Casey Fiesler’s been both a critic and a champion of various career Barbie iterations.
In 2014, Fiesler went viral when she joined the widespread criticism of the book accompanying the computer engineer Barbie, which painted the iconic doll as incompetent at her job.
In 2016, Fiesler followed up with an article that praised the game developer Barbie, who was much better at her job than her computer engineer predecessor, and suggested that parent company Mattel seek partnerships to provide programming tools to children along with the doll.
Then, Mattel came calling.
The company asked Fiesler, a University of Colorado assistant professor of information science, to serve as a consultant for the e-book accompanying this year’s career Barbie, robotics engineer Barbie, which debuted late last month.
Fiesler wrote the introduction to the book, “Code Camp with Barbie and Friends,” and provided advice about how to tweak the book to better represent computer science and the ways it can be incorporated into everyday life.
“What goes on behind the screen of your computer?” she wrote in the introduction. “What about behind the screen of your cell phone? Or your video game console? The answer lies in a secret language called “code” that allows all of that technology to work!”
The 73-page book includes stories and exercises to help children understand the concepts behind coding. It’s a 180-degree turnaround from computer engineer Barbie’s book, which, at one point launched into the following dialogue:
“Your robot puppy is so sweet,” says Skipper. “Can I play your game?”
“I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says, laughing. “I’ll need Steven’s and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game.”
In the book, Barbie also infected multiple computers with viruses and sought the help of Steven and Brian again.
“When I first saw it, I thought it had to be a joke,” Fiesler said. “It was so bad.”
Fiesler went viral when she “remixed” the book and posted edited pages with new text to her blog. She wrote an article for online magazine Slate and was interviewed by NPR, too.
Her 2016 article in Slate that praised game developer Barbie was widely read, too, she said.
She was game to be a consultant for this year’s Barbie book, and she was especially pleased to see this year that Mattel partnered with Tynker, a block-based programming language and website, to launch Barbie coding lessons along with the robotics engineer doll, whose accessories include a laptop and a robot.
“This has been a long journey for Barbie,” Fiesler said. “Barbie has increasingly had careers that are less stereotypically feminine. She’s had more careers in science and these kinds of things as time goes on. I think that kind of thing can be important.”
She’s happy to see that Mattel has been receptive to criticism, she said, and she believes the company’s efforts to improve are genuine.
These kinds of improvements are important, she said, because they can help fight the stereotype that computer science is a solitary field for boys and men. They can help inspire girls to pursue computer science and other STEM-related fields. They can help fight the “pipeline problem” of women in STEM.
“Kids often form ideas of what they’re going to be when they grow up because they see examples of that,” Fiesler said.
“It seems like such a simple thing, but this is why all of the stuff about representation in the media, when it comes to gender, when it comes to race, is important because if you never see people that you think are like you (in a job), then you have trouble seeing yourself (in that job).”
Cassa Niedringhaus: 303-473-1106, cniedringhaus@dailycamera.com
