This came across my radar thanks to @amandafrench. In the image below, you can see that Toys ‘R Us is selling various science instruments. You may also be able to tell that there are ‘boy’ instruments (in black and gray) and ‘girl’ instruments (in pink of course). What you probably can’t tell is that in both cases, the ‘girl’ instruments are less powerful than the ‘boy’ instruments (600x magnification vs. 900 or 1200x and 90x vs. 250 or 525x).

The fact that they make pink versions of these things is stupid enough, but the fact that they’re less powerful?? Well that just seems ridiculous. Sometimes being a capitalist and deciding not to buy something just doesn’t seem strong enough. I wasn’t going to buy a pink telescope in the first place, but if I was going to, I certainly won’t now.

This sort of thing really needs to stop. I don’t care if they make things in pink (even if pink science instruments is kinda stupid, do they make camouflage telescopes?) but the message that a girl wouldn’t need the same amount of power as a male counterpart seems like a dangerous thing to put into anyone’s head.

from http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

Potentially related posts:

• Obama says we need to be careful about what we post online, but do we? In a discussion recently with high school students, Obama was...