Yes Barbie, the possibilities are endless! Dream big because you can have it all! I am a girl! I am a computer geek! I own my own business, men (and women) pay me to show them how to use computer software and write programs! I am a mother! I am a grandmother!
If you aren’t familiar with the Barbie book “I Can Be a Computer Engineer”, you aren’t missing much. It’s a horrible story to present as a role model for young girls. (As if Barbie qualifies as a role model! ***)
In this story, Barbie is a computer engineer who needs the boys to code a game for her. She infects her computer and Skipper’s computer and needs the boys to fix it for her. Sheesh. No wonder there is a shortage of women in technical fields. Books like this tell girls they are incompetent with computers and need boys to fix things for them.
Not all men have the attitude of the writers at Random House. I remember a Dell consultant telling me “Women make better Microsoft Exchange administrators.” So yeah, some men know we are very capable around computers.
Fortunately Random House pulled the awful book this week after receiving a firestorm of complaints over it’s sexist portrayal of girls.
*** I say this as someone who grew up with Barbie. I had an early Barbie, one of the first Skippers. I sewed Barbie clothes for my own daughters. I still have some of my dolls here, somewhere, and a box of Barbie doll clothes I made for the kids in the basement.
Mattel pulls book, apologizes for portraying Barbie as inept computer engineer in picture book