Amazon Barbie can barely manage her computer in the new Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer book
She is portrayed as an inept programmer who inadvertently plagues her friend's computer with a virus, and can't fix a bug without help from a man.
The book implies that Barbie can only contribute to the design of the game she's working on, rather than its more complicated technical structure.
We first saw the book at The Daily Dot.
According to one Amazon reviewer:
"Barbie starts out at breakfast stating that she's designing a game but when questioned by her sister Skipper, she admits, 'I'm only creating the design idea, I'll need Steven and Brian's help to turn it into a real game.' Literally six sentences into the story, and already Barbie can NOT do it. She immediately admits she doesn't know how to actually do computer engineering, and like a Disney princess, needs a white knight to rescue her."
Naturally, the book has not been well received. The majority of parents reviewing it on Amazon have deemed it worthy of only one star, and the site's sole three-star review suggests renaming the title "I Can Manipulate Boys Into Programming While I Sit Back and Take Credit."
A user by the name of T writes:
"This is possibly the most irresponsible children's book ever published. The title should really be a question: 'Can I be a computer engineer?' and the answer, according to this book, is no! silly Barbie, take all that hard programming stuff to the boys! it will be faster if they just do it for you."
"Once again, women programmers are shafted by the toy industry who insists computers are toys for boys. This has already put generations of women in challenging situations when they enter university computer science programs. This book could do something to change that. but, no.
The book is written by Susan Marenco and published by Random House, and was written to accompany a physical Computer Programmer barbie doll that comes carrying a hot pink laptop.