About
Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer Parodies are edited images mocking the children’s book Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer by Susan Marenco, which was accused of perpetuating sexist stereotypes in November 2014.
Origin
On November 17th, 2014, blogger Pamie Ribon published a post titled “Barbie Fucks It Up Again,”[1] which argued that the children’s book Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer[6] promoted various gender stereotypes. In the story, Barbie sets out to create a game for her computer class and ends up enlisting the assistance of two boys to fix her computer and code the video game she designed.
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Spread
On November 19th, programmer Kathleen Tuite[2] launched the “Feminist Hacker Barbie”[10] web application, which allows users to make their own parody versions of the Barbie book (shown below). That day, several news sites published articles about the backlash and parodies of the book, including The Daily What,[4] BuzzFeed,[9] Tech Crunch,[13] The Verge[11] and The Daily Dot.[12] Within 24 hours, the hashtag #feministhackerbarbie[8] had been tweeted over 2,900 times according to the Twitter analytics site Topsy.[7]
Mattel’s Apology
On November 19th, 2014, the official Barbie Facebook[3] page posted an apology for the children’s book:
“The Barbie I Can Be A Computer Engineer book was published in 2010. Since that time we have reworked our Barbie books. 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.”
By the following day, the book had been removed from Amazon.[5]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
Not available.
External References
[1]Pamie – Barbie Fucks It Up Again
[2]Super Fire Truck – Kathleen Tuite
[4]The Daily What – Rewrite of the Day
[5]Amazon – Computer Engineer Barbie
[6]Google Cache – "Amazon page for I Can Be a Computer Engineer
[7]Topsy – #feministhackerbarbie
[8]Twitter – #feministhackerbarbie
[9]BuzzFeed – Sexist Barbie is Sexist
[10]Herokuapp – Feminist Hacker Barbie
[11]The Verge – The internet fixes Barbie
[12]The Daily Dot – Geek girls reject sexist Barbie books message
[13]Tech Crunch – Sexist Barbie Book