If you’re like me, you had very mixed feelings about your Barbie dolls while you were growing up. Sure, it was fun to dress her up and to play with the Barbie pool and to send her out on fancy dates with Ken. But did she have to be so blond and so skinny? Why did all your dolls have to be so pale-skinned, when neither you nor your best friends actually looked like that? And her pointy little toes that fit into all her tiny heels…could anyone ever be that perfect? I didn’t think so.
I was really happy to see the new Barbie doll that just came out is much cooler than the dolls I had when I was young. Barbie has had many different careers over the years, but now she’s got one more: computer engineer! With funky pink glasses, her own pink laptop, and geek-chic clothing, she makes being a smart girl who likes technology look like a whole lot of fun.
But beyond all the fun times we can have sending Barbie off to a day at the office, there are many reasons why this doll is important for us girls. For much of our history, women have struggled to be seen as equal to men. While we’ve made great strides, some of the most creative and high-paying jobs are still held almost entirely by men. Computer engineering is one field in which men are the majority, and there are four times as many male computer engineers as there are female ones.
The people who created this Barbie doll know that our ideas of what we’re capable of doing are formed very early in our lives. As young girls, we need to know we are capable of doing anything boys can do. We might still choose to wear sparkly hot pink sneakers while we’re doing our math homework, but every girl who knows how bright and talented she really is brings us one step closer to making the world a better place for all women—and learning that can now start with Barbie.