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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMattel releases Game Developer Barbie
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/06/mattel_s_game_developer_barbie_is_fantastic.htmlAfter three false starts Mattel seems to have actually come close to getting this right (spoiler alert: they asked a female tech who works for them).
Game Developer Barbie is wearing jeans, sensible shoes (!), and a T-shirt that is both nerdy and kind of cute. (I think it could be translated as control-alt-ponytail.) She has a laptop that is laptop-colored, because women can actually use tech products that arent pink. There are no pictures of Ken or fashion magazines around her workspace, just coffee, headphones, flowchartsnot to mention actual programming books (C++ and C#) and action figures (He-Man!). She still likes some pink, of course; this is Barbie, and theres nothing wrong with pink.
Perhaps most striking, Barbie can actually code. With some help from my colleagues as well as the Twitter hive mind, we were able to just barely make out the code on Barbies laptop. The interface appears to be Alice, an educational programming environment, and the code its outputting is ActionScript (or maybe Haxe). Basically, she seems to be making a Bejeweled clone in Flash. And whatever you think about that choice, its a huge step up from Computer Engineer Barbies laptop showing nothing but ones and zeros.
However, even more important than her newfound programming prowess, Game Developer Barbie learned the same lesson that I tried to impart in my remix: that making a game is more than just writing code. The back of her box tells us: Game development involves storytelling, art & graphic design, audio design, & computer programming. Because there are so many aspects to creating a game, teamwork is important.
This is particularly important is because as much as we dont want to suggest that girls cant code, we also dont want to suggest that coding is the only path to working with computers or games. Sometimes other parts of computinglike design or human-computer interactionare delegitimized, considered less rigorous or less important. Or maybe theyre delegitimized in part because they happen to be the parts of computing where there are more women present (in other words, more inclusive), which is even worse.
Perhaps most striking, Barbie can actually code. With some help from my colleagues as well as the Twitter hive mind, we were able to just barely make out the code on Barbies laptop. The interface appears to be Alice, an educational programming environment, and the code its outputting is ActionScript (or maybe Haxe). Basically, she seems to be making a Bejeweled clone in Flash. And whatever you think about that choice, its a huge step up from Computer Engineer Barbies laptop showing nothing but ones and zeros.
However, even more important than her newfound programming prowess, Game Developer Barbie learned the same lesson that I tried to impart in my remix: that making a game is more than just writing code. The back of her box tells us: Game development involves storytelling, art & graphic design, audio design, & computer programming. Because there are so many aspects to creating a game, teamwork is important.
This is particularly important is because as much as we dont want to suggest that girls cant code, we also dont want to suggest that coding is the only path to working with computers or games. Sometimes other parts of computinglike design or human-computer interactionare delegitimized, considered less rigorous or less important. Or maybe theyre delegitimized in part because they happen to be the parts of computing where there are more women present (in other words, more inclusive), which is even worse.
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Mattel releases Game Developer Barbie (Original Post)
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Jun 2016
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milestogo
(16,829 posts)1. I would be more impressed with Cisco Network Engineer Barbie
since its a rough field for women to break into.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)3. They're looking for Cisco/Juniper/Brocade/Palo Alto/Aruba SDN Barbie
It would be helpful if she knew a little Vmware and F5 too.
Source: I'm a network engineer (and I look nothing like Ken). And you're right--there aren't too many women in the field.
jmowreader
(50,557 posts)4. And they only want to pay her $12 an hour!
But that's not sexist - they will also pay Cisco/Juniper/Brocade/Palo Alto/Aruba SDN Ken $12 an hour, because they're really trying to hire an H1B and the first task in doing that is to "prove" there isn't an American available to do the job.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)2. Ships with a Ken that sends her death threats and calls her a slut.