I’m one of the modern dads concerned about the sexist and misogynistic imagery in advertising and in pop culture at large. I worry about the accumulation of tiny sights and sounds as it relates to my daughters well being and, also, as they relate to how dads are perceived in society. Many still don’t believe a beer ad or a detergent commercial or the plot line of a popular movie matter or move the dial from a cultural standpoint. I’d argue the opposite. Small things do matter. Small things change the world and not always for the better. The way toys and products are marketing and to whom, can reshape a nation.
The answer, according to NPR’s Planet Money, as to why more women aren’t computer programmers seems to lie in a series of events and images that helped to shape a landscape for young female math geeks and computer lovers in the early to mid-1980s. Please give this terrific, if not infuriating, Planet Money WHY WOMEN STOPPED CODING episode a listen and while listening, consider the impact of those billboards plastered in subways, the barrage of television commercials portraying women as one thing and men as another, and the aggressively male dominated movies our young girls are still being subjected to some thirty years after a shift in the computer programming demographic pushed many girls away from the computer science work they loved and were great at doing.
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