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Before Barbie's Brainy Makeover, Mattel Execs Met With White House, Google
theodp writes: Mattel came under fire last November over its portrayal of Computer Engineer Barbie as incompetent. But the toymaker is now drawing kudos for its new Imagine the Possibilities Barbie ad campaign (video), which shows little girls pretending to be professionals in real-life settings, including a college professor lecturing students about the brain. Ad Age, however, is cynical of the empowering spin on Barbie, which it says "comes across as a manipulative way to silence criticism." Interestingly, some of that criticism may have come from the White House.
WH Visitor Records show that Barbie's brainy makeover came after Mattel execs — Evelyn Mazzocco, Julia Pistor, Heather Lazarus — were summoned to the White House last April to meet with the White House Council on Women and Girls. A little Googling suggests other attendees at the sit-down included representatives of the nation's leading toy makers (Disney Consumer, Nickelodeon, Hasbro, American Girl), media giants (Disney Channels, Viacom, TIME, Scholastic, Univision, Participant Media, Cartoon Network, Netflix), retailers (Walmart, Target), educators, scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Education (including the Deputy Director of Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Initiative), philanthropists (Rockefeller, Harnisch Foundations) — and Google. Representing Google was CS Education in Media Program Manager Julie Ann Crommett, who has worked with Disney to shape programming to inspire girls to pursue CS in conjunction with the search giant's $50 million Made With Code initiative.
The April White House meeting appears to be a reschedule of a planned March meeting that was to have included other Mattel execs, including Stephanie Cota, Venetia Davie, and Lori Pantel, to whom the task of apologizing for Computer Engineer Barbie fell last November. For the first time in over a decade, Barbie was no longer the most popular girls' toy last holiday season, having lost her crown to Disney Princesses Elsa and Anna, who coincidentally teamed up with Google-backed Code.org last December to "teach President Obama to code" at a widely-publicized White House event.
WH Visitor Records show that Barbie's brainy makeover came after Mattel execs — Evelyn Mazzocco, Julia Pistor, Heather Lazarus — were summoned to the White House last April to meet with the White House Council on Women and Girls. A little Googling suggests other attendees at the sit-down included representatives of the nation's leading toy makers (Disney Consumer, Nickelodeon, Hasbro, American Girl), media giants (Disney Channels, Viacom, TIME, Scholastic, Univision, Participant Media, Cartoon Network, Netflix), retailers (Walmart, Target), educators, scientists, the U.S. Dept. of Education (including the Deputy Director of Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Initiative), philanthropists (Rockefeller, Harnisch Foundations) — and Google. Representing Google was CS Education in Media Program Manager Julie Ann Crommett, who has worked with Disney to shape programming to inspire girls to pursue CS in conjunction with the search giant's $50 million Made With Code initiative.
The April White House meeting appears to be a reschedule of a planned March meeting that was to have included other Mattel execs, including Stephanie Cota, Venetia Davie, and Lori Pantel, to whom the task of apologizing for Computer Engineer Barbie fell last November. For the first time in over a decade, Barbie was no longer the most popular girls' toy last holiday season, having lost her crown to Disney Princesses Elsa and Anna, who coincidentally teamed up with Google-backed Code.org last December to "teach President Obama to code" at a widely-publicized White House event.
This has little to do with either "toys" or "Google".
Can we please have a "SJW" category that because a dumping ground for this kind of crap, plus a way of keeping it out of my feed?
Enough already!
philanthropists (Rockefeller,...)
Hahahaha!
Look, just stop.
Just let little girls and boys play using their own wild imaginations and get out of their heads with all your political posturing.
Nobody voted for your social meddling.
"Don't ask me, I'm just a girl"
Who gives a shit?
No, wait, I'm seriously asking. I don't think even SJWs would give a non-GMO, gluten-free shit about this story. So doll manufacturers had meetings with the White House and ... made a doll? What the fuck is the story here? The White House wastes their time worrying about dolls? (I'd rather they do that then give Iran nukes or completely screw over our healthcare system, personally.) I'm so confused as to what the issue is and why I should care.
I guess this is another attempt to get "women involved in coding" by making a coder doll, but, uh, that's not gonna work. Unless the doll requires writing code, the kids aren't going to give a shit what she's "supposed" to do and are instead just going to do what kids always do with dolls: take off all the clothes and then leave them lying around.
So who cares about some company making some doll to try and fool SJWs into wasting their money?
Ad Age, however, is cynical of the empowering spin on Barbie, which it says "comes across as a manipulative way to silence criticism." Interestingly, some of that criticism may have come from the White House.
Truly there is just no pleasing some people. I mean, seriously, criticizing someone because you can no longer criticize them?
"I want a pony, why aren't you giving me a pony, you guys are jerks."
"Ok, here's a pony."
"How dare you guys give me a pony, you guys are jerks."
WTF?
So Barbie goes politically correct and instantly drops in popularity, losing an unprecented 50 year crown.
Shocking. /sarcasm
I can confirm after the year from hell that there are more women coders. After the year from hell, we re-evaluate all our existing preconceptions. Women stop telling their daughters that computers are for boys. Many people take an interest in the information infrastructure, but we use it much less. Social interactions happen more within local communities and face-to-face.
