Slashdot Mirror
Mattel Sells Out Of 'Game Developer Barbie' (cnet.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger writes:
The Mattel people have released a new Barbie doll figurine touted as Game Developer Barbie. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, she was apparently designed by a game developer.
It's already sold out on Mattel's web site, with CNET saying it provides a better role model than a 2014 book In which "computer engineer" Barbie designed a cute game about puppies, then admitted "I'll need Steven's and Brian's help to turn it into a real game," before her laptop crashed with a virus. Mattel says that with this new doll, "young techies can play out the creative fun of this exciting profession," and the doll even comes with a laptop showing an IDE on the screen. Sandbagger's original submission ended with a question. Do Slashdot readers think this will inspire a new generation of programmers to stay up late writing code?
It's already sold out on Mattel's web site, with CNET saying it provides a better role model than a 2014 book In which "computer engineer" Barbie designed a cute game about puppies, then admitted "I'll need Steven's and Brian's help to turn it into a real game," before her laptop crashed with a virus. Mattel says that with this new doll, "young techies can play out the creative fun of this exciting profession," and the doll even comes with a laptop showing an IDE on the screen. Sandbagger's original submission ended with a question. Do Slashdot readers think this will inspire a new generation of programmers to stay up late writing code?
Link is article is borked I think...
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Is it just me, or is the main link (the one actually referencing Game Developer Barbie) just an anchor tag without an href...?
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Does this doll represent a "female game developer" in the sense of a woman who likes math and computer programming, who studied computer science at a real university, who works on commercially-successful games selling millions of units, and who because of her abilities and experience is respected by her fellow game developers, both men and women alike?
Or does this doll represent a "female game developer" who was born a man, suffered from severe identity issues and gender confusion, started calling himself a "woman" despite having a penis, studied game development by reading a book about JavaScript, works at a grocery store, and launches one angry tirade after another on Twitter attacking alleged "racists", "misogynists", and "homophobes"?
I ask because these days the concept of a "female game developer" is, sadly, more commonly associated with the second sort of person than the first. It's shameful how the great accomplishments of real female game developers are overshadowed by a few loudmouths on Twitter.
<a>new Barbie doll figurine touted as Game Developer Barbie</a>
Good job, EditorDavid ! Was it supposed to be submitter's link to sfgate ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Because a regular barbie cannot represent a game designer, or can it?
Stop being so stupid. It's all about the fantasy. Even a stick man cut out of paper can be a game developer role model, if the child likes to play this game.
If this is the most attractive game is a whole other question. If you look at the game development sector you're not even sure, if you would encourage somebody to get a game developer. Respect to the ones, which are, but that does not mean i would want to push my child in that direction.
Does game developer Barbie shudder every time a male colleague walks behind her?
This is almost a step in the right direction, but this doesn't go nearly far enough to teach young girls that only white people can be racist. There is always something to complain about in SJW-land! Everything is always your fault, doubly so if you're white! Quadruply so if you're a white male! FEEL GUILTY, GOD-DAMN IT!
Which reminds me- how dare you all assume this Barbie is a girl! If you use the wrong pronouns on him/her/it/shmim/shmer/shmit, you might seriously damage his/hers/its/shmis/shmers/shmits incredibly fragile SJW psyche! Make sure when your daughter/schmaughter learns how to properly feel like walking on eggshells when talking to the doll to properly emulate healthy real-world interpersonal relationships. You might want to buy the official "Barbie Safe Space" where the doll can be placed to avoid hearing opposing viewpoints, and be sure to get the closest thing to a proper life partner currently available for sale for Barbie, "Fully-Emasculated Feminist Ken!"
#triggered #preferredpronouns #checkyourfuckingprivilegeyouwhitescum
Why?
Other than someone says 'we need more women in STEM', why do we ACTUALLY NEED more women in STEM?
Put your SJW bullshit aside and actually in a objective and factual way describe to me why we NEED more women in STEM.
WOMEN DON'T FUCKING LIKE STEM STOP TRYING TO IMPLY YOU KNOW WHAT THEY NEED TO DO AND FUCK OFF. Women are more than capable of taking over any industry that want to take over, its happened countless times and there are large swaths of women dominated professions.
We need more women garbage men too, but you aren't fucking whining about that are you? More women in STEM is not going to get you laid or fix your social issues that prevent you from getting a date.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Fuck off.
