A video ad for GoldieBlox, a start-up toy company that sells games and books to encourage girls to become engineers, has gone viral with more than 6.4 million views in less than a week.
The ad set to the tune of “Girls” by the Beastie Boys, depicts three girls that are bored while watching princesses on TV. They grab a tool kit, goggles and hard hats and go to work building a machine that sends baby dolls and tea cups flying through the house using umbrellas, ladders and GoldieBlox toys.
According to the National Center for Women and Information Technology, in 2010 women earned just 18% of computer science degrees, down from 37% in 1985.