Google-Advised Disney Cartoon Aims To Convince Preschool Girls Coding's Cool

theodp writes: Cereal and fast food companies found cartoons an effective way to market to children. Google is apparently hoping to find the same, as it teams with Disney Junior on a cartoon to help solve its computer science "pipeline" problem. The LA Times reports the tech giant worked with the children's channel on the new animated preschool series Miles From Tomorrowland, in an effort to get kids — particularly girls — interested in computer science. The program, which premieres Friday, introduces the preschool crowd to Miles Callisto, a young space adventurer, and his family — big sister (and coder extraordinaire) Loretta and their scientist parents Phoebe and Leo. Google engineers served as consultants (YouTube video) on the show. "When we did our computer science research, we found the No. 2 reason why girls in particular are not pursuing it as a career is because their perception was fairly negative and they associated it as a field for boys," said Julie Ann Crommett, Google's program manager for computer science in media. Can't wait for the episode where Google and Disney conspire to suppress Loretta's wages!

Comments

Re:The reason it's thought of as a boy's field

[BarbaraHudson]

Because to be really good at programming takes an almost obsessive devotion to honing your craft at a young age, and girls are far too social to spend their summers in front of a computer in the basement.

Stereotype much? How about the programmers who only got their first access to a computer as adults? It's not like Woz or Jobs grew up with computers as kids ...

Re:Fuck Google

[popo]

The really hilarious implication here is that young boys code because society portrays coding as "cool" for boys.

Really? What society is that?

Take a peek at the adolescent reality of pimply-faced, never-gonna-get-laid young geeks and the truth becomes clear: Young males code *despite* it's complete LACK of coolness ...because they like it.

And therein lies the truth of most gender-heavy careers: The issue was not, and has never been one of innate capacity. It is one if interest. And interest breeds capacity.

Men and women LIKE different things. To argue with this point is to push ideology in front of empiricism.

Young chess aficionados spend thousands and thousands of hours watching chess games. Why? Because they like it. That's why chess grandmasters are men. And it's why there are women's chess championships. To suggest that some patriarchy is at work is laughable. But feminists insist that this is the case.

We are expected to believe that 90 pound, bespectacled chess geeks who spend their days fantasizing about even having a conversation with a female are somehow intimidating women out of the field.

In software the same dynamic exists. But feminists ignore the thousands of hours that geeky teenage boys spent along staring at CRT's, look only at the hiring patterns of large firms, and cry "patriarchy".

Re:What about the No. 1 reason?

[wierd_w]

Prior to the 1980s, the number of women working in computer science was about on par with the male demographic.

What happened, was the introduction of the home computer, which was marketed as a boy's toy. Boys were encouraged to become computer experts early, girls were de-facto conditioned to believe that computing was for boys, and the demographic diverged splendidly.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

It isn't that something biological in the female's brain makes them not as intrinsically interested in computers-- it is that culturally, we have conditioned them to stay away from computers.

Re:Fuck Google

[TheGratefulNet]

pretty much what I said in my last post.

the field is already saturated and I, as a born-and-raised american, can't find a job in the bay area (I'm also over 50, and I admit that's a big part of it) even with nearly 30 yrs of software experience.

guiding young people into the software field - for anything other than personal use (ie, not a day job that pays the bills) is doing a disservice to our own people.

companies are brutal and refuse to support people in their own local society. they only care about low-cost, above all, to the exclusion of all.

you think americans will still be hired for 'grunt software work' in 10 or 20 yrs? no way! not even h1b's will be given the work since it will be cheaper for africa (probably the next geo to take over 'cheap remote work' once india and china have had wages go 'too high') to do the work.

its very clear that the cost of living in the US will never be competitive to overseas work. and being able to think and type does NOT require you to set even one foot on US soil.

US companies will be 'mangement houses' at best, with some token low-wage support folks here, just to say we have a US presence. but all the real work will be done overseas.

want job security: do something physical. hang wallboard, do plumbing, car repair, gardening. all the stuff that you were told NOT to go into (isn't that a switch?). but physical things can't be done remotely. they won't be high paying but SOME pay is better than being out of work for months at a time, every few years (a cycle that I'm put into, by virtue of my age and being 'too experienced').

do you see wages and life balance going UP in software? I don't. and it won't change. the hey-day of being in software and living in the US is on the decline and there's only so much time left before it bottoms out entirely.