I demand more nerd girls!

Packaging Girlhood is a great blog concerned with marketing aimed at girls. They just released their Best & Worst Marketing Campaigns of 2006 list, and it's a pretty good audit.

On the loser list, the disturbing Bratz Party Plane, which I'm sure all junior spoiled slutz enjoyed opening this holiday season. The whole Bratz line is particularly repulsive, not to mention their line of padded bras for six-year olds.


Accessories included: cup holders; nail polish applicator; smoothies; hair gel; crimper; make-up case; mascara.

Accessories they should have included: lapdance chair; tanning bed; wheel of appetite-suppressants; morning-after-pills; I'm an exotic dancer because daddy didn't love me t-shirt.

Grossest.

On to the winners list, my peeps at Nintendo get props for the game Super Princess Peach, which I enjoyed playing immensely this year, and which did have a fantastic commercial:


Go Pink Power!

Having said that, on a feminist level, I wasn't sure what to make of this game. Princess Peach's powers come from her emotions - anger turns her to fire, sadness makes her shoot tears, joy makes her fly etc. Isn't that reinforcing the stereotypes that girls are more emotional than logical, and that our uncontrollable feelings make us unreliable - one of the classic arguments against promoting women in the workplace?

Another winner, and a program I have been a big fan of for a while, is the Girl Scouts Girls Go Tech campaign. It's so critical to teach young girls that technology is cool, because, well, technology is hella cool! How great is this ad:


Baby's smarter than daddy!

Driving young girls less toward lame lip gloss crap, and more into awesome science and adventure crap, will make more Natalie Portmans, and less Tara Reids. And really, isn't that something we all want?


Seriously people. Think about the children.

There's also a great CBC Marketplace piece on this issue - Buying into Sexy.

Let's all make it a mission to make more nerd girls this millenium. Hear that pregnant moms-to-be? I'm looking at you, Willow and Nikki! Don't think Auntie Beckstar won't be popping in with her Lego Robotics kits!