Girl Scouts Add Video Game Dev Badge To Encourage More Female Techies

The realm of propaganda meant to recruit women into scientific or technological fields is often embarassingly off the mark. It’s kind of remarkable that, amidst all this, not too many organizations think ton place young girls in environments where they actually interact with technology and the people who work in it. (Harder than throwing money at the problem and creating shitty campaigns, I guess.)

Last August, the Girl Scouts of Louisiana partnered up with the Geek Squad to send 200 girls from 10 to 14 years old to a two-day technology academy that focused mainly on practical computer use. Even cooler, now the Girl Scouts of Los Angeles, working in conjunction with Women In Games International, are working together to create a video game developer badge, reports Business International.

It’s common knowledge that the field of technology (video games, notably) are dominated by men, and any attempts to subvert—or even just balance—this environment will invariably end in hostilty and exile (See: Richards, Adria; also the existence of booth babes). It would go a long way to remedy this if we made these programs accessible to all grammar-school girls, whether they’re in Girl Scouts or not.