[David Strom's Web Informant] 16 February 2010: Barbie the coder

[David Strom]

Web Informant 16 February 2010: Barbie the coder

So the big news last week was the latest "occupation" for Barbie is a
computer engineer, whatever that means (I guess let the perennial
hardware versus software debates begin). Maybe it is time to retire
that "math class is hard" speech chip once and for all and replace it
with some often-used Linux shell commands. Or maybe this should be a
lesson for our daughters: persevere past the polynomials, and you too
can code. Or design circuits.

Personally, I am glad to seek Geek Barbie, with her hot pink netbook
and matching Bluetooth headset. (And what is up with all the different
Bluetooth headsets on 24, anyway? Didn't anyone at CTU's IT department
get involved?) It is about time. We need role models wherever we can
find them in the popular culture. And while you might have issues with
Barbie's unrealistic and unobtainable, ahem, dimensions, the fact
remains that she has paved the way. Just take a look at the history
books:

Barbie joined NASCAR twelve years ago, now we have that hot GoDaddy
babe Danica Patrick racing at Daytona this past weekend. And as an
astronaut in 1965, she was certainly ahead of Sally Ride nearly two
decades later, who incidentally was at Stanford just before my time
there. She has already run for President, twice. And last year she
came with her own tramp stamp, what could be more hip than that? So
she is a bit behind the times in the tattoo department.

Back when I went to college and grad school, in those dark pre-PC days
of the 1970s, we didn't have any girls, let alone ones that looked
like Barbie, in the nerd classes. In my dorm at Stanford, it was 297
guys, 3 gals. This was the fabled Crothers Memorial engineering dorm –
the dorm that played such a significant role in the early PC era that
a Silicon Valley company was named after it (Cromemco Computers). I
mean, how pathetic and nerdy can that be? But I digress.

I realize that the male/female engineering mix is changing – at the
recent iPhone app dev class that I attended, there were two women out
of a class of 20. This semester the breakdown is 4 out of a class of
45. Still not great. So how can we get more women into the computing
field? Certainly not by offering hot pink computer cases, although
there is something to be said for that.

I think it goes back to elementary school, where we need to encourage
basic math and analytical thinking for girls early on. People that
turn into great engineers love to take things apart and put them back
together and have a natural curiosity about how the world works. I
remember when my brother and I were growing up, we were constantly
breaking stuff (the difference was my brother could actually fix
things  (who went on to become a EE) doing this all the time. Let's
destigmatize girls doing this. Barbie is a great first step.

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