While Santa receives much of the credit for bringing toys to the children of the world at Christmas, did you know that Mrs Claus is the North Pole’s leading engineer building the toys?
When you think about it, not much is said about Mrs Claus when Christmas comes around each year, with her being mostly referenced as an emotional support figure to Santa and all the toy-making elves.
In fact, rather sadly, it seems that many kids don’t think that Mrs Claus would be up to the world’s most demanding job simply because she is a woman.
In a video created by Anomaly, who was behind the #MoreWomen campaign, a number of children were asked whether a woman could do Santa’s jobs, with many of the kids’ answers including: “She would just get lost in the sky” as well as “If she had a baby, she would be doing the presents, taking care of the baby, giving it milk”.
And yet, sorry to break it to you kids, but Mrs Claus does a hell of a lot more than that.
In a letter sent to mother and founder of Code Like A Girl, Dinah Davis, and her seven-year-old daughter, Mrs Claus’ real role in the North Pole is revealed, with her holding the position of ‘chief imagination consultant’, which sees her being the key engineer designing the toys for the kids of the world.
An excerpt from Dinah Davis’ letter via Dinah Davis/Medium
‘Got her excited about becoming an engineer’
In her post to Medium, Davis said that after her daughter ripped open the letter, she was amazed to find it said: “Mrs Claus asked me to say ‘Hi’. She’s busy in the workshop fixing our toy-making machine. She has a degree in engineering from the North Pole University, so we rely on her when things act up.”
Rather heart-warmingly, it seems that the little girl’s dream is to one day be a toy engineer, just like Mrs Claus, and before going to bed she said to her mother that when she grows up she wants to write to Santa to ask for a job as one of Mrs Claus’ team of engineers.
“This letter got her excited about becoming an engineer,” Davis said in her post. “It is exactly this type of thing that more girls need to see and hear often when they are growing up. They need role models. They need to see that STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) jobs are the kinds of jobs they can do.”
If that doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy this Christmas, we don’t know what will!
Women Invent is Silicon Republic’s campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. It has been running since March 2013, and is kindly supported by Intel, Open Eir (formerly Eircom Wholesale), Fidelity Investments, Accenture and CoderDojo.
Mrs Claus with Santa image via Mike Krzesczak/Flickr
