Barbie, If Looks Could Kill

Hannah Mekeel Pg1 Barbie If Looks Could push down Almost every American girl desires a Barbie at some point, for the adventure to vicariously live her fabulous life. The middling girl from ages 3-11 owns upwards of 10 Barbie dolls throughout her childhood, with hours on end spent exploring a Pepto-Bismol colored innovation, where Barbie has any dream job. For 53 years, Barbie has been an American standard of beautiful. With her leggy, busty experience and unattainable body measurements, neatly jailed in pink packaging and a festal disposition, Barbie has had over 80 c beers, ranging from the death chair to a McDonalds cashier.When shes not commandment or fighting fires, she still manages to verify her Barbie dreamho expend, her body, and her dreamboat of a boyfriend, Ken. In the world of Barbie, a girl can submit it exclusively But not all is sunny in paradise since the emergence of a Barbie backlash, as parents and child development experts take down to see the possibl e connections between saucy(a) girls who execute with Barbies and adult cleaning lady with body issues or eating disorders. The headspring becomes What are these cons teaching young girls around their bodies, their gender, and their habit in society? Is the record that has become Barbie a role work for all women can achieve?Or, train Barbie been teaching young girls that the holy, attractive, and favorablely precious adult female is thin, eternally glamorous, always happy, and always silent? Since Barbie was depression debut in 1959, she seemed to be a picture thorough red ink(a) role model for middle crystallise, American girls. She was perfectly thin, had a perfect family, perfect hair, perfect car and house. Yet how was this ikon of a perfect woman modify the millions of young girls who were playing with her? Some would postulate that Barbies thin, but busty and hippy figure, instill in young woman an idea of the perfect body, desired by men and envied by oth er women, Mekeel Pg 2 ll the while, completely unattainable. If Barbie were an actual woman, she would be 59&8243 tall, claim a 39&8243 bust, an 18&8243 waist, 33&8243 hips and a size 3 shoe, Slayen wrote in the Huffington . She likely would not menstruate shed deliver to walk on all fours ascribable to her proportions. (Katz). Many women admit they started worrying intimately their weight when they were between the age of 4 and six years old, and some(prenominal) of the girls who have or had an eating disorder admitted that Barbie compete a huge role in influencing their attitudes toward their bodies.Barbie led young girls to believe, if you want Barbies fabulous life, you have to also appearance fabulous. During the formative ages of 4-6, right closely the time young girls receive their first Barbie, they really begin to absorb the social standards around them, and the 1961 gem, Slumber party Barbie, could not have been a positive bias on young girls. Slumber Party Barb ie came equipped with a book highborn How to Lose Weight , which offered advice like take for grantedt eat, and a bathroom ordered series permanently set at cx lbs. Slumber Party Barbie is something no intelligent parent would expose their young, impressionable daughter to, and something Mattel wouldnt even attempt 40 years later. Mattel has had its missteps in the last 20 years, putting feminist across the soil up in arms with the 1992 founder Teen Talk Barbie, who famously proclaims that maths class is tough. Sure, math class is tough, but shouldnt Barbie be reiterating to girls that math is essential, especially if you want to be plainly like Barbie and grow up to be a doctor, scientist, astronaut, or whatever you want. Mattel purposeless no time silencing their quintessential bimbo next the backlash. Borger). Another major flaw in Barbie represent values is her desire for natural wealth. Barbie has everything, but it wasnt always that way. Barbie came from dimini shed beginnings, dressed like Mekeel Pg 3 a typical white, middle-class female of the 1960s. She go on to evolve into mod Barbie, disco Barbie, and by the 1980s she had the taste of a lottery winner, says M. G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie. At the snapper of this change is class. (Borger). Barbie suddenly had a dreamhouse mansion, a convertible sports car, and in more(prenominal) new-fangled years, began wearing designer duds from the likes of Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, and Bob Mackie.Barbie advocates stress that the problem doesnt lay in Barbies appearance, or even her values, but with our perceptions of a doll. after(prenominal) all, Barbie is an inanimate object, something that living women shouldnt contrast themselves to. If Barbie were real she would likely be disunite from Ken and in debt up to her eye after remortgaging her dreamhouse, but shes not real. She is a fantasy, which little boys and girls can use when flexing their imaginations to develop a whole worl d and life for Barbie, as they would see it. Its the ability to wee-wee Barbie into anything they want that makes her so appealing to children. We are in jeopardy of looking at a childs toy through an adults microscope and, of course, seeing all the reproach things. To a child she.. never says she cant play with you, always smiles, will accompany her owner everywhere, and never shouts. Onto her can be communicate wishes and dreams. (Russel) Barbie has also taken the form of many positively influential female role models like Jackie Onassis Kennedy or Olympic athletes. Having experienced first-hand, amongst girls my age, the damages of low self-esteem and a poor body scope, I maintain it hard to believe that Barbie has played no role in damaging females.Though a six year old talent not process the impact at the time, subconsciously she carries the effects of Barbies image with her for the rest of her life, affecting the way she sees Mekeel Pg 4 herself and women around her. S ure, Barbie encourages young girl to be whatever they want to be, but still if youre beautiful. With doll collecting world the second most popular hobby, to attendant collecting, and Barbie being a $1. 5 one thousand thousand dollar industry, shes not going anywhere soon. It is a parents responsibility to choose their childrens toys wisely, considering how it aptitude impact them.If nothing else, parents should be constitute in their daughters lives contextualizing all these images they encounter in the public and in pop culture, and reinforcing a positive body imagine and self-esteem. Mattel continues to make efforts to bring Barbie to a place of more positive realism, but until woman are accurately represented and positive portrayed by gender specific toys, Barbie could be a serious danger to a young girls psyche, giving a new meaning to the phrase if looks could kill.