When we were growing up, our toy Barbies didn’t spend much time doing pioneering stem cell research. We’re pretty sure Sindy was more interested in clothes than computer programming, too. In fact, if you modelled your career choices on the dolls you played with as a child, you were more likely to aspire to be a secretary than a scientist.
But now two female engineering graduates are trying to change that. Supriya Hobbs and Janna Eaves – co-founders of Miss Possible – hope to inspire more girls to get interested in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) by creating a line of dolls based on real women in these fields. In other words, think Marie Curie winning a Nobel Prize, not Barbie going to the beach.
Hobbs and Eaves realised something needed to be done after they noticed a lack of women in their classrooms at the University of Illinois. ‘We were both studying engineering and looked around and realised that there weren’t that many of us,’ Supriya tells The Debrief.
‘Engineering at our university, like at most of them, is very male dominated. So we started doing activities in local classrooms to get kids really excited about engineering and science. It became a passion of ours.’
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As they spent time with young girls, they noticed many of them were subconsciously limiting their own career options. ‘We were leading this workshop with a group of girl scouts, covering invention,’ remembers Supriya. ‘We’d come up with a problem and then think of an invention to solve it. There was this one girl who for every problem kept suggesting something to do with explosions. She was so excited about it.’
‘Afterwards, my colleague asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. And this little girl, who was crazy excited about explosions, said she wanted to be a fashion designer. It wasn’t because she was especially passionate about it, but because she thought little girls were better at fashion design.’
The pair soon realised that when girls can’t visibly see girls and women in a certain profession they think it’s closed to them. ‘Both my parents have PhDs in chemistry so I have been surrounded by science my entire life, but my experiences was the exception rather than the norm,’ says Supriya.
‘I had a great role model in my mom so it never occurred to me that I couldn’t be a scientist or an engineer – but not everyone has that.’
They decided – in the absence of a real-life role model – the next best thing would be a replica of one. A business idea emerged: dolls based on strong women from history, specifically from scientific backgrounds. ‘We thought this was a good, non-threatening way to introduce these strong women.’
A month ago the women set up a crowd-funding site to raise money to manufacture the dolls. The reaction has been overwhelming, with the original target of $75,000 already exceeded. Parents have been especially keen.
‘I cannot wait to get [my girls] your dolls so they can start learning early that anything is possible,’ one wrote in the comments. Another wrote: ‘I love this so much. I’m so over all the princess and pink crap.’
The first doll will be a model of Marie Curie, the pioneering chemist and first woman to ever win a Nobel Prize. ‘It was really important to us that they were women with good stories,’ says Supriya. ‘Marie Curie went from not being allowed to go to school to being the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in the same field. Male or female, that’s pretty incredible.’
Other dolls planned are Bessie Coleman – the first African-American female pilot – and Ada Lovelace, believed by many to be the world’s first computer programmer. Each doll comes with an accompanying app which tells her story and how she achieved what she did. A fourth doll will be voted on from suggestions made by backers of the campaign. ‘We’re trying to show girls that you can changed the world in a lot of different ways,’ says Supriya.
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Here in the UK, there has been an increasing call for toy manufacturers and shops to stop targeting toys at specific genders. Campaign group Let Toys Be Toys has put pressure on retailers to organise toys by ‘genre not gender’, with stores including Marks and Spencer and Hamley’s agreeing to scrap girls and boys labels. Last week, Lego launched a set of female scientist figures, including a palaeontologist and an astronomer.
For Supriya and Janna, it was vital that their own toys were gender neutral, and they hope that they will be just as popular with boys, too. ‘It’s so important for boys to have strong female role models too, because then they’re not surprised when women succeed.’
The plan is for the dolls to be shipped in January. An initial order for 5,000 has been placed with manufacturers, but the women hope that the business has long-term future.
‘We would love to have dolls on shelves, that’s the goal,’ says Supriya. ‘We are already in conversations with a couple of independent toy retailers. I think that will be where we start. But it would be wonderful to be on the shelves of Toys R Us one day. Right next to Barbie.’
To contribute to the Supriya Hobbs and Janna Eaves’s campaign, visit their crowdfunding site here.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.