If it was african then it wouldn't represent latinos, asians and other shades of brown.
It can't be every color so just fuck off with your whining bullshit about how it doesn't fit every personal agenda you have.
To put it bluntly, by posting your comment you've shown that YOU ARE A RACIST FUCK because you picked one race that YOU think deserves it and ignored all the others. You try so hard to hide the fact that you're a racist asshole that it shines through like the sun. Hint: Racism comes from every race, especially the assholes who think you have to be white to be racist.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
"Do Slashdot readers think this will inspire a new generation of programmers to stay up late writing code?"
Depends on the girl. Example, some of my daughter's kindergarten girl classmates like Barbie, My Little Pony, and similar figures so they can do "girly" stuff like brush the hair and such. My daughter likes My Little Pony but re-enacts the adventures of what she saw on the TV show and me reading the comic books to her. I asked her why she doesn't like Barbie dolls? She said it was boring.
Now if Game Dev Barbie came with an actual programming environment that kids can install in their computers, and start creating a mini game, then "Yes, this will inspire to code and dev.". However, if it is just another Barbie doll with plastic accessories, then "Nope.".
While writing this, it reminded me of this SNL skit: https://youtu.be/1Se8PVZdfPg
We need the indie developer ken, complete with bangs, thick glasses, shallow beard and a face that you must to your best to not punch your screen, complete with a starbucks coffee cup and a mac.
Good. We need more women in STEM.
I don't think so. See, most women are smart enough not to get into professions that are frequently and increasing offshored to cheap labor countries. They're smart enough to get into professions where there are sill plenty of opportunities when you get over 35 years old - Life may begin at 50 elsewhere, but in the tech biz the only thing certain about middle age is unemployment..
I see plenty of women in law, medicine, dentistry, and veterinary - they seem to be over taking men in those professions, too.
Are female programmers the only women who wear jeans and t-shirts? That is what makes a person a programmer?
First off, we need to realize that not all that many men are into programming. Long hours, so-so pay, especially considering the hours. And zero social prospects. A real niche group.
I can see the stories now.......
Barbie eats cold pizza at 2 in the morning while trying to clean up some code for Friday's big rollout.
Barbie gets told to do duty at the IT help desk because "You know computers and stuff, right?!"
Barbie gets to wear her blue jeans and shirt at work the couple weeks she would have been at the beach because her vacation was cancelled so she can clean up some shitty code that the guy who up and quit left, and they gotta meet Friday's deadline.
This is not a field for many people - male or female. Finally, are young females so shallow that a little plastic doll's clothing can determine their choice of careers?
If so, that is what needs worked on, not putting a plastic doll in a t-shirt and bluejeans.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
This is just more of the "diversity" bullshit.
Hiring women gets you nothing. Hiring minorities gets you nothing, Hiring skilled and well qualified PEOPLE will make your company better. Demanding the hiring of more women, more minorities, etc. is nothing more than judging people by their race and gender, which is what we're supposedly trying to get away from.
Actually, this is beyond stupid. Plastic toys can't program. This toy is a lie. A toy never played with is not a toy at all** (Kevn Kinney)
The link's broken. People have pointed it out already but if we spam the top level comments repeating it, it might just get fixed.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Are young girls buying them to play out their fantasies of becoming a game developer or are guys buying them to play out their fantasies of meeting a smoking-hot female game developer? I ask because most of the women I know who are into game development aren't into playing with Barbie dolls. They're usually tom-boy types. Not that that's a bad thing. (I prefer women that way, quite frankly). And one could argue that Game Developer Barbie's skin isn't nearly pasty enough. ;-)
I'll take a shot at this from an economics point of view... The number of cretins claiming there are not enough domestic tech workers is legion (e.g., Ellison, Zuckerberg), and these cretins are spending money hand over fist buying up politicians who want to increase H1-B visas. I don't wish to turn this into an H1-B discussion, but the Cliff's Notes version is: more H1-B visas = downward pressure on tech wages, as Sanjay in Hyderabad does your job for pennies on the dollar. If you increase the domestic supply of tech talent, then you'll undercut a key argument for increasing H1-B's. You may still end up see some wage headwinds but not nearly as much as if foreign workers flood the U.S. market place.
