<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" The last few years have been humbling for the male sex. Of all the jobs shed in the U.S. during the Great Recession, three quarters were held by men. Women, possessed of the social intelligence and communications skills key to flourishing in the postindustrial economy, now dominate 13 of the 15 job sectors expected to grow the most over the next 10 years (fear not: we&amp;#039;ve locked down janitorial). Girls have been so tidily demolishing their male counterparts in school that, according to one study, teachers are actually starting to actively to turn on boys. Women have their own Woody Allen, and they won Hunger Games. They&amp;#039;re even getting really into guns. And now there&amp;#039;s this: The Heartbreaker, a Nerf bow and arrow for girls. Debuting this fall, the item will be the first in a line of Nerf weapons tailored to girls and released under the name &amp;quot;Rebelle&amp;quot;\u2014not to be confused with the film of the same name about a seemingly invincible female child soldier in Africa (since retitled War Witch). Nerf has taken some mild flack for gender stereotyping over the Heartbreaker\u2014it is pink, after all\u2014but upon further inspection, we&amp;#039;ve determined women should be delighted by it, on the whole. This is, simply put, a superior piece of weaponry. Boasting all the power of the boys&amp;#039; version, the Heartbreaker comes equipped with an app that &amp;quot;encourages teamwork and strategy&amp;quot; and allows girls to shoot photos and video, presumably so they can chronicle their methodical, raptorlike encirclement and eradication of male rivals. Male rivals who are likely using these, which\u2014though cool enough\u2014don&amp;#039;t exactly scream &amp;quot;I have the social intelligence and communication skills to prosper in the modern postindustrial economy.&amp;quot; Therein lies the bitter truth. Prior to Rebelle, when a company wanted to sell girls a toy traditionally associated with boys, it was a simple: make it pink. As Barry Kudrowitz, a toy design specialist teaching at the University of Minnesota, put it in an email, &amp;quot;This toy was designed to get girls excited about engineering, but it&amp;#039;s still pink and the creation involves dolls, and when Lego wanted to appeal to more girls, they made it pink and added dolls. It seems like in order to sell to girls, it has to be pink and be connected to dolls or role playing.&amp;quot; But Rebelle breaks from the cycle of mindless patronization, turning an ostensibly male product into a female one by making it smarter, more sophisticated and ultimately more effective. The best we can hope for now is that it never occurs to girls to start taping thumbtacks to the tips of their Nerf arrows, like we once did as rotten children, come after us and post the humiliating footage they shot on YouTube. [VIA NBCNews.com] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a19896/toys-for-girls/?click=news>