Barbie
She is blonde (almost always), with
blue eyes (usually), wears lots of pink clothes (quite often), and is disliked
by many, especially parents. Some see her as “little miss perfect.” She is an icon
among young girls, and everybody has heard her of. Her name is Barbie. Though
not everybody approves of her, society has been setting high standards for
young girls to grow up and change their lives and bodies to look more like a
“Barbie.” Parents, however, are looking down upon Barbies and are rejecting
even buying their daughters these dolls because they are completely
unrealistic. Even someone who has never set eyes on a Barbie doll before could
see why this toy may lead girls into thinking twice about themselves, but Barbie
is the not the source or reason why we have so many problems among young girls’
self-esteem. While there is much controversy about Barbie dolls, and while she
is severally criticized by many, Barbie should be seen more as an encouragement
and inspiration to young girls that they can grow up to be whatever they want, while
being happy with who they are and how they look. It is the media, not a child’s
doll, that truly has the power to alter the way a girl views herself. Parents
should still allow their daughters to play with a cute doll as a part of their
childhood, but realize that it is outside sources--not Barbie--that can alter a
little girl’s ego.
Barbie came to life in 1959 after Ruth
Handler watched her daughter, Barbara, play with her paper dolls. Barbara and
her friends used their imaginations and gave these paper dolls roles as college
students, cheerleaders, and other grown-up careers. Since then, Ruth was
inspired to create a three-dimensional girls’ doll that was not like the
popular baby and children dolls at the time. Handler wanted this doll to allow
young girls to live out their dreams as they got a glimpse into the future. So
she created a teenage fashion doll and named it after her own daughter, and
that is how “Barbie” came to be.
Ruth Handler was not just an
inventor but also a businesswoman. She and her husband, Elliot, had already
founded the company Mattel in 1945, and fourteen years later, on March 9, 1959,
she introduced the Barbie doll at the annual Toy Fair in New York. Since then,
Barbie has become a major hit in the toy industry with every little girl
wanting one. The Barbie dolls now come in all different styles and boxes while
wearing tons of different fashionable outfits. She may seem innocent in appearance
and character, but unfortunately it is exactly her appearance that makes people
hate her.
Parents, most especially moms, of
young girls do not approve of the Barbie doll herself. Why is this? Well, the
average Barbie doll stands at 11.5 inches tall and has a 3.5-inch waist, so if
she were a real human, she would be 5 foot 9 and have a 21-inch waist. Clearly,
the fact is that Barbie dolls are unrealistic in size, and this is something
that parents take to heart when choosing what toys they want their little girls
to play with. A large amount of moms do not want their little girls to play
with an unrealistic doll because they do not want them growing up thinking that
to be as popular or pretty as Barbie, they must be that thin.
What moms sometimes forget is that
when children play with toys, the last idea on their mind is how thin the doll
they are playing with is. They are just children! The child is merely playing
with a girly toy, and she loves it for that reason--it is pretty and girly, and
she can use her imagination to give whatever life she wants to give it. The
parent, however, worries that letting her child play with a super unrealistic
and overly gorgeous doll will change her daughter’s view of herself. It is true
that some young girls in today’s society start looking at themselves
differently, in appearance and personality. However, all these self-conscious
thoughts floating in a young girl’s mind could not have been the result of the
valueless, plastic doll they play dress up with. The real cause is from the
media, celebrities, magazines, and other very clear ways society is trying to
change the minds’ of little girls in this generation.
Growing up, I loved Barbie dolls,
just as most other little girls did (even though I of course owned other dolls
that were not under the trademark of Barbie). I loved them so much because they
were pretty and fashionable (I personally loved
fashion), so naturally I wanted to play dress up with them. I also used my creative
imagination to give them their own individual lives and pretend they each
talked with one another. Though I do not play with my dolls as much as I did
when I was younger, I still have five Barbie dolls today as they remind me of
part of my childhood and my love of dress up. However, when I was little and
playing with my Barbies, it never occurred to me (and it probably has not with
any other little girl) that to be accepted or cool, I had to be as thin or
beautiful as a Barbie doll.
The minute Ruth Handler watched her
daughter play with her dolls, she immediately recognized that letting children
from a safe distance (at a young age) experiment with the future through
make-believe was a vital part of growing up. What many do not see, especially
in recent years, is that Barbie does in fact inspire young girls to grow up
believing that they can become whatever they dream to be: a dolphin trainer, a
teacher, a fashion designer, or even a chef. Unfortunately, society has altered
the way Barbie should be looked at and has made her a model of what “perfect
appearance” looks like and expects all young girls to believe it. Now, instead
of Barbie being a little girl’s best friend and a genuine benefactor, society
has turned her into an idol that has the power to alter the self-conciseness of
a 5-year-old in numerous unhealthy ways.
The dictionary.com definition of the term Barbie is as follows: 1.
Trademark. A brand of doll
representing a slim, shapely young woman, especially one with blond hair, blue
eyes, and fair skin. Noun 2. Also
called Barbie doll. A person,
especially a young woman, perceived as blandly attractive and vacuous. After
gathering the answers of a short questionnaire that six teenagers (of both
genders) between the ages of 16 and 17 took, I discovered that they all had
very similar answers that were not too shocking for the questions proposed. Most
of their answers reinforced the ideas that society was already placing on Barbie. For
one, the first idea that came to mind when they thought of the word “Barbie,”
was the blonde, tan, tall, and skinny children’s doll, which is probably close
to what a young child might also say, not to mention very close to the dictionary.com definition. When asked if
they thought this doll would have a great influence on girls starting from a
young age, they all said yes because they felt like the doll itself set high
standards for girls to reach to become labeled as “perfect,” and because it
gave girls a glimpse into what it might look like to be a woman. When asked if
they personally viewed Barbie in a positive or negative way, I got some mixed
results. Some were just ambivalent, but others were positive and negative,
depending on how much of an influence they thought Barbie dolls placed on girls
and depending on their personal experiences with the toy. This survey just
comes to show how society has even changed the ways teenagers view Barbie.
Though not all of the teens I surveyed had a disapproving view of her, they
were all sure that this doll had some sort of negative impact on little girls.
I found that to be truly sad.
In conclusion, Barbie dolls should
be viewed as harmless plastic dolls that young girls play dress up with. They
cannot cause problems in a girl’s life unless the girl lets ideas of what
“perfect” means determine the way she should look and behave. But that mere
idea does not come from the plastic Barbie doll she played with when she was
five. The media and all the celebrities and lies that come with it have a great
influence of how our young generation view themselves. That is where the parents
should come in and make sure their child understands that they are perfect the
way they are, and they do not need the media to judge them. How the word
“Barbie” is viewed clearly has a much more powerful meaning than just a
beautiful skinny doll little girls like to play with. To me, and hopefully to
all the parents out there, that powerful meaning is that Barbie inspires young
girls to be the best they can be and do whatever they dream of, not the power
to alter the way they view their faces, personalities, and bodies.
