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The very first blog post I ever wrote was about the Mindware catalog’s spa science kit and its not-so-tacit message to little girls. As I go around the country giving talks I now show a series of pictures from similar “science kits for girls” (which are flooding the market) to illustrate how they’re designed less to teach interest in that subject than to cultivate an obsession with beauty and consumerism. Janet Stemwedel at Scientific American just wrote a great blog post about this. She talks, for instance, about this–yet another ”Spa Science” kit:
…the packaging here strikes me as selling the need for beauty product more emphatically than any underlying scientific explanations of how they work. Does a ten-year-old need an oatmeal mask? (If so, why only ten-year-old girls? Do not ten-year-old boys have pores and sebaceous glands?)
…Maybe the Barbie-licious artwork is intended to convey that even very “girly” girls can find some element of science that is important to their concerns, but it seems also to convey that being overtly feminine is a concern that all girls have (or ought to have) — and, that such “girly” girls couldn’t possibly take an interest in science except as a way to cultivate their femininity
There are so many of these kits on the market today. This one, for instance:
And this one:
And this one:
The company Wild Science is kind enough to break their products down on “boys” and “girls” pages, just for those of us who may not be able to determine who is supposed to get the “perfume science” kit and who is supposed to get the (I kid you not) “physics and chemistry” kit. Please. Click on the links. You have got to check them out. Go ahead. Compare and contrast. I’ll wait.
Are you back? Are your teeth still in your head? I especially love that boys get “chemistry and physics” and girls get “perfect perfume lab.”
Oh, wait–Wild Science ALSO has a whole section called “cosmetic science” featuring a “Pampering Boutique” for girls ages 8+ that “puts all the ‘good’ ingredients back in the skin after a tiresome day at school.” Bonus points for reinforcing alienation from education (and that “pretty” and “smart” are incompatible!!)
Other “cosmetic science” products? Clay Mask Lab; Cleansing Boutqiue; Cosmetic Cream Lab; Enhancing Boutique (perhaps experiments involving botox?); Purifying Boutique and Shampoo Factory.
It’s not just science kits, either. Craft kits, which once promoted art or, I don’t know, at least CRAFT have also become focused solely on appearance. Faber-Castell, a venerable, 250 year old art supply company, owns Creativity for Kids whose craft kits for girls include the following:
There are so many of these cosmetic-fashion-jewelry craft kits I could go on forever. Look ‘em up.
So imagine, for a moment: you’re in third grade and you wake up on Christmas morning or light the Channukah candles on consecutive nights and as a budding scientist you get a perfume science kit. And then you open the next gift and because you’re interested in art you get a fashion angels project runway kit. And then because you do love dolls you get Frankie Stein from Monster High. What is the larger message those gifts are giving? According to Stemwedel:
The message seems to be, “Look, there’s a bit of science that will interest even you. (And go put on some lipstick!)” Heaven knows, we couldn’t even get girls interested in building Rube Goldberg machines, or launching water-rockets, or studying the growth of plants or the behaviors of animals, or blowing stuff up … except, these are just the sort of things that the girls I know would want to do, even the pretty pink princesses.
She suggests if your little girl–or boy–is into science, you should check out the kids pages on the American Chemical Society site. There you will find hand-on activities (using stuff you probably have around the house) such as nine fun experiments with soap and detergent. And here’s a list of books and books and books full of science experiments that any child would love.
Merry Merry.
These fake science kits have been annoying me for ages so it is great to see you take them apart. Thank you for the link to the ACS site–did you see that they have a female character exploring career opportunities under the heading “What Chemists Do”? This is how it should be done.
I was noticing that in the Fat Brain Toys lists too (http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toys/toys_by_ages/girls/top_picks_9.cfm). Lots of good things that are gender neutral, but plenty of “spa science” choices too. Ugh.
Another great post! Very timely, considering I have been looking for science kits to gift to my 4 year old, and came across this sort of nonsense before finally finding one in non-genderized packaging. I would love to know who is actually designing these images – it creeps me out to think of some guy conceptualizing and then drawing the doe-eyed “8 year old” in the bathtub/tube top/tiny towel.
as i scientist, I WANT TO VOMIT ALL OVER THIS.
Ok but not on my screen please!!
I’ve bought a couple of these kits for my 6 year old. She’s had several (gross science, tasty science and some glow in the dark slime) and picked them all out on her own. Recently she asked for the spa version and I actually hesitated but the specific term she used was “the one I can play with in the bath tub.” These kits have very basic, simple science – perfect for my 6 year old, but I think my 10 year old niece wouldn’t be interested at all since they are really basic. The Do-It-Yourself versions with items you already have at home might be fun too, but for a full-time working mom, I’m perfectly happy to buy these kits at $10-12 (they are always on sale at our local craft store) to have all the ingredients right at hand so I can spend my time focused on the learning experience and not trying to find the ingredients. We typically don’t use all the experiment ingredients on the first time, package them back and up and reinforce the learning with a second and sometimes third use. I agree that the marketing approach is flawed, but the product itself isn’t so bad.
