I came across an intriguing post on Facebook the other day about what Barbie's actual measurements would be if she were a real woman.
I reposted because the numbers had never hit me quite like that before and what first came to mind was poor Barbie—she can't even walk upright and doesn't get to eat much. I didn't think poor me, I have to try to attain this body and it is so very hard to do so.
It started up a bit of a conversation between some who tended to agree that Barbies weren't great for kids to play with and others who thought they were just fine and had fun memories of playing with them themselves. One commenter joked that she'd be every man's dream and I wasn't sure if she was being straight or facetious, but I thought, no, the average guy appreciates a nice set of boobs, but a figure like this would be, I hate to say it—laughable, and not truly desired by most men.
Personally, I don't have a big problem with Barbie, but I think a lot of it might just be because she holds little power or interest in our house with my daughter. She'll play with the dolls she has from time to time, but she prefers to build with blocks or make things out of paper, play doh, and stuff like that. I wondered, though, what Barbie means to my daughter. Now, I don't know if she even knows Barbie, as in the blonde, name-brand iconic doll. She only has a Belle version (yeah, Belle from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which she has never even seen, I think this just happened to be the doll they had at Giant when I got the idea to buy her a doll) and some cheap Japanese anime-looking thing my mother-in-law got her. So to her, they're just dolls. But, do they hold any influence in terms of being "models" to her for what a woman should be?
I asked her some questions about the Belle Barbie and contrasted it with a flat wood child dress-up doll, as you can observe in the video opening this post. I think her responses reveal a mixed bag of meaning. She says that the doll looks like a real lady and in fact, looks like mommy. (Really? Gee, thanks!)
When asked what the doll does for a job, she assigns a job based on what she is doing at the time—art—as well as what she perceives my job to be (art). Beyond that, she seems mostly focused on hair length and style and doesn't read the doll as particularly skinny. This in itself could be problematic to some, since, according to real measurements, she would be rather skinny, but then again, the child said the doll looked like me, who is not particularly skinny—which makes me think that maybe children are not as focused on weight as adults are (or at least my child is not).
However, when asked if she thinks everyone should look like the doll, she says yes, albeit with a mischievous looking grin. But when asked what happens to people if they don't look like the doll, she says we have to make them look like "you," meaning to me, like the real people. The rest of our conversation gives a bit of a jumbled perspective. She point blank says she feels good about herself and that the dolls don't make her feel bad, and when pressed, she decides she's had enough and exclaims "I'm busy!"
This is the part I love the most about the whole thing, I think. She was busy painting and humored me for a bit about the dolls, but then she just wanted to get back to what she was doing which was clearly more important than the dolls. It seemed to me that she wasn’t really interested in how the dolls looked in the same way adults would be (hence the disconnect between my questions and the kind of answers she was giving).
I don't love Barbie, I just don't see the doll as dangerous as some people do. I'm not saying that Barbies don't represent an unrealistic image of the female form. It's fairly obvious that they do. Some more than others. Nowadays there are a wide variety of Barbies. But what is less clear is how girls at various ages interpret this unrealistic form. And whether it matters. Few toys are realistic. Children have huge imaginations. And I just don't know if younger girls are seeing these Barbies the way adult women (or ever older girls) do. Maybe my kid is not the best barometer of the damage Barbie can cause, since she's not that into them. Still, I think her reactions to the questions about the dolls and their appearance and her own feelings were interesting in the way they didn't fall in line completely with the kind of reaction one might expect—no noting the stark difference between the real mommy and the doll, no saying mommy was fatter, no giving the Barbie a fluff "job" like "princess" or something. She was very focused on the real people setting the tone for what went on and the dolls just being stand ins for us (even the flat little girl who played with wolves was a stand in for my daughter, herself, who is forever playing such make-believe stories). Most of all, though she just wanted to get back to painting her own picture!
I think what's probably more important and effective than blaming plastic dolls for girls' self doubt and unrealized potential is to make sure they have other stuff to do and other "role models" in the form of real, living, breathing women who are involved with them and not themselves emulating the Barbie lifestyle.
I went through a rough patch with weight when I was about 10–13 or 14. At first, I didn't even know I was fat and I didn't care. My mom, whether it was by strategy or by accident, was pretty nonchalant about it. I got lead roles in school plays as Evita (in a production highlighting various Broadway shows) and as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, so no discrimination there. (Not bragging, these were small potatoes, just saying to illustrate that I was obliviously confident back then, until....). It was only over some time and a series of events—a family member made a comment about my weight, kids were making fun of me, and an ineffective doctor asked me "Is there anything you want to talk to me about?" (to which I replied, uhm, no) and then he mentioned my weight—that I started to feel bad about myself. It had nothing to do with plastic dolls, but about real people in my world. Let's not pass the buck to Barbie while failing to watch what we as people actually do and instead make sure we actively engage with our girls. Surely, living people can have more impact than dolls.
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