‘Hack Along with Goldieblox: Gender messages in engineering Youtube videos for girls’

ABSTRACT

Women’s underrepresentation in engineering in the United States is an ongoing area of concern. Engineering is a predominantly male-dominated and masculine-identified field, which leads many young women to avoid it. In response to this issue, outreach efforts have expanded to change perceptions and encourage women’s interest in engineering. In this article, I explore messages presented to girls in one YouTube video series produced by the toy company known as Goldieblox. Using the gendering of engineering and postfeminism as theoretical frameworks, my analysis shows that while the content of these videos shifts traditional masculine stereotypes, they introduce a new set of gendered and classed expectations about how young women can become engineers.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• engineering
• outreach
• media
• postfeminism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Emily Blosser

Emily Blosser is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her interests include gender, women’s underrepresentation in engineering, science and technology studies, and the sociology of food and eating. She has published articles in Engineering Studies, The Journal of Engineering Education and the Journal of Science and Popular Culture.