Live data from Hacker News

Barbie Computer Engineer

shop.mattel.com

31–36 of 36 posts

Re: Barbie Computer Engineer

#31
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I'm not sure having a super handsome, muscle ripped man wearing designer clothing would have been an inspiration to me. I don't know about you but I wanted to be Action Man as a young child.

I wanted to be a lumberjack.

Re: Barbie Computer Engineer

#33
post #12
post #8

Wow. It's amazing, she looks just like every women engineer I've ever worked with. Especially the Bluetooth headset. Seriously, does this do anything to advance the position of women in software engineering?

Nothing would do more for women in engineering than having more well known female engineers. Social proof is a strong thing. 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.

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.

Re: Barbie Computer Engineer

#34
post #20
post #8

Wow. It's amazing, she looks just like every women engineer I've ever worked with. Especially the Bluetooth headset. Seriously, does this do anything to advance the position of women in software engineering?

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…

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.

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

Re: Barbie Computer Engineer

#35
post #34
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 "si…

Thanks for the article. I'll read it in a moment.

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?

Re: Barbie Computer Engineer

#36
post #24

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.

O, Thor? :)
Post reply on HN