Off the top of my head, I'd say it's because it's better for the industry and the field of study.
It's fundamentally better for the industry and profession as a whole. For a field that tends to pride itself upon its egalitarian ethos and the importance of logic, the idea that an irrelevant criteria (in this discussion, gender) is so wildly over-represented is wildly hypocritical.
You accurately noted that there is a wildly disproportionate representation of men amongst garbage collectors and yet that doesn't bother me in the least. That's not because it's unglamorous or because I think it's beneath my notice, but rather because I don't think that physical act of garbage collection will be improved through fresh insight, voices, or perspectives.
I will admit that I would like for there to be at least a few women in garbage collection, just as an indicator that, "No, seriously, 50% of the population can actually choose to do whatever work they damn well please, just like the other 50%," but that does not improve garbage collection itself, just society as a whole. Since it isn't improving the actual practice of garbage collection, let's set that aside as "SJW bullshit", shall we? I can accept that.
I absolutely do think that the logistics of how to handle garbage collection on a city- or region-wide level is a field that can benefit from fresh insight and voices. I know nothing about the sanitation services management industry, but I strongly suspect that it's run by old white men. Rather than gender being the issue, in this case, I'd be more concerned about class, race, and representative makeup of the public being served.
That's why your counterpoint is in no way related to the topic of hand.
Perhaps it would be more inspiring if the doll was itself programmable? They'd learn a lot more with a Barbie that they programmed to talk or move!
As a software developer (15 years) it amazes me how certain people are pushing women to become devs. It's a dead-end job that's about as rewarding as stabbing yourself in the head. Any woman with any sense will steer well clear of it.
I thought you'd need a pocket knife to whittle off the breasts considering what Ken dolls look like.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Whether something sells out depends partly on how many you made in the first place. In other words, the fact that this "sold out" is not useful information, and is an advertising trick. It's just that in this case the advertising trick is selling politics as well as dolls.
Dumbasses, the absurd schedules that male developers allow themselves to be subjected to are the #1 reason there are relatively few females in the profession. Moms, generally, need 9-5 jobs. If you want there to be more females in the profession then you need to stop allowing your management to treat you like a wage slave.
Oh, but that might be hard and uncomfortable while being a social justice worrier is easy to feign online.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"WOMEN DON'T FUCKING LIKE STEM STOP TRYING TO IMPLY YOU KNOW WHAT THEY NEED TO DO AND FUCK OF"
The 1950s called, they were looking for more archaic closed-minded dumbfucks... I'd be happy to provide a reference for you.
I work in education (teaching robotics and programming after working in the industry for 20 yrs). I
have girls/young women in my classes, don't fucking tell me girls/women don't like STEM you total fucking moron. Girls are some of the better ones in my class.
It's asshats like you that I have to contend with in getting more young women interested, and people like this.
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Starting with of course and actual titled Lady Ada Countess of Lovelace
then we have Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (was part of the team that wrote COBOL and had to retire 3 times before it stuck)
Then we have the legions of Telephone Operators and "Calculators"
We could go on but i will end with the comment that a lot of Programmers would do good to have somebody serving as "Team Mother".
Fuck you, you sexist asswipe.
It is out of fear for the dickless wonders like you that more women aren't in STEM.
Whooosh much? If you had bothered to read the entire post before commenting with froth around your mouth, you might have discovered that it was irony and ridiculing STEM males. Others managed to catch that.
Women have also faced sexism in medicine, the legal progression, accountancy and many other fields but seem to be thriving. What makes the STEM assholes more terrifying than those in other professions?
if you would take better care of yourself and get even close to pulling off the Chippendale look you might inspire a few ladies to do some office party dancing.
Unboxing of Game Developer Barbie annotated with overly-smarmy commentary.
I wonder how 'HR Dragon Barbie' would go over?
I know there's a bit of a stereotype of nerdygirls being redheads (either natural or dyed), but I'm bit surprised the doll is a redhead. Mattel says redheaded Barbies don't sell well. They actually do very few good redheads and most of those being lighter reds and strawberry blondes.
If I already have all the money, and all the men are already heeding my wishes and obeying my commands, where is there left to go?
The answer is, get the women into the workforce, where I can exploit them as well.
Do you get it now?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
It is out of fear for the dickless wonders like you that more women aren't in STEM.
