Barbie Book Pulled for Sexism

People are becoming overly sensitive about what is said, how it is said, why it is said, where it is said. Some people can use certain words but only if they are of a certain race, while others, cannot. No matter what one thinks of someone or lifestyle, any comments must be "cloaked" in a proper package in order not to offend or fear of being twittered to death. Look at the Bill Cosby rape allegations, decades old now, but the number of women is growing. Now his new TV show was cancelled.

So, now we have poor Barbie, Mattel's epic and iconic doll for girls. What girl growing up did not own one? My daughter had a huge collection plus American Girl dolls. Barbie has appeared in so many colors but the usual still most appealing is the blond. Blondes do have more fun (must related to the sun, LOL!).

Mattel was forced to pull from publication its latest children's book entitled, "Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer". The series is to inspire and promote girl power to young minds For the most part, it does, except for a brief part where Barbie, with all your beauty, has problems with developing a computer program, so, like everyone in the IT world does, she calls upon two other male engineers (not Ken, BTW) for help. One brief line in the books is:

Barbie said: " I tried to send you one of my designs, but I ended up crashing on my laptop. I need to get the lost files". Steven replies: It will go faster if Brian and I help," and she's quick to oblige.

That was all it took for all the feminists to start twittering and FBing complaining about how this looked to young readers that Barbie needed men for the help. The author of the book, a woman in the field, defended her position regardless indicating the uproar is crazy stupid. So, pulled the book, first published in 2010, to fix the appearance. So what? A man is now not allowed to impart knowledge or show superiority in a subject when compared to another person who just so happens to be of a different gender? The author has since apologized for the misunderstanding but blames the Mattel editorial staff for being negligent and not catching the snafu. Yet, in the author's mind, there is none, whatsoever.

This simply shows the power of the social media and how it can make a product fail or succeed by a few loud, vocal, activists. How social media can force a major toy manufacturer into action to avoid bad press. Mattel released the book in 2010 and just now pulling to to revise it.

There are many women in the IT world as engineers. The picture in the book conveys teamwork that happens very often. The whole thing only demonstrates how overly sensitive out society has become.