New LEGO Sets Feature STEM Women

There are women astronauts. There are women oceanographers. There are women veterinarians. And now there are LEGO women who do all of those things, too!

As Maia Weinstock reports in Scientific American, the iconic children’s toy company has been introducing more and more collections lately that feature female characters in STEM professions. In addition to the aforementioned roles, this summer’s new LEGO offerings will also include women as auto mechanics and inventors.

This is a smart strategy for LEGO, which last summer quickly sold out of a limited-edition set featuring female research scientists. It also comes at a time when competitor GoldieBlox is having huge success and garnering a ton of press for its innovative construction toys designed to get girls excited about engineering.

Despite these encouraging signs that the company is paying more attention to girls, Weinstock points out that “LEGO is still overwhelmingly marketed to boys.” If LEGO wants to take its support for gender equality up a few more notches, its designers would do well to dig through its LEGO Ideas site for inspiration, where fans have suggested collections that feature women geologists and women scientists from history. Hey, we’d buy a LEGO version of Marie Curie—and we bet a lot of other people would as well!

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