Stay away from major cities beginning around 2019. CISA, TPP, TTIP, and TISA will cause a massive economic collapse in 2018. BRICS will switch away from the US dollar. There will be riots in every major city, and then come martial law and FEMA concentration camps. Finally, those of us who survive will live through the year from hell.
The walk to the gas station will be for your own good.
UNLESS
Wow. When did parents give up responsibility for raising there kids to toy manufactures?
And People Magazine bought Slashdot!
When do we get Breaking Bad Barbie?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How is this tech related? How is this news for nerds. This is feminist bullshit over a doll. A TOY DOLL.
Who gives a flying fuck about this?
Enough with the gender crap Slashdice!
So they made a Barbie out of pure white ABS plastic, plump and hairy in all the wrong places, dressed it in torn jeans, sneakers, and a stained IEEE sweater, and dusted with synthetic Dorito cheese dust, accessorized with 27 computers and a coffee maker? And the box it comes in converts into Computer Engineer Barbie's parent's basement?
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Let's face it. Engineering and science require some serious time and dedication. We are talking competing with the likes of Indians and Chinese just for starters.
Societies where females are a minority and many males have to abandon the prospects of relationships, leading towards outrageous dedication towards a job, as jobs give them the last sense of self-worth.
We are talking people here who dedicate 14 hours a day towards studies and work, and can take such self-destructive workloads better than women on account of biological/physical handicap over women.
Compare that to feminists who can't spend 6 hours a day studying and working, let alone 14; but need most of that time to spend socializing, attending their social circles and activist BS, and whining over blogs and Twitter seeking new innovative ways to interpret another way in which they are life victims due to external influence in a line of thousands.
They can't deal with this situation because whining about Indians, Chinese, and outsourcing, would brand them as racist and "anti-multiculturalist" which by itself would contradict the idea of diversity. Then again, being a feminists and spouting words like "toxic masculinity" and "sausage fest" is also homophobic, which again makes it so it doesn't surprise me that so much of the LGBT is blowing up at Feminism.
This is more proof that you misogynerds are chasing women out of tech careers. You even reject Barbie when she becomes a coder! You rapist misogynerds make everything too technical! I can program computers just fine by copying and pasting from StackOverflow. That's all there is to it! You damned cis het white privileged males are chasing women away from tech careers with your toxic microaggressions.
I forgot to mention the best part of making Star Wars figures currency - they would be bound to be counterfeited, but the fakes could not possibly be produced at a lower level of quality - so it would mean some really well built Star Wars figures at last!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What exactly is that, and how did it start? Was it BJ's personal harem where he could pluck out the various women he hunted, like Monica?
More seriously, WTF was the White House (read Obama) doing summoning Mattel execs about how they make their dolls? In the Middle East, there is ISIS run amuk, in the US, Obamacare is almost bust, and this White House has nothing better to do than micromanage the pastime of half the population? I know he's a lame duck, but if there are no hot issues that he really cares about (since he's exposed as a total loser in Foreign Policy, letting the Russians walk over him in not just Syria but Iraq as well), can't he just sit in the White House and plan his retirement, instead of telling toy companies how they should design their dolls?
...if it results in the right outcome? Of course, Mattel is in the business of making money. They responded to criticism. Isn't that what the critics wanted? What's so awful about that?
This is not about women coders, this is about BARBIE being a coder. If there was a fat, otaku woman computer programmer doll, there would be no problem. But, Barbie, is attractive, stylish, cool, and hip. You can have teacher Barbie, cheerleader barbie, actor barbie, lawyer barbie, sales rep barbie, nurse (a skilled profession with good pay) barbie. But, oil field barbie? Coal Miner barbie? Special Operations agent in Afghanistan Barbie? I don't think so. I don't know much about Ken, I don't think he'd be doing those jobs either.
In short, Barbie should stay Barbie.
As soon as they hit puberty and discover what a pair of tits will do to a guy, they'll give up this nonsense of wanting to be a programmer or scientist. They can get what they want with the tits.
"They are stupid, but they sure are fun" will never leave, nor should it,
the mindset of the world's male community...
We gotta get you a Women
-Todd Rundgren
CAP === 'avenue'
Try to imagine if this many captains of industry and government leaders sat down and tackled a substantive issue of importance to society!
It is a matter of historical record that a core element of leftist ideology is that "everything is political"; which is why there are various forms of political police in most leftists states - this is where the term "political correctness" comes from. In such states, like the old Soviet Union, the public rapidly learns that there is "actual truth" and "political truth" which while actually untrue must be publicly uttered to avoid being politically persecuted. It becomes a crime to utter an actual truth that is contrary to the ideology of the government. The whole reason we must prefix the term correct with "politically" is precisely because it is not in fact correct. If it was correct, then the prefix would not be needed.
In traditional America where freedom and liberty were the goals, the President and the White House had no role in the creation of toys by a company in the private sector - in fact the Constitution gives the Federal Government very little authority over anything within the borders of the country.
In modern "fundamentally transformed" leftist America, the details of the latest Barbie Doll are the concern of the President and his political officers.
Pick your future, America, and then live with it. You deserve whatever crap you choose, but sadly your descendants are stuck with it.