From the moment of her invention in 1959, Barbie has made an extreme impact on many young girls for a lot of reasons, none of them positive.
Barbie’s presentation has been considered the “ideal” version of what it means to be a woman.
According to a study by Harmony Healthcare IT, “Eighty two percent of women think Barbie dolls portray unrealistic body images to girls and women.”
Those unrealistic beauty standards are introduced at the most impressionable time in a young girl’s life. An abundant number of girls who have played with a Barbie at one point or another now can grow body image issues.
Barbie has shown that girls are always supposed to be “perfect.” This is not what girls should have bouncing around in their mind as they are growing up. They need to see the realistic side of life and what humans actually look like as opposed to a physically unhealthy and unrealistic person.
Writer for the Student Edge publication, Kathy Zheng shared the standards Barbie can represent, “She never suffers from a bad-hair day and her silhouette is an outrageously faultless hour-glass” Zheng said. “She has smudge-proof lipstick and teeters precariously on a pair of stilettos.”
In addition to Barbie related body image issues, Barbie has dented the mindset of young girls regarding what they can or can’t do as they dream about their future career.
Theamericanscholar.org stated that Psychologists Aurora Sherman of Oregon State University and Eileen Zurbriggen of the University of California, Santa Cruz conducted an experiment. After five minutes of 37 girls from the ages of four to seven playing with Baby Doctor Barbie, Fashion Barbie and Mrs. Potato Head, the girls who played with the Barbies could not imagine themselves in as many male-dominated fields as the girls who played with Mrs. Potato Head.
Yes, there are many different Career Barbies, but that doesn’t eliminate the fact that Barbie is being sexualized. Her feet can only fit into high heels. Her outfits reinforce how women are being sexualized in work environments because of what they wear.
According to Rollingstones.com, not only are Barbie Dolls being sexualized, but they were created after another doll: Bild-Lilli. Bild-Lilli’s story involves her working as a sex worker among men who were on the older side.
Kids look up to adults, siblings, their favorite tv show characters and the dolls that they play with in their childhoods. Finding out that your favorite doll was based on a sex worker is beyond disappointing and discouraging. Advertising a toy that was created based on inspiration from a sex doll is not what parents want their kids to be exposed to.
In addition to Barbie’s sex trafficking, body issue inducing and sexualizing, she has also been programmed to sound stupid. When Teen Talk Barbie was created, one of the 270 sayings that she was programmed to say was, “math class is tough.”
Women are already harassed in school for not being stereotypically smart. It isn’t necessary to glamorize the hurtful acts of bullying.
