Goldieblox and the three Boys

A recreation of the Titanic, post wreck, nary a pink ribbon in sight.  Drowning Titanic bodies provided by creative children who discussed physics, biology, and history while making this presentation. 

The internet has written a lot of things about Goldieblox and the Beastie Boys over the past few weeks and I won’t retread that ground, but I do have a few important things I’d like to share. I’ve teed off on Lego Friends and Goldieblox since I’ve known about them, but I won’t retread that territory. My philosophical issues with their point and purpose aside, I have a few important pieces of insight for Goldieblox that I really feel are essential side-notes to “Girls”gate.

First, I feel compelled to point out that the company highlighting girl-power has skillfully positioned themselves as the picked-upon girl in a fight against the boys.  And not just any boys. Beastie boys, to be exact.  This seems to be no coincidence.  In their final reply to the Beastie Boys, as Goldieblox announces their intention to take down the “Girls” video, their aw-shucks submissiveness is imbued with an overly-inflated sense of themselves.  “Gee, boys” they seem to say, “We were just trying to do something totally ground breaking and awesome for the girls of the world.”

My issue is that they aren’t breaking new ground.  They are retreading the old washed-out pinks and blues of our childhood, arming girls with ribbons and spools and princess stories and trying to get them to make machines to help princesses.  Goldieblox has proved their adherence to tired old territory through their public relations response to the discovery that they inappropriately (please note I did not say illegally. I’m no legal scholar and I won’t pretend to be one. I think we can agree on inappropriateness, though, and leave legality to the scholars) lifted someone else’s material.  Rather than issuing a mea culpa, Goldieblox doubled down, filing an already-prepared legal suit against the Beastie Boys to use their song under “Fair Use.” When the “Beastie Boys sue Goldieblox” story broke, I couldn’t help but envision the Beastie Boys as that mustachioed bad guy tying Goldieblox to the legal train tracks. The company prepared to take this position in the battle all along and their slick public relations responses show that they gleefully fell into the same boy versus girl narrative that undermines girl-futures in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and relegates girls to the pink aisles at the toy store (where, I might add, they can now find Goldieblox).

I’ve written about the problems of attracting women to STEM careers in my day job and I understand and agree with Goldieblox’s mission to bring more women to STEM industries. That said, I don’t think that gender-branding traditional “boy” toys with traditional “girl” colors and stories will do much to change the overall attractiveness of STEM studies.  What can and will do that, in my opinion, are two important qualities and examples Goldieblox could have exhibited in their handling of “Girls”-gate: collaboration and the ability to persevere through failure.

Rather than filing a "Fair Use" lawsuit and setting up for a battle of the sexes, Goldieblox could have illustrated the essential nature of collaborative work and invited their own customers to help create both music and lyrics to replace the “Girls” material.  As collaboration and crediting are essential pieces of STEM studies this could illustrate for their customers qualities that are important to the industry and allow early participation in a similar process of discovery. The company itself could acknowledge those involved, thus underscoring the importance of crediting in the scientific process.

Further, failure is a difficulty that often drives students out of STEM studies – with girls at a higher rate than boys. Bright young women are often perfectionists who interpret failure as a lack of ability rather than an attribute of the nature of the work itself. By issuing a mea culpa instead of filing against the Beastie Boys, Goldieblox could have astutely illustrated that some tries don’t work – and that this is not only acceptable, it’s a part of the process of innovation and, eventually, success. 

Often, as molders of young minds, we have to remember that how we do things is just as important as what we do.  If Goldieblox’s true mission is to attract growing girls to STEM careers, they would have done well to illustrate important basic essential principles to their clientele rather than step into an age-old girls-versus-boys battle they intended to win by batting their PR eyelashes.