Only boys can be astronauts 🤦‍♀️

[Algarythmnmadness]

said my just turned 5 year old girl 😔

during bedtime reading a story about aliens in underpants in space.

of course I gently told her that wasn’t true, that there had been lots of girl astronauts too.

i reminded her that girls and boys can do exactly the same jobs, there is no difference.

we’ve always been like this, never defined typical roles by gender, I have twin girls, one loves dressing up & her princesses and the other loves Spidey, blaze and the monster machines, pretend drills etc

I thought at 5 years old patriarchal stereotypes wouldn’t be on her radar

off to the library tomorrow to get some more books on inspiring women 😂

Tell her the first British astronaut was actully a woman! Helen Sharman. There must be a book about her. .

Look for the book Astro Girl. My 5 year old loves it, and shared it with her class when they did a space topic. It’s a lovely little story, but also has some info on female astronauts at the back.

Obviously not a real person but we've just had this book out from the library and the mum is an Astromouse!

Oh I love that! Thank you we’ll try and find it tomorrow

Great thank you I’ll look out for it in the library x

Well OP, at least she has a good parent who can encourage her ☺️. I've told my daughter who wants to be an engineer that she should absolutely go for it.

https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/sugar-snap-studio/abc-for-me-abc-what-can-she-be/9781633226241

Look for Mae Among the Stars, a lovely picture book about a young Mae Jemison who went on to become the first African American female astronaut. She was told the same thing. You can get it on YouTube if you can't get a copy of the book

Have a look at A Mighty Girl website.
Or they have a Facebook page too.

Loads and loads and loads of books about mighty women.
Books for all ages. Some posters too.

My sons loved the Suzy Orbit book. She's great

Luna Muna books by Kellie Gerardi who is an astronaut!

(I've just watched alien tonight, though don't recommend that one for a good few years 😂)

I work with lots of engineers, anecdotally I’ve been told by lots of different people that there might only be a small number of female engineering students in each university year, but they are always in the top 10%

I’d love it if either of my girls became engineers 😀

I wonder where she got the idea from.
Does she like Lego ?
I bought a Lego spaceship a couple of days ago - the minifig character is female.

This is what is baffling me, I don’t know where she’d get that kind of idea. My DH is blaming my parents 😂 they’ve looked after them today, my mum in particular is very old fashioned about these kind of things

I believe there are currently three women astronauts on the space station.

@HollyGolightly4 - I read a review of Alien that was something like "The men don't listen to the intelligent woman, and they all die, while she survives. With her cat."

Do they like barbie? My girls loved Barbie: starlight adventure.

Look up astronaut Sunny Williams. There's a Youtube video of her giving a tour of the space station. I've watched it with DCs.

@Fromage literally the truth!

You wouldn't think so if you listen to the BBC. They wheel out Tim Peake every time and prepend "man" so he was the first British man in space.

Yeah, it wasn't a dig at him.

But that makes it 10x worse if you ask me.

Indeed baffling and sad that this an idea in her head at such a young age.

Here is another book to look out for.

https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/rachel-ignotofsky/women-in-science/9781526360519?cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=19793798311&cq_con=&cq_med=pla&cq_plac=&cq_net=x&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5cOwBhCiARIsAJ5njuY5gRKhLxmYZboKksG5nD383Ez0KLKXEPFNPP6qNBtI0Twmf3xYk84aAl6LEALw_wcB#GOR008268862

Peggy Whitson is a good one to look up too. Holds the record for the most days spent in space by a NASA astronaut at 675 days.

omg I’m ashamed of myself, I never knew she was from Sheffield, I live very close to Sheffield