Outrage over Barbie's inability to code in 'I Can Be a Computer Engineer' forces Mattel to pull book from Amazon.
Mattel’s Barbie book I Can Be a Computer Engineer recently triggered outrage from parents worldwide for sending a sexist and patronizing message to young girls. The book has been sold on Amazon since 2013, but Mattel officially pulled it from the website on Thursday and promised that all future Barbie titles will “inspire girl’s imaginations” and encourage female empowerment.
I Can Be a Computer Engineer was written by author Susan Marenco and has been available online for only $4 for over a year. In the book, Barbie is a computer engineer who makes a number of technical mistakes mere pages into the story. Barbie gets hit with a virus on her laptop and then accidentally infects her sister’s computer as well. She finds herself completely unable to fix her mistake, and has to turn to her male friends for assistance. After they quickly fix Barbie’s sister’s computer and save her homework, Barbie takes all of the credit for their hard work.
Kathleen Tuite, a female computer programmer based in Santa Cruz, California, created a blog entitled “Feminist Hacker Barbie,” which allows users to re-write pages from the book. In one submission, instead of Barbie’s friend Steven saying “It will go faster if Brian and I help,” Barbie suggests “It will go faster if you boys just get out of here and let me work. Maybe make a Taco Bell run?’
“Barbie’s new book tells girls they need boys to code for them,” wrote Tuite in the site’s description. “Help Barbie be the competent, independent, bad-ass engineer that she wants to be.”
Mattel issued an apology for the misogynistic nature of the book on Thursday, writing on the Barbie Facebook page that “the portrayal of Barbie in this specific story doesn’t reflect the Brand’s vision for what Barbie stands for.”
“We believe girls should be empowered to understand that anything is possible and believe they live in a world without limits. ‘We apologize that this book didn’t reflect that belief. All Barbie titles moving forward will be written to inspire girl’s imaginations and portray an empowered Barbie character.”
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