The Internet is rightly furious at toy manufacturer Mattel for its new book “Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer.” Despite its constructive-sounding title, the plot of the book actually has Barbie yielding her opportunity to actually do any kind of engineering to two boys, implying that the skillset is entirely foreign to her. It’s appalling that this kind of blatantly unreconstructed sexism makes it way into children’s literature these days.
It’s also moderately less riling, but no less offensive, to note that the story implies that since Barbie can’t program she resigns herself to “only creating the design ideas.” In Mattel’s worldview, I guess, women prettify while men do the building and never the twain shall meet.
More detail on the book’s many crimes at dailydot.com.
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