Barbie just made a very positive career change! To ring in the new decade, she’s taking the reins of her 126th profession: computer engineer. The image at left depicts this latest iteration of the classic Barbie model: long blonde hair, big boobs, tiny waist, skyscraper legs and stiletto-ready feet. However, Barbie would be nothing without her accessories, and this techie career gal comes with everything a programming woman could need (the folks at Wired shared their opinions, do any other engineers want to weigh in? Ladies?). She has a pair of sassy glasses, a bluetooth headset, smart phone, wrist-swallowing scientific watch, laptop carrying case and – of course – a pink laptop. The outfit, too, is perfection, featuring a neon T-shirt emblazoned with binary code and some comfy leggings to keep her comfortable during long hours in a computer chair. While she’s still rocking lots of hot pink, this Barbie is intellectual and impressive.
Girl, you’ve come a long way.
Mattel took to the Web to find Barbie’s next career, and the public was ultimately the body that chose to put Barbie in a tech profession. This is a proud moment for me, personally, because my Dad is a computer engineer, a professor in the field, and has long maligned the dearth of women in that degree program. Any enthusiasm from the female camp about tech and computers is hugely encouraging. Also noteworthy is Mattel’s diligence with it’s newest Barbie family member. The toy company consulted with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering before introducing the doll, to ensure that her accessories (and, likely, the forthcoming packaging copy) were accurate, presenting a depiction the professional societies could be proud to uphold.
As a woman with interest – but sadly, no technical expertise – in the tech field, I’m uplifted and gratified by Mattel’s choice. Well, I suppose, it was the enthusiastic voters who helped Computer Engineer Barbie skyrocket to the top. Either way, this Barbie will be a huge PR boost for computer science. While time will only tell whether this move will encourage more girls to pursue careers in the engineering professions, it can’t do anything but help.
And at this point, computer science’s appeal among women can’t go anywhere but up. According to this article from the University of California, Santa Cruz (a great read), what’s repelling women from the study of computer science is the “nerd” factor – that is, the overwhelming presence of Star Wars figurines, video game posters, tattered C++ textbooks, trampled Mountain Dew cans and all other hallmarks of the cluttered, chaotic programmer’s life. It has nothing to do with the fact that women feel outnumbered, intimidated or unwelcomed by the large proportion of men in the computer science field. It’s that women, because of how engineering fields are typically portrayed, just don’t think they’ll fit in or “find people like them.” Gender stereotypes have little to do with it – it’s lifestyle stereotypes. For some reason, it’s that “nerd” factor that sends females running for the hills.
So, maybe this new Barbie will glam up the field a little bit and appeal to more young girls. However, I just hope that some of those innate, nerdy features of the CS field don’t get lost along the way. What I’ve observed from the periphery over the years (and at my dad’s annual student BBQs, always held in our family backyard), that nerd culture is pretty special. It’s fun, it’s lively, and everyone’s comfortable being themselves. And that is what’s truly important, isn’t it?
For more coverage of the Computer Engineer Barbie, please see these posts from Gizmodo, New York Times’ Bits blog and Chip Chick. For true PR fiends, Gizmodo features the Mattel news release text.
