---

There is a lot of talk lately in for example the tech industries about the lack of diversity and the lack of female programmers.

And often they point out that it’s the issue with the universities and High schools where it goes wrong. This is a serious issue but is part of a much wider issue.

Already from the younger ages, even when they haven’t been yet in school or let alone high school, girls are being pushed away from programming and building stuff.

One major help in the early ages are the Lego building blocks. I remember from myself that I had tons of fun and pleasure with them during my young age.

But I’m trying now already for quite some time to get my girl interested in them. And it’s all fine, until we look together through a Lego brochure. Then she doesn’t want to play anymore with them.

And this is exactly what they stated in 2011 that they want to change this attitude.

Last time I asked her why. And her answer: It’s only for boys, because I see only boys playing with Lego in the brochure.

And it’s true, every single picture or toy which is not a princess or a doctor is shown with only boys playing.

I often take the Mindstorms toys as an example. When you visit the page and look at the video’s: it’s only boys and they make it very clear that it’s targetted towards boys.

This won’t help in the future to get more girls or minorities into technology, I can assure you that. On the other side I’m happy that other shops are starting to change the narrative.