop up on my Facebook feed a couple times a day. Everyone is mad for it and I can definitely see why. It looks to me like a pretty good product with an amazingly spectacular ad. It’s empowering young girls to stop playing with princess toys and start becoming the engineers we’ve always known they could become. And all while a bunch of girls sing their rendition of Girls by the Beastie Boys. As an advertisement, it’s genius. As a product, I’m not so sure.
My problem with
it is this: How is this any different
than the pink Lego everyone was enraged about a few years ago? Why are the same parents that were rightfully
complaining about the pink Lego now promoting GoldieBlox on their social media
pages? Why do building blocks and tool kits have to be given a cutesie name and
have pink and purple packaging for parents to buy them for their daughters? And let’s not kid ourselves, as catchy and
cool as the commercial is, the packaging is still super girlie and you will
absolutely find this product in the “girl aisle” at the toy store, right next
to all the princess gear. You want to empower your daughter? Let her watch Star Wars, read comic books and encourage her to choose toys from the "boy aisle" once in a while.
And while I’m
at it, why is this product just for girls?
According to the GoldieBlox site, they are “tapping into girls’ strong
verbal skills” by including a book with every kit, allowing girls to build
according to the story line. Brilliant! My five year old son would LOVE that! Thankfully, we have raised him to know that
he is not too good to play with pink things or to read books about parades and
puppies so he would absolutely play with this toy, purple packaging and
all. The thing is, I don’t need to be
tricked by a catchy ad in order to encourage my kids (specifically my daughter)
to play with construction kits. We already
have lots of blocks and building toys (in all colours) that both kids love to
play with when they’re not already setting up dinosaur land, playing dress-up
(both dressing up as fairies, princesses, pirates and superheros!) or having
dance parties in our kitchen. I’m all
for empowering young girls but I don’t think GoldieBlocks is the product to do
it and they will definitely not be under our Christmas tree this year.
I’ll likely still
watch the ad every time it pops up on my Facebook feed though, but that’s just
because it’s awesome.