But it is not due to people like him that people like you are so bad at recognizing sarcasm.
Ezekiel 23:20
Because a demographically diverse group is going to bring a greater range of ideas and perspectives to the table.
And an educationally diverse group is going to bring an even greater range of ideas and perspectives to the table. That really sounds like an argument for experimenting with high school and college curricula and educational techniques than anything else.
Ezekiel 23:20
Cliff's Notes version is: more H1-B visas = downward pressure on tech wages, as Sanjay in Hyderabad does your job for pennies on the dollar
I see this a lot, and it's deeply stupid even by /. standards (and racist besides). Even the very dim should be able to understand that if Sanjay is in Hyderabad then he's not in the fucking US on a visa, is he? Offering Sanjay an H1-B means he now has to pay to live in the US, and he now makes a higher wage and removes some downward wage pressure. Sanjay of course is no dummy, so he's going to get a Green Card as fast as he possibly can, at which point he just another American tech worker, same as anyone else.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Life. (Bonus: this link actually works!)
USENET. (Hacker Barbie's Dream Basement Apartment. "To me, the most realistic thing is how if you put in her in the chair in front of the monitor, she'll stare at it for hours without blinking or taking her hands off the keyboard.")
Well if we're playing with assumptions on anecdotes...
I went to two majority-female universities over the course of seven years in the 90s for several pieces of paper. In my STEM courses, females were a huge minority. Of the students in my courses, they often were among the top scorers.
MY observations were that the majority of the women I talked to on campus has no interest in STEM stuff. A decent amount of the men that were in my courses were in it because they were expected to have went into it, or thought it would be a well paying job. The majority of the women in my courses were in it because they enjoyed the field and felt they had talent in it.
My conclusion would be that the girls in STEM wanted to be there, were driven to succeed in there, and it showed. Some of the guys just 'expected' to pull out 'a pass' and it also showed. The women that couldn't hack it dropped out, and the men that couldn't hack it stayed until they failed out. End result: the women in the courses placed rather well, but in no way meant that the majority of women 'secretly want to be in STEM and we are losing top engineers/coders because of it'. I've no doubt that there are some women who would have flourished had they chosen a different major, but I looked it as more that 'too many men thought they could take a piece of the 'new rising field''.
Still a few copies left of Barbie Proctologist!
Don't worry about them. Some idiots just can't figure out humor, and have to let their pet peeve control their lives.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Because more men around leads to a frat house mentality at work, that's why. It's nice to have mature and professional people at work for a change.
I wouldn't call it condescending, nor a waste of time (any more than any other Barbie is), but it certainly isn't going to (nor should it) influence someone's choice in careers. When it comes to more [insert class identity] in STEM, I don't care - the people that want to do it should do it, the ones that don't shouldn't listen to the people trying to "empower" them into doing something they are not interested in.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Don't be so disgusted. It was obviously making fun of the somewhat obliviously sexist OP.
Did we all forget that it is misogynist?
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/b...
Kriston
Thanks. Just logged in and saw IGW's mindless drivel. You beat me to the punch. IGW - Before you and your fuckin' idiot ilk spew shit out of that sewer of your mouth about racism, ask yourself whether you actually know what the fuck you're talking about.
I wonder if they will sell boxed set of Barbie The Game Designer together with Ken the Reviewer (and few small, hairy Internet Trolls), so little girls can roleplay entire Gamergate...
The problem; is your experience with women "seeking revenge" is from the perspective that you personally haven't denigrated women.
Women regularly get denigrated, maybe not by you, but as your example with your grandmother illustrates, there are people out there that denigrate women in everything.
Some of them do it just by looking at their boobs the entire time they talk, some of them do it by only ever asking the woman to get them a coffee.
All women have experienced it, some of them don't notice. Some of them appreciate the differential in attention, but that doesn't excuse it.
Sure, you aren't oppressing them yourself, but you have to remember that their life experience is being denigrated and oppressed. Don't be surprised that they all act like you are about to jump down their throats. (Chances are pretty good that you would).
Its not really an excuse, but until you have lived constant and unrelenting 'isms (racism, sexism whatever) I'm not sure you can really attack them for expecting that response (and acting just a little more hostile as a defense mechanism). Remember, we taught them to behave like this.
