If I ever get a female child that is smitten by the scourge called Barbie (oh please, O [Insert Deity Here], make her a Lego child), I'll at least give her one like these so she can have an Engineer Barbie (oh, the bragging potential, "My Mum is a computer engineer just like Barbie!"). Not that my grandmother's misguided attempts at girlifying me with Pink Mermaid Barbie ever worked, anyway.
Why do we need to insist that every profession should be evenly divided between men and women? Wouldn't it be denial of differences that we know exist? How much of my wife's decision to become a psychologist comes from a perception that she couldn't be a mathematician or a physicist and how much comes from her intellectual pursuits? How much from my decision to become an engineer stem from culture and how much comes from "the knack"?
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.
Three things suggest to me that gender differences are not as intrinsic as we might assume, given the current disparity:
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.
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?
How many men went into engineering because of the well known male engineers? I'm thinking the number is low and most went in because they had the knack or interest. Heck, you have to actually brave all the crap stereotypes Hollywood creates about engineers.
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.
At the risk of sounding sexist, different things would appeal to little girls and little boys. Your analogy is too exact, which is what is causing the difficulty.
Not to say this will inspire little girls, I have no idea at all.
Yes. Remember Eric Sink's post about how geeks (like himself) are over-represented on the internet? He pointed out how he had a higher google rank than Eric Clapton, and the number one hit for "Joel" is a well-known developer in New York rather than Billy Joel - http://www.ericsink.com/articles/Boundaries.html
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".
Its strange, they need to strike a balance. On one side, they need to use enough stereotypes to ensure that everyone gets the idea they are going for. On the other hand, if they use too many stereotypes they will get angry letters.
I'm not sure they have struck the balance correctly, but my guess is that is what they are going for.
So, what exactly is it that is stereotypically computer engineer about this doll?
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.
Sure, anyone in the know wouldn't associate this with computer engineers. Hell, most adults probably wouldn't either.
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.
