A half million Barbie fans participated in a vote to choose the doll’s next career: Computer Engineer. This was the first time Mattel opened up the decision to a vote, and her new career will be the 126th in the 50 years since she was first introduced. The choice comes at time when the field of computer engineering has experienced a decline in women’s participation.
“We can use any sort of positive influence that we have, because the number of girls studying programming is abysmal,” said Lynn Langit, a developer at Microsoft.
