Growing up, I was not a Barbie girl. This most likely stems from two reasons: I was a tomboy, and both of my parents worked for toy companies. Therefore (and yes, I’m only bragging a little bit here), I had no lack of toys, dolls, gizmos and games to keep me busy.

Barbie sat on the periphery; a known entity, but not one I was very interested in getting to know better. I was aware of her spectacular outfits and handsome boyfriend Ken, but at the end of the day I was far more interested in my Crash Test Dummies set or my Micro Machines.

My interest in technology, I feel very strongly, was incubated in part because I grew up in a house that encouraged it. I was allowed to tinker with my toys (usually destroying rather than enhancing) and to spend hours playing with my Nintendo or Game Boy. Kids are always going to make their own decisions about what they like or don’t like (and clearly not all of them have the advantage of a surplus of toys around the house), but I believe that one of the main reasons more girls don’t become interested in technology and IT is because they’re taught (or shown) that this is the realm of the boys.

Now, getting back to Barbie. Despite her physically unattainable body shape (which has probably caused more than one case of body dismorphia in a young female), she’s had a lot male-centric jobs in her day: an Air Force fighter pilot, a firefighter, NASCAR driver, and President just to name a few. Her latest endeavor, computer engineer, is interesting for several reasons: it was voted upon online, and won largely due to a campaign on (male-dominated) link-sharing site Reddit; computer engineering is one of the final frontiers where women are still hugely underrepresented; and finally, there’s just not a lot of romanticism involved with the profession. How many 5 year-old girls out there say they want to be computer engineers when they grow up?

Barbie’s popularity could have helped in that last area. When I say, “could have,” I mean that had this happened 10 years ago, when Barbie was still relevant to a young girl’s development, it could have had a lasting effect on the number of women involved in that career path further down the line. While Barbie sales have seen an uptick in the last year, she has a lot of new competition: there are far more interesting and flashy things for young girls to latch onto, like Bratz, iCarly, Moxie Girls, Hannah Montana, etc.

The Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering worked with the Barbie designers at Mattel to make a model that fit the “look” of a female computer engineer. I don’t know too many women in IT rocking the sparkly leggings and white leather vests to work at the office (unless… she’s from the future). Clothing choices aside, I think this is a good move. The fact that something as quintessentially feminine as Barbie is out there showing little girls that IT and computer engineering isn’t all for the boys is encouraging. It’s a small step, but hopefully one that leads other toy manufacturers to follow.

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