Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the get-in-touch-with-your-feminine-side dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

In 1998, Slovenian toy company Mehano designed a line of children's electronic typewriter toys with the ability to write secret messages.

Eventually, the company licensed the typewriter to another company, (none other than Barbie herself), that had something altogether different in mind for the toys. Slathered in pink, it was soon headed to market to appeal "to girls."

[...] The four encryption modes — each featuring a simple alphabet substitution cipher (or 1-to-1 encoding) — were left out of Mattel's instruction manuals and advertisements. Mattel is Barbie's parent company. Even the latest model, produced in 2015, omitted this novel feature.

[...] It's an all-too-common marketing assumption that continues to plague the "pink aisle" of girls' toys. They often fail to encourage little girls to grow up to be engineers and scientists. A December report by the Institution of Engineering and Technology showed that boys were almost three times more likely to receive a STEM-themed toy for Christmas.

"STEM toys are by default for boys," says Meryl Alper, professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. "We have to add 'for girls.'" With over a decade of experience working in children's media at Northeastern, Sesame Workshop and Nick Jr., Alper emphasizes the importance of representation and diversity in characters and storylines. Playtime matters.

"Children use the objects in their world to think through ideas," she says. "If you have objects that signal to a kid that it's not for them, either explicit or implicit, you reduce that opportunity to learn through manipulation."

Source: https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-01-17/barbie-typewriter-toys-had-secret-ability-encrypt-messages-they-didnt-think-girls


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:18PM

    by ledow (5567) on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:18PM (#457335) Homepage

    Would you like his name and address? He was the school bully, and he was mad into CB. There was a huge array of MASSIVE antennae sticking out of his house. He had a bedroom full of kit and was on it every night after his trucker-dad got him into it, which they built from old truck kits that were ripped out and repaired by them and then converted, amplified, tuned, etc. to improve their usefulness.

    And ZX Spectrums were sold in two models - one for rich-kids pre-assembled, one for poor-kids where you soldered it together yourselves and saved £50. Have you never heard of the ZX Spectrum? Hell, I soldered my one back together any number of times when it was destroyed (I blame Daley Thompson's Decathlon, personally, with it's "waggle joystick to run forward" play that always got out of hand and broke the expansion connector for the joystick interface).

    So, I'm sorry, but rather than "call people out", maybe do some fact-searching.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2