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"Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer" Pulled From Amazon
New submitter clcto writes Back in 2010, Computer Engineer Barbie was released. Now, with the attention brought to the Frozen themed programming game from Disney and Code.org, unwanted attention has been given to the surprisingly real book "Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer". So much so, that Mattel has pulled the book from Amazon. The book shows Barbie attempting to write a computer game. However, instead of writing the code, she enlists two boys to write the code as she just does the design. She then proceeds to infect her computer and her sister's computer with a virus and must enlist the boys to fix that for her as well. In the end she takes all the credit, and proclaims "I guess I can be a computer engineer!" A blog post commenting on the book (as well as giving pictures of the book and its text) has been moved to Gizmodo due to high demand.
Barbie is a manager. Coding is for suckers.
Perspective.
Need Mercedes parts ?
I know people with young daughters (like, under 5).
Dora tells little girls they can do anything they want to, and grow up to do cool things. Barbie teaches women to be stereotypes, dumb blondes, and how to fake your way through life.
So, for birthday gifts, we give chemistry lab play sets, National Geographic books on space and dinosaurs, and actual educational stuff.
It's fun to see a four year old excited about a book on space.
If Barbie can't be a good role model after 50 years or so, just don't buy it.
There's so many good toys out there for kids that unless the child is asking for Barbie, you can skip it altogether.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Which means she is a Project Manager.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
More like Barbie Business Analyst: "Hey guys, I don't know anything about business or technology, but if I invite 20 business people and programmers to a meeting, then I can type what they say into a horribly formatted Word document (that the programmers will fix for me later) and collect $125/hr".
Tell that to Ada Lovelace.
Julia Cameron
Oich ù agus hiùraibh éile
Tragically, I am forced into the disgrace of responding to my own post: "Two wrongs don't make a right.".
For the ironically-challenged, I found it somewhat funny/sad that in a thread nominally about stereotypes and the inappropriateness of judging people by their race, gender, et al, someone would refer to the wrongdoers specifically by their *race and gender*.
A.
(note to the angry responders: sorry, I have little time for the 'professionally offended', who assume the worst and then get all hot and bothered over their own error)
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998