Roominate: A Building Toy for Girls(roominatetoy.com) |
Roominate: A Building Toy for Girls(roominatetoy.com) |
The color-coding is not my thing but might be subversive enough to help it get through to girls who are enforcing pinkness on themselves and others.
Three things (I'd like to see): * ship extensions with Raspberry Pi or Arduino integration! How cool would it be if your fan went on only when it's hot or the roman shades went down when it got sunny? * make a little solar panel kit extension for real, so on a sunny day you can have a solar-powered dollhouse.
To be clear, I don't have a problem with the product itself... more that it's clearly pushing itself exclusively toward girls. My son would _love_ this thing.
It seems to me that there is a slightly problematic relationship between "toys for girls" and the "anti-pinkification" movement though.
Edit: see children's toys from the victorian era: boys have rocking horses and hoops, which would now be considered girl's toys. Social expectations, anyone?
Instead of creating/perpetuating a separate toy market for girls, I'd love to see more efforts to bring girls together (along with boys) to participate in activities that include these those toys...STEAM clubs, etc.
Note: those BIC pens to me seem like a marketing joke: someone at BIC was clever enough to see a way to make money by taking advantage of the deep-set insecurities of grown women.