Barbie, a game DESIGNER, is going to enlist a couple of code monkeys to implement her design. Remind me again what's wrong with this?
Barbie, your typical computer-savvy geek, keeps a flash drive with her backed up files. Remind me again what's wrong or unusual about this? So what if it's heart shaped?
Barbie accidentally infects her sister's computer after being careless with her USB drive. Umm, yeah. Been there, done that, lesson learned. Once again, what exactly is wrong here?
OH NOES! Her sister hit her with a pillow! How misogynistic! Maybe she should have used a crowbar? Or maybe, you know, she actually TRUSTS that Barbie can fix it, which is why she's not freaking out?
And it even gets worse! Her two friends help out as she tells them what needs to be done (hook the drive up to another computer and copy the files). How shameful that her friends are male! Naturally, if she doesn't do everything by herself she's not a full person. Time saving is obviously evil.
Agreed that few things like pillow fighting are not at all misogynistic, but the title of the book should've been "Barbie The Game Designer" or similar. Saying that Barbie is a computer engineer and then having stuff like "Steven and Brian will do the coding" is nonsensical. Its like saying Barbie is an actress but Ron and Bob will play her character on stage. Make sense?
Also, at the end Barbie doesn't credit the guys for fixing the issue, and take all the credit in front of her sister.
While not all of it is against women, most of it is nonsensical, immoral and just something I wouldn't want to read to my girls if and when I have them.
Oh of course, the story is pretty lame, poorly thought out, and in general what you'd expect from a merchandising book mill on a budget. I'd be against buying it for my daughter on that principle alone.
"Barbie, a game DESIGNER, is going to enlist a couple of code monkeys to implement her design. Remind me again what's wrong with this?"
Except they didn't call it "Barbie: I Can Be A Game Designer." As I said elsewhere, it's like "Barbie: I Can Be A Construction Worker" "Oh, I don't build the buildings, I just come up with ideas for what they should look like." Add some rigor and that's a totally valid career, but it's not being a construction worker.
"Barbie accidentally infects her sister's computer after being careless with her USB drive. Umm, yeah. Been there, done that, lesson learned. Once again, what exactly is wrong here?"
What's wrong here is that it's not a typical piece of doing work as a computer engineer (or a game designer). Does it happen ever? Yes. But it can happen just as well to anyone using computers - that portion of the book could as well be "Barbie: I Can Be An Author" or "Barbie: I Can Be An Accountant" - and Barbie The Computer Engineer should have a better sense of what to do about it.
It's fiction, that's supposed to be empowering to little girls. So, it can be about anything we want. They could have just as easily made her a designer and programmer. They could have just as easily made her capable of fixing her own computer.
I design and code websites and games. If I get a virus, I fix it myself. I don't need my boyfriend or other males to do any of that for me. I do ask for help when I need it, but I try to keep this to a minimum. This "book" could have been written so many ways, and it makes me sad to see a woman continuing to write Barbie as a vacuous and powerless girl.
I read it that she IS capable of fixing her own computer, but was directing others in said fixing in this story.
As for not making her a designer and programmer, who can say? Maybe the author wanted to emphasize collaboration, like what typically happens in industry when you're in a decently sized company?
We'll never know, and it's your typical low quality book mill pulp anyway, so one can't expect much in the way of consistency or storytelling. Worthy of a 1-star rating, not a whole blog post.
Showing collaboration is great, but in "I Can Be A Computer Engineer" she should be collaborating with artists, possibly a designer, possibly other coders to work with her. Not doing things that have little to nothing to do with computer engineering.
Comments
OK, I'm confused by all the vitriol.
Barbie, a game DESIGNER, is going to enlist a couple of code monkeys to implement her design. Remind me again what's wrong with this?
Barbie, your typical computer-savvy geek, keeps a flash drive with her backed up files. Remind me again what's wrong or unusual about this? So what if it's heart shaped?
Barbie accidentally infects her sister's computer after being careless with her USB drive. Umm, yeah. Been there, done that, lesson learned. Once again, what exactly is wrong here?
OH NOES! Her sister hit her with a pillow! How misogynistic! Maybe she should have used a crowbar? Or maybe, you know, she actually TRUSTS that Barbie can fix it, which is why she's not freaking out?
And it even gets worse! Her two friends help out as she tells them what needs to be done (hook the drive up to another computer and copy the files). How shameful that her friends are male! Naturally, if she doesn't do everything by herself she's not a full person. Time saving is obviously evil.
Sorry, but I just don't buy this critique.
Agreed that few things like pillow fighting are not at all misogynistic, but the title of the book should've been "Barbie The Game Designer" or similar. Saying that Barbie is a computer engineer and then having stuff like "Steven and Brian will do the coding" is nonsensical. Its like saying Barbie is an actress but Ron and Bob will play her character on stage. Make sense?
Also, at the end Barbie doesn't credit the guys for fixing the issue, and take all the credit in front of her sister.
While not all of it is against women, most of it is nonsensical, immoral and just something I wouldn't want to read to my girls if and when I have them.
Oh of course, the story is pretty lame, poorly thought out, and in general what you'd expect from a merchandising book mill on a budget. I'd be against buying it for my daughter on that principle alone.
"Barbie, a game DESIGNER, is going to enlist a couple of code monkeys to implement her design. Remind me again what's wrong with this?"
Except they didn't call it "Barbie: I Can Be A Game Designer." As I said elsewhere, it's like "Barbie: I Can Be A Construction Worker" "Oh, I don't build the buildings, I just come up with ideas for what they should look like." Add some rigor and that's a totally valid career, but it's not being a construction worker.
"Barbie accidentally infects her sister's computer after being careless with her USB drive. Umm, yeah. Been there, done that, lesson learned. Once again, what exactly is wrong here?"
What's wrong here is that it's not a typical piece of doing work as a computer engineer (or a game designer). Does it happen ever? Yes. But it can happen just as well to anyone using computers - that portion of the book could as well be "Barbie: I Can Be An Author" or "Barbie: I Can Be An Accountant" - and Barbie The Computer Engineer should have a better sense of what to do about it.
It's fiction, that's supposed to be empowering to little girls. So, it can be about anything we want. They could have just as easily made her a designer and programmer. They could have just as easily made her capable of fixing her own computer.
I design and code websites and games. If I get a virus, I fix it myself. I don't need my boyfriend or other males to do any of that for me. I do ask for help when I need it, but I try to keep this to a minimum. This "book" could have been written so many ways, and it makes me sad to see a woman continuing to write Barbie as a vacuous and powerless girl.
I read it that she IS capable of fixing her own computer, but was directing others in said fixing in this story. As for not making her a designer and programmer, who can say? Maybe the author wanted to emphasize collaboration, like what typically happens in industry when you're in a decently sized company? We'll never know, and it's your typical low quality book mill pulp anyway, so one can't expect much in the way of consistency or storytelling. Worthy of a 1-star rating, not a whole blog post.
Showing collaboration is great, but in "I Can Be A Computer Engineer" she should be collaborating with artists, possibly a designer, possibly other coders to work with her. Not doing things that have little to nothing to do with computer engineering.
Yes you are right. But the title should reflect that.
Where did you get "DESIGNER" from? The title of the book is "I Can Be a Computer Engineer"...