Hiring women gets you nothing. Hiring minorities gets you nothing, Hiring skilled and well qualified PEOPLE will make your company better. Demanding the hiring of more women, more minorities, etc. is nothing more than judging people by their race and gender, which is what we're supposedly trying to get away from.
There certainly is such a thing as "reverse racism/sexism/...", in the sense that people may cover up the racism host within by overcompensating in their actions and rhetoric, and one may suspect some of the more absurd manifestations of "anti-racism" fall into that category. However, that does not mean that there is no argument for addressing the imbalances and unfairnesses that still occur in society. If particular segments of the population are significantly less well represented in certain professions, then it is worth finding out why, and possibly addressing in some way; it may even make sense to use some form of positive discrimination, although I think it is too often used without actually thinking about the issues involved. It would probably be much better for the state to invest in better education for whichever group is under-represented, since that would help break the vicious cycle of poverty -> poor education -> poverty ...
Course, the problem there is when "skilled and well qualified people" = someone like me, which is often white men. It isn't always intentional, but it has been shown that such biases happen.
About 95% of the engineers I've worked with for the past 10 years have been recent immigrants - on a visa or green card. None of them were "outsourced", that's just what a West Coast software developer looks like. What I say is based on experience. What you just said seems to be based only on hate.
The various visas allow the same guy to do the work here, with the same costs I have, instead of someplace far cheaper. That's a good thing: for me, and for the other guy too, who deserves a job just as much as I do.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You don't get it. NO ONE is telling you to hire non-skilled or non-well-qualified professionals, there is nothing inherently less skilled/qualified about being a woman or a minority. Let me repeat: there is nothing inherently less skilled/qualified about being a woman or a minority.
What diversity programs do is not "judging people by their race and gender", but instead showing statistic significant biases in hiring processes where people are being excluded from consideration for irrelevant reasons not related to their skill or qualification. No one is demanding that you hire only women or only minorities, but that instead you stop excluding those from your hire pool.
And if you argue that you always hires the best person for the job, but your workforce greatly differ from the gender/ethnicity/etc distribution of your local population and/or graduates, then you are both bad at hiring and bad at statistics.
You do not hear short, white men crying about the injustice of not being represented in the National Basketball Association
True - but then I don't hear anything about the NBA; I guess it is a strictly American phenomenon. However, this is not even about the hurt feelings or psychological traumas suffered by those suffering unjust discrimination; it is about good, common sense: if we need more, highly skilled people, how does it make sense to exclude certain groups of people from making a valuable contribution? Not long ago it was common to expect wives to stay home, rather then have a job; was it very clever for a family to choose to have a significantly lower income, just because of - what? Men's prejudice against working women or something? Letting everybody contribute to the best of their abilities is simple, common sense. It also happens to be fairer and better in so many other ways; I don't hope this fact in itself counts against.
Does that make a significant difference? I remember all sorts of sexism such as female doctors were assumed to be nurses because "women couldn't be doctors" but that didn't stop women from thriving in other fields. What makes STEM different?
That is nearly the most retarded post I have ever seen. Keep working hard and someday you will hold the title.
You've never worked with more than four women at the same place have you?
That's because all the men were at war.
What the fuck are you rambling about?
Nobody in the STEM fields is excluding any minority group, they are tripping over themselves to hire them.
Housewives, now you have this one all sorts of wrong. There were many reasons why women chose to be housewives, not forced like many people are certain of.
* Birth control was unheard of, so if you wanted to fuck then you were going to be popping out kids. This was not conducive to keeping and advancing in any job, still isn't today, and shouldn't be.
* Child care is fucking expensive. Then and today, child care would cost nearly as much as one parent can make, and often more.
* It was a better deal. Being a housewife involved far less manual labor than most jobs, as well as a vastly lower injury and death rate. After the first couple of kids started nearing ten years old the housewife's amount of work started to plummet because the kids were helping with most things, including caring for the other children.
Bullshit, the entire point of diversity programs is to impose a preference for one gender or race over another. That explicitly requires hiring someone of the favored gender or race over another even if they are less qualified. In the current situation in technology that means hiring women and other minorities, but primarily women, no matter how low there qualifications because there are so few of them in the pool to hire from.
Why is nobody buying L337 H@XX0r G.I.Joe®? Or Constantly contractor Sally©? Or for the minorities of Indian decent, there is always Blue Badge Barbie®.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.