Ultimately, it's down to every parent how they want to raise their kids, but it's everybody's duty to try and educate them on keeping an open mind. Because an unprejudiced parent will raise their children in a similar manner, and that's the kind of people we want to have around us.
But this is a delicate subject to bring up. Parents are particularly touchy and don't like to be told that what they're doing might not be ideal for the little one, so one will need to be very careful with how they go about this topic.
Society told us that baby girls should wear pink and baby boys blue; girls need to play with dolls and boys with toy cars; girls must have long hair, and boys should cut theirs short; the boys will play football, while girls will provide the cheering on the side of the field. The roles are very clearly separated, and the path had been drawn out even before birth.
Driving makes no exception. Sure, you get a lot more woman drivers these days than a few decades ago, but some stereotypes still persist. For instance, a lot of men (and women) will agree that women can't park. They also believe that women should drive a certain type of cars - either small ones, reducing the risk of bumping into things, or large ones (SUVs) to keep them safe when they bump into things.
Sports cars? Forget about it. That's exactly why when a girl driving a tuned 500 hp Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution pops up on the Internet, she instantly becomes a news-worthy subject. It's something unexpected, and people flock to see it just like they did at freak shows back in the day.
Audi has had enough of that. The German brand created a three-minute long clip that tries to convey the idea that driving, just like playing, should not be gender-based in any way. The most significant sequence is when the Barbie-like main character (it's actually Nicole) refuses to get into the passenger seat, taking up the wheel instead, but the whole clip is full of gender stereotype-busting scenes.
The idea is we shouldn't create stereotypes when there's no need to, and we should never limit the imagination of our children based on our own conceptions of the world. And if a boy wants to play with an Audi R8 toy car and a pink-wearing princess, then so be it.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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