You know, I’d they’d called it bathtub science and marketed it to both sexes I’d be fine with it…
My sentiments exactly.
It bothers me that there is child-targeted marketing at all, actually.
http://nthmost.com/2011/01/should-we-allow-market-conversations-with-minors/
Oh, gosh, you are SO RIGHT!!!!!!
I find that minimizing exposure to marketing (you can’t entirely avoid it) goes a LONG way towards minimizing greediness, the “gimmes” and dissatisfaction w/kids. And promotes creativity…..You can’t know to “want” something if you don’t know it exists…..And meanwhile slowly cultivating literacy so when they are out there on their own they are critical thinkers.
So we opened the spa kit last night and it isn’t really what we had hoped for. First, they say “natural and organic” on the box and I don’t know how they got away with that label! Second, you make the perfumed products to use in the bath not to make them in the bath. (BTW all very “girlie” fragrances) So, my kid wants to take it back and get a different one. Just one more disappointment in her short life of how companies just want to sell you stuff and get your money, and will put characters on boxes and “tell lies” to get you to buy a pile of junk. Glad she’s getting an understanding at 6 though, I was in my 20s before I figured it out! LOL:)
Wow, thanks for that report, Jen. I gotta say, we’ve had several of the kits from that and other companies over the years and they are usually a disappointment for one reason or another. You know what was big fun, though? Sun prints. Those were pretty cool. And when Daisy was maybe…five? six? we got her a snap circuits kit that was a HUGE HUGE HUGE hit and some major science/engineering. But nothing beats BLOCKS!!!
We *love* snap circuits, and are now getting them for a younger cousin.
Good to know that those kits are usually disappointing, though–my 8 yr old has the “tasty science” one on her Christmas list, and I was thinking we should probably resist…
I don’t know that one so can’t say. But reviews on Amazon are mixed–they sort of reflect my experience. Kids are really excited to get these things, so that’s great, but they need lots of grown-up help to do them and often they are cheap/flimsy and don’t live up to the hype. And don’t have much to do with science…..But I imagine it depends on the kid, really.
This is why I prefer to avoid buying gendered products. I don’t need my daughters getting the messages they’re sending. They love science for science’s sake, not for being girly.
My father and husband are both scientists. My dad spent my childhood giving me things like microscopes and science kits and doing “experiments” with me in the kitchen. It was fun. When I told my husband those stories he decided he was going to do the exact same thing with our daughter.
I showed him these “science” kits and he was so offended for both his profession and what he imagines they would do to our daughter he is proposing we go a step above my experiences with my father. He is now planning on installing a ventilation hood into our garage and turning it into a real working lab so that he and our daughter can conduct real experiments in there. He’s already pricing them.
I love your posts. But I think this might end up costing me my parking spot. Lol.
Maybe the effect of winter weather on mom’s car can be an experiment?
On a slightly different note, it’s interesting to me how ‘indoors’ all these things are – what happened to biology, botany, zoology, geology, geomorpholgy, conservation science, meteorology, ecology, engineering, astronomy…?
The projects don’t appear to be about looking at the world as it is, asking questions/wondering and then exploring/experimenting, but more about following instructions to get a predetermined result.
[...] someone on that Twitter thing showed me this and I was [...]
[...] Peggy Orenstein’s blog, “Science Sans Sexism” (on science kits ‘for girls’ and ‘for boys,’ and alternatives to [...]
Just saw this post because a very smart female cousin posted it on FB. I wanted to relay my response. I have two boys (ages 9 and 7) and a girl, Ellie, named after Eleanor Roosevelt and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
“Pardon me, but (screw) that girly science. Ellie got a “water tornado” thing from a grab-bag at school this week, and a boy said, “That’s a boy gift.” She said, “No, it’s not.” She set it up in the classroom and let it rip, and everybody thought it was pretty cool. This morning I said to her, “I heard that a boy said that’s a boy’s thing. We know better than that. Science is for everybody. He’s an idiot.” She gave me a hug that hurt. In our house, we’re all about the tilt of the earth’s axis making winter, chlorophyll, crystals, cause-and-effect, dinosaurs with feathers, and bees, naturally! She loves pink and fairies and such, but she gets extra credit points on her third grade science tests.”
We have bee colonies in our backyard, and next spring, Ellie’s going to get her own hive (with some help). She’ll get stung, and then she’ll decide if she’s game to get stung again. I’m betting she will.
Lucky her to have you as a parent! Imagine how a girl without that support might feel if a boy said that to her about the tornado (especially if she heard it over and over…).