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Barbie’s new career? Computer Engineer Barbie, complete with a “binary code” adorned t-shirt. Because many, many computer scientists (especially female ones) wear such ardent, career-loving attire.
Sheesh.
After a worldwide vote, (by a lot of many grown, adult women) Computer Engineer Barbie debuted her newest profession this year. Poll research shows that the majority of older women voted Engineer Barbie to be this year’s latest model, while the majority of younger, Barbie-playing girls voted for Anchorwoman Barbie because she was “girlier.” Mattel obliged to both requests and released both new Barbies this year, so I guess there was no real point in the vote, anyway.
Barbie has been no stranger to fame and climbing the corporate ladder — although she was originally designed as a fashion model prototype, the need to succeed quickly filled her plastic little heart and by the sixties, Barbie was a corporate exec. Clearly, there’s nothing this woman can’t do.
I guess the question at hand here is, “What do children want out of their Barbie dolls?” The answer is apparently gentile, girly-ness and being a little girl at one point in my life, I can understand. While a lot of young girls are gung-ho about playing in the mud (I was, too) and dissecting worms (uh, guilty as charged), there are still an overwhelming amount of little girls tromping around in their fashionista-mother’s high heels, wanting to change the world through beauty.
And you know what? In either case, I don’t care. If little girls want their Barbie dolls girly, so be it. If a different little girl would rather play with G.I. Joes (do they still make those?) than the frilly, pink Birthday-Accolade Barbie, have at it.
“Studies” like this have no validity, I’m afraid. Judging what some little girls want as opposed to what older women want is just a moot point. These little girls are going to grow up to eventually be women, anyway, and what they’re into at that point — and every other point in their lives, prior or later — is their choice and no amount of picketing for “Barbie’s Next Big Career” is going to change that.
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The colors are a little bright but the design is pretty spot on. I know a lot of software engineers because I’m married to one and I think they all own at least one super nerdy shirt, ladies included. It’s contagious, I’m sitting here wearing my “I <3 my geek" shirt as I type and I have other shirts featuring binary and molecules and other miscellaneous things that make random people stare at my chest for minutes at a time trying to figure them out.
I would totally wear that shirt. My husband is a software engineer also. He’d love it!
I love math nerd shirts myself (such as the Holy shift! Look at the asymptote on that mother function! shirt) but have yet to buy one.
thinkgeek.com. Go, replace your wardrobe at once ;-)
I don’t have any money :*( way to depress me with all the shirts I sqeee’d at, not to mention the space invaders cutting board
oooh, I’ve already spent too much at that site. They have so many cool toys I like to ogle and remind myself that I don’t need. Damn expensive Canadian shipping.
If she were Indian, based in Hyderabad and named Rajanigandha, it would all be more true to life…
Agree 100% with the last paragraph… As a girl I played both with barbies and construction blocks, I had play dates with other girls and I had fights with boys and I have turned out… normal.
I only wish her glasses weren’t pink, but I guess that’s the corporate colour!
“What do children want out of their Barbie dolls?” The answer is apparently gentile, girly-ness. . . ”
So no Jewish Barbies?
I think you meant “genteel”.
LOL! I definitely meant “genteel.” Good catch … I’m going to be laughing about this one for the rest of the night!
I LOLed when I read it : )
It caught me by surprise when I read that as well, but then I thought about Barbie, and she is quite ‘gentile’, no (so I figured that you actually meant it)?
Does progressive female = nerd?
I think the progressiveness refers not to the computers, but to her wide variety of professions in all areas.
In some ways, sure. It’s been about 10 years since I was in college but back then most degree programs were reasonably balanced including math, physics, medicine, and other traditionally male dominated fields and there were several guys in the womens studies class I took as part of my degree. The only department that had a serious imbalance was the computer science department. My hubby’s year and the year above both had one token chick in the honors program.
Even now it’s a very male dominated field, I’d say about 10% of his co-workers are female. A large part of that is due to culture and expectations, women are less likely to work the long and insane hours. His best work friend is 14 years older than him but at a lower level and is paid less because she’s out of the office by 4:30 each day to pick her kids up from after school care. If you’re going to work a 40 hour week and ignore work over the weekend you’re not going to get far in that industry.
