I used to be on the other side of this Smackdown. Bimbo Barbie wasn't prancing into my house, no way, no how.
Then came Christmas. And Santa at the firehouse. And kindly volunteers in the ladies auxiliary who put a lot of time and effort into being good neighbors and buying goodies for all the little kiddies in my neighborhood.
Damn them.
Because the moment my daughter opened mermaid Barbie (who my gay best friend promptly told her must be named Ariel), she was a kid transformed. "Barbie, Mommy, look, I got a Barbie from Santa!"
I didn't even know she knew who Barbie was. She spent hours that night, ripping Barbie's clothes off. Making me put them back on. Ripping Barbie's clothes off. Making Daddy put them back on. Brushing Barbie's hair. Tangling Barbie's brush in knots in Barbie's hair. It didn't matter what I thought. Barbie had found a home.
She's now up to three Barbies - all gifts - and I've given up on a lot of my feministic outrage. It's a doll. She has impossibly big boobs and an impossibly small waist. But she's hardly the only doll to be lacking in realism.
My daughter's favorite educational doll, the Learn to Play Emma from International Playthings, has a ginormous head, big bulbous feet and a squarish body. No one's picking on her lack of realism, however, because she's A) educational and B) not overtly sexual (not sexual at all, really). But is the Barbie really all that sexual? She's got a plastic non-crotch (trust me, my little brother, as all little brothers do, cleared that one up a long time ago). She's got boobs with no nipples, and her body is made of the most uncomfortable-to-cuddle-with material known to kids.
She has skanky make-up, and skanky clothes; I'll grant you that. But by the time my daughter - or most little girls - gets done with undressing Emma (or her equivalent) and toting her naked around the grocery store, she's looking quite the skank herself. Not to mention what happens when our kids get ahold of some paint and try to put "make-up" on their dolls. They don't have to see it on their mothers; they can see it on the grocery store clerk and think it's "so pretty, Mommy!" Chances are, at some point, they'll try to recreate it on their dolls, whether her name is Barbie or not.
Also making the Barbie concern take up less and less of my time is the amount of her time spent with Barbie. By not making it a big deal, we've managed to make Barbie no more special than her collection of Hess trucks or her art easel. The three Barbies are in the toybox - usually naked - when she wants them. If she wants them. Often, she does, pulling them out as the favored toy for about an hour of fun before she sets her aside and begins begging for Play-Doh (now there, I have true toy hatred). She seems no more attuned to her own body after playing with a Barbie, no more obsessed with hair, clothes, make-up or or weight. And let's not forget the play-acting she does, the elaborate stories she makes up about Barbie going out and having fun (no dating or having sex, clean, wholesome, three-year-old stories of going to play with Mr. Cow or driving a plastic firetruck).
Can we really blame one toy for the destruction of little girls' psyches? My mother didn't buy me Barbies, and I still developed an eating disorder. My neighbor, on the other hand, who has one of the most well-adjusted tweens I've ever met (future babysitter of my daughter, right there), spent hours playing Barbies on the floor with her. That was their mom/daughter bonding time. Now a high schooler with a wide smile, she has the kind of self-assurance I envy even at my age. The Barbies don't seem to have hurt her. Maybe because what's more important are the strong female role models, the moms who are present, available and involved in their daughters' lives (as my neighbors was then and still is).
I'm not calling Barbie the pinnacle of perfect toydom, but as long as Barbie is just one toy in the box, I'm willing to just let her be.
The Other Side:
Image: Amazon
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