Earlier this month, Danish block-building fantasy-creator Lego released its new ideas set. Entitled “Research Institute”, the set is designed by isotope geochemist Ellen Kooijman and features three female scientists. This may not seem like a big moment for anyone over the age of nine, but over on Twitter real-life female scientists are excited.
Enter @LegoAcademics, a Twitter handle dedicated to showing the working lives of women in science through the use of Ellen Kooijman’s female scientist figurines. The tweets and photographs cover the more mundane aspects of working in science, such as the endless streams of paperwork and performance reports, as well as the rather more exciting aspects, such as working with dinosaur remains and heading up archaeological digs.
A playful approach to the STEM fields gender gap
Due to the relative lack of women represented in the worlds of both science and Lego, @LegoAcademics has struck a chord with many other women in STEM fields, and also with the general public. In the short space of time @LegoAcademics has been tweeting, it has amassed a following of almost 29,000 followers, garnering thousands of retweets and lots of positive attention.
Archaeologist and creator of @LegoAcademics Donna Yates spoke to The Guardian about why Ellen Kooijman’s new miniature female scientists have struck such a chord with her and her team: “The majority of toys out there promote the message that science is for boys and that girls should focus more on vapid, shallow things,” she says.
“We know that one set of Lego is not going to suddenly boost the number of female undergraduates in the computing department. The onus is on everyone, both men and women, to come up with creative and effective ways to encourage gender balance in research and academia. Right now, I’m doing it with Lego.”
The @LegoAcademics wish they got as many paper citations as they do retweets. pic.twitter.com/oqPXehenKe
— Lego Academics (@LegoAcademics) August 11, 2014
Providing more gender-balanced role models
This latest addition to the Lego family reflects the product’s growing status beyond just children’s toy boxes, and growing social recognition of the role all toys have to play in the process of child development, imagination and growing up. This includes the shaping of gender roles, and choices made throughout later life.
With this in mind, it is notable to mention that not all recent Lego releases have warranted as much “nerdish glee” (in the words of Yates) as Ellen Kooijman’s new women in science figurines. Indeed, some pieces have been seen as a step backwards, in the perpetuation of old-fashioned and limited interests and qualities stereotypically associated with women. The “Lego Friends” set launched in 2011, for instance, features female figures partaking in fatuous activities such as going to the mall and baking.
For young girls all over the world, there remains a shortage of Lego pieces (or other toys) that promote women in traditionally male-dominated roles in STEM fields and other careers, such as astronaut, firefighter, chef, pilot or any role really that subverts, or simply questions, old-fashioned gender roles. Conversely, there’s an absence of play resources providing role models for young boys with interests in areas such as fashion, art and cooking.
Let’s hope there’s much more on the way to follow these new aspirational, progressive – and fun – miniature female scientists.
Cheers everyone! The @LegoAcademics are totally listing this twitter acct as "Impact" on their next grant proposal. pic.twitter.com/scsgWgBDAL
— Lego Academics (@LegoAcademics) August 8, 2014