Half of Hope leadership are women: Is LEGO listening?

Dubai - A few years later, not just me, but all the boys and girls learnt that they could enroll in STEM-related courses and make both a career out of it and contribute towards the field as well.

The most common question in general knowledge books in the classroom, and even later at young adult quiz nights, was to name the first man who went to space. It was Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Just two years later, in 1963 Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel to space. However, for the longest, I waited for the question to appear in the books or pop up at quizzes. Valentina was my hero, heroine, if you must, just as much Yuri was. I never wanted to grow up to be an astronaut or do anything to do with studying space, either. I was, of course, as a young girl, fascinated by how one could send space crafts and humans (and dog: Laika in 1957) to a land, which had so far existed only in my science book in the chapter titled The Solar System.

I started to watch movies, which took me to various planets and was fascinated by the work the men and women did on ground and beyond to pave way for information gathering, future developments, and more. I even waited, patiently and optimistically, for the day when Mattel, the brand making the Barbie, would launch an astronaut Barbie, and I get that for my birthday. The version came out in 2013, by which time I’d outgrown playing with dolls and had developed some ideas when it came to female stereotypes. A few years later, not just me, but all the boys and girls learnt that they could enroll in STEM-related courses and make both a career out of it and contribute towards the field as well.