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Sexism row over 'Engineering Barbie'

Former Community Member over 7 years ago

''Experts said that despite 'Engineering Barbie' encouraging girls to build things, it reinforced unhelpful stereotypes'' CREDIT: THAMES AND KOSMOS

''A sexism row has erupted over a new Barbie doll which encourages girls to become engineers by building washing machines and racks for their shoes and jewellery.'' - The Telegraph

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this. Do you agree that it reinforces unhelpful stereotypes? I should imagine that it would spark a similar argument to that of the pink Lego and only allowing girls to build things like kitchens and princess castles.

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0 Former Community Member over 7 years ago

Interesting article on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38760602

I feel that the views expressed by Jade Leonard accord with my own views, however, my objection to the pink toys isn’t that they are pink but that pink is often the only colour choice…!

Personally I think you’ll never get even qtys of men and women in engineering because mostly we think differently. I know that is what is supposed to be good about having both men and women but that isnt all that is needed. I have always been creative and so are many other women but it isn’t just that, you need to be able to think though 'if I put this here then this is gonna happen', and for my mechanical design work I need to be able to visualise things in 3d. When we had CAT tests at school I sucked at the maths and English side of it but I always got all of the ones where you had to mark where the dot would be if the shape was folded on the dotted line right, and I never used the tracing paper they needed. Everyone else in the class hated that part of the CAT tests but it seems that’s the way my brain works. My maths and English improved as I got older but they have never been as important to me in my job as being able to visualise and think through what will happen to X if I do Y.

I still maintain that engineering organisations such as the IET need to get out there and tell kids what jobs are available in engineering without highlighting all these issues, after all highlighting that there arent many women is hardly going to encourage girls! I think we should be promoting engineering as a wonderfull, creative job where team work and the ability to innovate and come up with solutions and work well in a team are important and where you get an opportunity to make a real difference. If kids and parents care given the information then they can make their own decisions about what they want to do. But in my experience the schools dont know about engineering or dont promote it as a job.

When I was at school and I said I didnt want to do any of the things they were trying to get me to do for A-Levels and when I said I didnt want to do A-Levels they lost interest in me and I got no more advice or help. No one ever suggested engineering and we had an 'engineering' class in the GCSE years - all boys of course. Thankfully Mum found me an advert for an Engineering Apprenticeship (it hadnt occured to me as a job possibility before then - how could it when no one had ever talked to me about engineering jobs?) which I succesfuly applied for.
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0 Former Community Member over 7 years ago

Interesting article on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38760602

I feel that the views expressed by Jade Leonard accord with my own views, however, my objection to the pink toys isn’t that they are pink but that pink is often the only colour choice…!

Personally I think you’ll never get even qtys of men and women in engineering because mostly we think differently. I know that is what is supposed to be good about having both men and women but that isnt all that is needed. I have always been creative and so are many other women but it isn’t just that, you need to be able to think though 'if I put this here then this is gonna happen', and for my mechanical design work I need to be able to visualise things in 3d. When we had CAT tests at school I sucked at the maths and English side of it but I always got all of the ones where you had to mark where the dot would be if the shape was folded on the dotted line right, and I never used the tracing paper they needed. Everyone else in the class hated that part of the CAT tests but it seems that’s the way my brain works. My maths and English improved as I got older but they have never been as important to me in my job as being able to visualise and think through what will happen to X if I do Y.

I still maintain that engineering organisations such as the IET need to get out there and tell kids what jobs are available in engineering without highlighting all these issues, after all highlighting that there arent many women is hardly going to encourage girls! I think we should be promoting engineering as a wonderfull, creative job where team work and the ability to innovate and come up with solutions and work well in a team are important and where you get an opportunity to make a real difference. If kids and parents care given the information then they can make their own decisions about what they want to do. But in my experience the schools dont know about engineering or dont promote it as a job.

When I was at school and I said I didnt want to do any of the things they were trying to get me to do for A-Levels and when I said I didnt want to do A-Levels they lost interest in me and I got no more advice or help. No one ever suggested engineering and we had an 'engineering' class in the GCSE years - all boys of course. Thankfully Mum found me an advert for an Engineering Apprenticeship (it hadnt occured to me as a job possibility before then - how could it when no one had ever talked to me about engineering jobs?) which I succesfuly applied for.
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Sexism row over 'Engineering Barbie'

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