Mattel Has Come Up With An Astronaut Barbie To Inspire Young Girls. We Are Loving This!

The word ‘Barbie’ immediately conjures up images of our childhood and we get nostalgic! That’s the one doll most of us grew up playing with. We loved to dress our Barbies in a certain way but it was a lot of dresses, shoes and jewellery. We weren’t entirely sure our Barbie had a profession, if any at all. But that’s all set to change. Barbie’s manufacturer Mattel is taking things to the next level. Mattel has taken steps to make Barbie look more inspiring to young girls. They have recently launched a Barbie that is an astronaut to motivate young girls to take up STEM aka science, technology, engineering and mathematics roles. Now our very own Barbie has a different look and we find that really interesting!

The doll is dressed as an astronaut and has been created in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). What we loved the most is that the doll is modelled on Samantha Cristoforetti, who is the only active female astronaut in the organisation. Interestingly the collaboration is part of Mattel’s Dream Gap project, whose central goal is to close the “dream gap.” It mainly wants to eradicate the barriers existing that stop young girls and woman from achieving their dreams. We respect the organization for taking this step towards a better cause!

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The European Director of Marketing for Barbie in Europe, Isabel Ferrer spoke about the association to a leading newspaper, “Barbie has always shown girls that they can be anything, giving them the opportunity to interpret different roles through play and embark on countless number of careers, encouraging imagination and self-expression. We know how important it is for girls to have role models and this new ESA collaboration helps us to take this to an astronomical new level.”

As a part of the partnership, Barbie has also commissioned a report to promote and gauge parental knowledge of STEM subjects along the campaign. The results of the survey showed that 2,000 parents revealed that 80% them lacked basic knowledge of STEM careers. The findings were that almost 80% of the participants knew of the space industry, with 74% in the know of Neil Armstrong. But, more than half of the participants had no idea about female space pioneers.

Most of the participants agreed that the women in space need to get equal recognition as men. While a third said they do not believe there are enough positive role models in space and STEM-related fields for girls. Well, we are glad to see this today and we hope it works for the better!