From a very young age, girls have what society believes is
the ideal woman ingrained into their
minds, telling them how they should behave.
These impressionable youths soak up information like a sponge, which
will in turn make them act in that certain manner. Barbie is the quintessential model on how
young girls learn what the image of the perfect
girl/teenager looks like. A great
deal of young girls look up to Barbie, and even want to look and behave like
her when they grow up. Barbie has tainted the minds of the female youth, and
has caused much controversy because she undoubtedly complicates gender roles.
If you were
to look at a Barbie doll, you would think she is pretty. She has long blonde or brown hair, she is
very thin, and she has decently large breasts.
She is rather attractive. In
reality, Barbie is an extraordinarily false interpretation of the actual
dimensions of the human body. If Barbie
were a real woman, she would be 5’9” tall, have a 39” bust, an 18” waist, 33”
hips and have a size three shoe. Barbie
would literally need to walk on all fours in order for her to mobilize. Her body proportion and body mass index is so
twisted, that she physically does not have the means to menstruate. By having Barbie look the way she does, it
gives off the wrong message to young girls in terms of how they should
look. Being dangerously thin is the
“norm” that Mattel is broadcasting, and that is rather warped.
Barbie is
dressed to look like a supermodel, as she is clothed in many garments that are modeled
after high fashion designer’s clothing lines.
Barbie wears many clothes and swimsuits that are very revealing, which
is categorized as a feminine gender role.
The main color Barbie wears, and the most subconsciously associated
color that you immediately think of when you hear: “Barbie”, is pink. Pink is a color just like any other color,
how can it be possible to feminize a color?
Barbie did just this. She always
seems to be wearing pink and everything about her life is pink, pink,
pink. From her car, to her clothes, and
everything in between, is pink. Barbie
feminizes the color while at the same time de-masculinizes it. She makes it seem like it is solely acceptable
for girls to wear pink, but not boys.
This goes to show how Barbie is morphing gender roles into what is
acceptable and what is not.
Barbie is
even programmed to speak basic phrases. An
example of a phrase she says is: “Math class is tough!” which is clearly
derogatory towards women, making it seem like the quintessential woman is
stupid and useless. Other actions Barbie
seems to do a great deal of the time is shop and talk on her phone to her
friends. “Will we ever have enough
clothes?” and “I love shopping!” are more programmed phrases she can
speak. This is portraying that the perfect teenager is always shopping, and
not spending time doing much else such as math homework. By having Barbie represent her actions so
proudly, it is sending the wrong message to female youth, further stereotyping
the perfect teenager gender
role.
A Barbie is
not complete without her accessories. Not
her makeup accessories or purse, but accessories such as her book on how to
lose weight and her scale. The only
words printed on Barbie’s book reads: “Don’t eat!”. How much more blatantly controversial can it
get? By saying, “don’t eat”, Mattel is
directly telling young girls that in order to look like Barbie, you literally
cannot consume food. This can cause major
physical and psychological health problems such as anorexia and bulimia. In regards to Barbie’s scale, it is
permanently stuck at 110 pounds. This is
conveying the notion that it is acceptable to be strictly 110 pounds in order
to exude the essence of the perfect
teenager, which also can cause major health problems.
Surprisingly
enough, there is an actual disease called “Barbie Syndrome”. The exact definition from the free medical
dictionary is as follows: “The drive,
often of adolescent girls, to attain impossible standards of beauty, projected
by toys—e.g., Mattel’s Barbie Doll—and the media, resulting in failure and
frustration, issues related to body image, eating disorders, and self-image.” Anastasiya Shpagina and Valeriya Lukyanova
are girls in the Ukraine that have altered themselves to mimic the Barbie doll.
This is actual proof that Barbie has a massive, life altering impact on the
gender roles of females.
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