This article in the Huffington Post discusses the gender-stereotype-laden environment that children grow up in, from conversation topics to the clothes they wear. The article points out that skill-building toys like Lego are being increasingly marketed to girls, but more solutions are needed to make an impact.

“I like your hat, that colour looks great on you,” I catch myself saying to my niece when I see her rosy two-year-old cheeks on the iPad, as she runs in from playing outside to say hello. I could have said “Did you see any interesting bugs out there?”, “What did you plant today?”, or “What’s your favourite book right now?” instead, but I didn’t, and neither will 99 per cent of the people that start a conversation with my niece or my daughter over the next eight to 10 years. And that’s a problem.