OUR VIEW: Barbie is unrealistic
What girl didn’t have a Barbie doll as a child? Barbies are often seen as the ultimate little girl toy, but the truth is there is very little about this plastic creation that is truly feminine at all. The average woman wears a size 14, quite a bit larger than Barbie’s supposedly stylish size four. It is easy to see why critics have attacked Barbie’s creators as unrealistic and demeaning to the self-esteem of women.
Although Barbie is sometimes portrayed as the goal all women should reach for, life as Barbie would be a very sad existence indeed. Somewhere between being forced to tiptoe without shoes and not having even enough stomach room to house all of the vital organs necessary to live longer than a short period of time, life as Barbie would lose all its glamor. Even in that radical pink corvette, life would be pretty unhappy. Except for all the podiatrists who would see an increase in business due to all of the tiptoeing.
Even though Barbie often takes the heat for all of the self-esteem woes facing American females, it is not entirely her fault. What is more damaging to the psyche is all of the live women portrayed to be skinnier than normal.
Barbie is, after all, only a plastic depiction of what can never be. Women in the media often condemn Barbie for ruining the children of this generation, while it is more likely that their skinny size-zero bodies are what is damaging the self-esteem of women everywhere. Women should take steps to feel good about themselves.
Fortunately, the woman and gender studies program here on campus is providing a way to do that. Right now, the program is collecting donations of Barbies, Bratz dolls and the like, to change their images to reflect more of what the world actually looks like. So donate your old childhood toys to the program and when Women’s History Month comes around in March, everybody will have the opportunity to stop trying to look like their favorite doll and instead change her to look more like them.
Now that’s an extreme makeover.