
Mattel Pulls Sexist Barbie Book Off Amazon - digitalwaveride
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/19/mattel-pulls-sexist-barbie-book-i-can-be-a-computer-engineer-off-amazon/
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dllthomas
Excellent. The sexism angle is one thing, but the book is also just wrong
about what a computer engineer _is_. It's like "Barbie: I Can Be A
Construction Worker" \- "Oh, no, I don't actually build buildings, I just
think of ideas for what they should look like." That's a totally valid career
(once you add some rigor that it's probably fine to elide in a kid's book),
but it's _not being a construction worker_.

If the book was titled "I Can Be A Video Game Designer" (and she didn't spend
half the book fighting with viruses) it would have been worlds better. Make
one of the other students doing the implementation a girl, and you're doing
better still. I'd like to see a genuine "I Can Be A Computer Engineer", but it
might take some creativity to make it actually engaging for the target age
range...

