Recommendations: a banned book, everyday behaviour and a movie
How to encourage girls' interest in tech — Newsletter No.11
Hello! It’s recommendations time 🙋♀️
🔎 Tackle everyday stereotypes
As we’ve already established, tech is most often presented and related to boys and men. Numerous studies have found that girls begin to turn away from math and science-related disciplines, including computer science, during middle school. By the end of eighth grade, twice as many boys as girls are interested in pursuing science, engineering, or technology-based careers.
One way to help them stay in tune with tech is by tackling other gender stereotypes. Some examples:
If an appliance or gadget breaks in your house, bring it to your daughter to help fix, instead of your son.
When planning activity days, change it up a bit. Grab a basketball and head to the courts in your local park, check out the new laser tag place in town, and cruise on over to the skate park. Engaging girls in active sports, especially those not traditionally seen as “ladylike” helps her see her body as strong and capable, and not just “pretty.”
If you have kids of both gender at home, check if the chores around the house are equally distributed. One study actually found that girls spend, on average, 30 percent more time on household duties than their male counterparts—which means girls get less time to play, study, and pursue other interests than their brothers.
Before we move on to the next suggestion, one important note:
There’s nothing wrong with a girl who loves playing tea party while wearing a dress, as long as it’s her choice and not the only option presented her.
📖 Read a book about girls who code that has been banned in some school districts in the US
1,648 book titles are banned around the U.S. this year, in a total of 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students in 32 states. Most of the books contribute to diversity — 41% of the banned books on the index address LGBTQ+ themes or have characters who are LGBTQ+, 40% of the books feature characters of color, and 21% of the banned books address issues of race and racism.
One of the books banned is Lights, Music, Code! published in partnership with Girls Who Code.
The book is about Maya and her friends from coding club, who have an exciting new project: they're coding lights and music for the winter dance! But when Maya's old troublemaking friend Nicole moves to town, Maya starts spending a lot of time with her, and less time with her coding friends. The troubleshooting and trial-and-error elements of the code storyline effectively demonstrate how and what can be done with code.
You can order it on Amazon, Bookdepository, or wherever you like to get your books. You can also check out other titles from the series.
🎞 Ghostbusters — an all-female cast
Who would have thought that the classic ‘80s movie Ghostbusters would be rebooted with an all-female cast? The story now revolves around four women starting their own ghost-catching business. It was well-received upon release and was even domestically the highest-grossing live-action comedy in 2016. Techie and sci-fi female fans will definitely enjoy watching girls like them develop gadgets that trap ghosts, and have fun while they do it.
If you liked this, please share it with parents who want to mindfully prepare their daughters for the new digital age. It means a lot ❤️