Barbie Computer Engineer
shop.mattel.com
shop.mattel.com
Seriously, does this do anything to advance the position of women in software engineering?
But until we have more of that, cultural items like Barbie might help to bootstrap the process.
I agree that it's a distant second, but it's better than nothing at all.
I'm not sure. Suppose the situation was reversed and there were few men software engineers. I'm not sure having a super handsome, muscle ripped man wearing designer clothing would have been an inspiration to me.
Not to say this will inspire little girls, I have no idea at all.
I don't know about you but I wanted to be Action Man as a young child.
This talk by Pamela Fox should offer some insight: http://igniteshow.com/videos/im-barbie-girl-cs-world
When I graduated (almost 20 years ago) there were about 10% women in my class. When my wife graduated, there were 5% men in her class. Assuming there are no cultural barriers against men, wouldn't that indicate professional choices stem, at least a little, from gender?
I am not saying there are no cultural barriers, but I am asking when and where it is too much.
I am not sure what purpose a computer engineer Barbie serves beyond selling a few more dolls to girls who would be more interested in Legos than dolls.
1. Social groups tend to select for like individuals. Many women (and other under-represented people) find it surprisingly difficult to make it in the scientific, academic, and engineering communities when their advisors, peers, and bosses are overwhelmingly white males. Expectations that women "simply don't" do field X are shockingly present to this day. This suggests that we have not yet reached an equilibrium point where women are fairly represented with respect to their full potential.
2. Other countries have significantly varying gender ratios in these fields. That suggests that the difference is partly cultural.
3. In the US, we lose an astonishing number of young women from academic and engineering tracks. Standardized test performance (as well as metrics like "confidence in math ability") fall off dramatically in seventh grade--a time period where girls are under tremendous social pressure. By the time undergrad rolls around, few are still trying to become scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.
One of my former professors, Melissa Eblen-Zayas, has a good summary of links about women and minority participation in physics: http://people.carleton.edu/~meblenza/Resources.html
It's obvious to me a lot of the disparity can be attributed to culture. What is unclear is how much.
What I am trying to ask is what happens if we remove all barriers that prevent, say, men from becoming psychologists (important disclaimer: the guy sitting to my right is a psychologist and a very good programmer) and girls from becoming physicists, and they still are not much interested, what will we do and how will we recognize we have done enough? How much disparity is right?
What in particular is atypical?
Is it the designer clothes and glamour?
That poll was Dugg, Slashdotted, and Reddited. It was a foregone conclusion - Barbie would be a "computer engineer", dammit. The only careers that would have gotten more votes would have been "Ship's mechanic on a Firefly class spaceship" or "vampire slayer".
I'm not sure they have struck the balance correctly, but my guess is that is what they are going for.
I've known and know quite a few females that program (and some of them are extremely good) but none would be caught dead in an outfit like that, or would think they are 'computer engineers' because they can hold a netbook in one hand without dropping it.
It's just plain silly to associate this doll with the computer engineer / programming profession.
When trade shows were still in fashion though, you could meet any number of women on the various stands that would come pretty close, but they weren't there for their computer skills.
Just about the only interesting thing about this is that there was some build-up to the release using polls, but surprise, surprise, lets hope they were not as rigged as the customer reviews of items that aren't shipping yet.
Kids, however, are far more likely to associate glasses with geeky/interested in geeky stuff. You can't use your position both as an adult and someone in the tech industry and apply it here. It just doesn't fit.
The BBC seems to think it's tech support: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8517097.stm