More female LEGO scientists, please!
This week, there was some to-do about a new female scientist LEGO figure. I wasn’t quite satisfied, and I wasn’t alone:
It's cool that LEGO has a new female scientist. It's depressing that it's a big deal. http://t.co/KppUjXoUpC
— Terry McGlynn (@hormiga) September 3, 2013
Chatting with my 10-year old son Bruce, he remarked:
It is weird that people think it’s a big deal that there’s a female scientist. I mean, so many scientists are women, you know?
So, we set out to do something about it. It was a project after his after-school program that spilled over into dinnertime. We pulled out a variety of our his LEGO sets, and identified all of our his pieces that would have the makings of a crew of female field biologists.
He had a male painter with a bucket, a wildlife dude with a snake and a frog, a guy who looks like he was ice fishing, and a some big scorpions from a mummy-themed set. And we found a bunch of guys who had occupations that involved field-work like clothes, and we scrounged around for faces and hair that looked female. (We managed to not use the hair of Legolas). Considering the number of character’s he’s accrued, it was quite surprising how few were female. Nevertheless, I think we put together a mighty formidable bunch of professional scientists:
The Female Field Biologist series, by Terry and Bruce McGlynn
LEGO Arachnologist
LEGO Chiropterist
LEGO Herpetologist
LEGO Ichthyologist
LEGO Ornithologist
Do you really want to see LEGO scientists that look like real scientists at work? Representing both the gender and ethnic diversity that exists among us? Let’s keep asking LEGO for these, and maybe they’ll see the market.
It shouldn’t have been necessary to pull the head off of a hapless victim of zombie mummy to make a female ichthyologist, and use the hair from a stereotypical librarian.