I was in the bookstore a couple of days ago, looking for a birthday card for my sister-in-law. As I browsed through the different available cards I noticed these, aimed at young teenagers I presume.
In all honesty, I am not very surprised that the “boys-card” features a gaming tough, kid, with the big computer screen, cool speakers, the high-graphic motor game, pizza and jolt (?) cola on the floor. This is the absolute definition of a classical computer wizz kid in the making.
The girl on the other hand has a pink laptop, fashion-magazines sprawling on the floor, a nice cup of hot tea while she’s (I’m guessing) chatting away with her friends on Facebook.
Perhaps I should be glad that she has a computer at all in the picture, which in some sense conveys the image of an interest in technology. However, I would be a lot more impressed if the graphical artist had used the apparent interest of fashion for this girl and perhaps shown how she was working on her on clothing line in a design program or such.
We need to move away from the notion that boys = cool, tech-kids playing the latest computer games, while girls = pink, fluffy fashion only interesting in reading blogs and chatting. We need to start somewhere, and this seems to me to be a very good place. Subtle, yet powerful.
If we want more women in tech in the future, then we need to start encouraging the kids at a young age…