I think aptitude is also a relevant consideration. The extreme systemizing brain that excels in computer science, and programming especially, is not common in the population. People without the natural tendency can sometimes make it in the industry, but have to try insanely more, and are less likely to find it a natural fit.
Viewed as a whole, women tend more to the other side of the scale than men. If one in twenty men was a systemizing logician primed for compsci, it’s probably one in forty women that has the same aptitude.
I believe strongly that any barriers preventing those women from getting in should be removed, but there’s nothing wrong with an industry reflecting the natural distribution of men and women in aptitude for a specific way of thinking, and interest in a type of job.
That too. I did one basic course in college because I needed a few extra credits in second year. It was really simple stuff like word processing, making web pages using a drag and drop type program, and other basics. The first class was how to use a mouse and seven ways to get a disc out of a Mac. My 4 year old could practically pass this class. We had lectures, labs, and tutorials and I can say that 90% of the idiotic things I heard came from the women in the class and I include the lecturers and tutors. One lecturer didn’t know the difference between bits and bytes or kilo- and mega-. For the web page project we had to take an existing page and edit it to apply to us. The rest of the girls in my tutorial group just changed the link text on the page but left the URL and were surprised when typing and clicking on “my boyfriend’s web page” didn’t just bring them to their boyfriends web page. That’s not to say that there weren’t guys who were totally inept, my tutorial group was pretty balanced and I was usually the only one who had a clue what was going on, but overall the male students had a much better grasp than the female.
Just in talking to friends, doing any problem-solving, and listening to questions people come up with in life, or in any class, I can tell which people think in the logical, linear, structured manner that will make programming click for them, and which people don’t.
More men are on that side of the scale than women.
I find the research on this website really interesting:
http://eqsq.com/eq-sq-tests/
They have divided people into a systemizing and empathizing quotient, and describe different aptitudes by the balance between the two. Of course the unbalanced systemizers are the programmers, and you don’t see so many women over there.
[...] Barbie’s One Progressive Babe, Am I Right? – Zelda Lily [...]
I wasn’t allowed to play with Barbie (unrealistic expectations of body size, lack of eco-friendly footwear, not obviously lacto ovo vegetarian) and I don’t think it made that much of a difference. I like have slept with a few Barbie wannabes though, probably because the urge to undress Barbie was never fulfilled as a child – HA! HA HA HA! HERE ALL WEEK, TRY THE CHICKEN, ITS FANTASTIC!
I want a Biologist Barbie, with free soft-toy Drosophila.
“Because many, many computer scientists (especially female ones) wear such ardent, career-loving attire.”
Are you kidding me? Geeks of either gender LOVE geeky shirts, this is totes accurate.
I wore MY binary shirt today…
“There are 10 types of people in the world… those who understand binary and those who don’t”
Clearly, Sarah is the latter rather than the former ;)
I have that shirt but I hardly ever wear it because it just causes people to stand and stare at my chest for way too long. I’ve had to explain it so many times and it gets really depressing after a while. One time a woman asked me about it and I had to really explain it, she’d never heard of binary and couldn’t understand it at all but she kept asking questions. Finally she got irate and snapped at me saying “you shouldn’t wear t-shirts that make people feel stupid, that’s just rude and mean!” Wow. I told her that most people get it and that it’s hardly my fault she didn’t.
I love the 10 types ones.
Rhonda, you should get the shirt that says ‘you are stupid’ in binary. That one’s fun when people ask what it means. :D
I don’t wear any shirts that have writing on the chest. The last thing I want is to draw more attention to my chest. I get my boyfriend some awesome geeky shirts though.
If I ever find my favourite shirt ever though, in a type that fits, I might break my rule. Best one I ever saw (though non-geeky).
Camo print, with a little “you can’t see me” in the middle. That just hits my sense of humour perfectly.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/womens/38dd/
I want the shirt that says “Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.” Really hoping I spelled that right because my latin is less rusty and more like nonexistent. Good enough to translate the t-shirt but not good enough to figure out a witty retort!
spelled well enough to understand. Awesome! :D
I was never much of a Barbie girl as a kid. Maybe if they had had a Ninja Barbie….
[...] Controversy around Barbie dolls is not new … but is this doll literally hanging out of her dress taking it a step too far? I’m thinking yes, particularly when you consider the double standard presented by some positive, women empowerment directions the company is going in at the same time. [...]