A Barbie For Every Body Analysis

The Barbie doll has been a popular play toy for young girls since the late 1950s. Although the Barbie doll seem like an innocent toy, it has had an effect on little girls’ body images. Many studies have shown an association between young girls playing with Barbies and eating disorders. Even grown women want to resemble Barbie so badly that they start to do surgery on their bodies which can be very dangerous. This has led to the term, Barbie Syndrome, which refers to “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

In an article in Interview Magazine, Emily Prager discuses her opinions of Mattel's toy doll Barbie being designed by Jack Ryan, husband to Zsa Zsa Gabor, and designer of military missiles. The concept that a doll for young girls was designed by such a person greatly shocked Prager." Suddenly a lot of things made sense to me" says Prager. The element that Ryan designed Barbie may explain some of the key aspects of the doll itself.

Children’s child play has become a form of an unrealistic world. Although, it is considered for children to begin creating a creative imagination, the mind fascinates children into toys. Some child’s play toys are not ideal for young children, like the one and only “Barbie”. Barbie has become a worldwide toy product for children all over the world, from the North Pole to the South Pole. These dolls have emerged from one ethnicity to another. In Ann DuCille, “Dyes and Dolls: Multicultural Barbie and the Merchandising of Differences” the author talks about the race and gender differences; found in Barbie. She argues; “Is Barbie bad?” her response, was “Barbie is just a piece of plastic” (459). In contrast, this piece of plastic is not just a piece of plastic to young girls; it is much more than that. A piece of plastic that little girls all over the world wish they could be. Even though, it is only a piece of plastic to adults that Barbie significantly means nothing to them. Growing up, I owned a couple of Barbie dolls. The tall, long blond hair, blue-eyed doll was my best friend and my “role model”. I wanted to become exactly like Barbie. As a child, I thought only beautiful people who looked liked Barbie signified beauty. To my little to no knowledge, I soon came to find out no one really looks like Barbie, except people who want to become like Barbie. In my adolescent years, no one taught me Barbie was “unreal”; no one taught me it was just a figure in my imagination.

The short story 'Barbie Doll ' starts off by painting an image of a young girl, who grows up with the image of a woman 's life and duties planted in her mind. “Presented with dolls, and miniature GE stoves, and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.” (Piercy) Immediately, she was placed unknowingly into the place of a girl, the standards that we are born to do, born to be. Growing up with this most likely put that idea into her own mind, and transitioning into puberty made it all the worse. She began to change, displayed the knowledge, health and strength anyone would be lucky to have. Yet, going into puberty, “everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.” (Piercy) I remember being that girl, not glamourous, yet not horrendous looking. I was average,

In Our Barbie, Ourselves, Emily Prager presents an argument to the reader that is not entirely unheard of in today’s society. Prager points out the fact that the popular childhood toy, Barbie, is not made to scale of a real woman and that this is possibly due to the fact that one of Barbie’s main designers was a male. The author also picks on the fact that Barbie’s male counterpart, Ken, has no visible genitalia whereas it seems Barbie’s own display of intimate female parts is okay. The entire piece takes on a feminist stance, questioning why it’s okay for female’s bodies to be objectified and displayed on a doll, when the male doll seemed to be made with concealment in mind. Prager has the reader question the morality and ethics of the designer,

Picture yourself as the ‘perfect’ woman. Embodying every woman’s dream. You are undeniably gorgeous, weighing in at 100 pounds, standing 6 feet tall and holding nearly 150 careers (barbiemedia.com). Yes, this is the beloved, ever so ‘inspirational’ childhood toy, the perfectly perfect Barbie Doll. Barbie is America’s most beloved toy, considering young girls between the ages of three and eleven own at least 10 Barbie’s throughout their childhood (‘Life in Plastic’). As creator of the Barbie Doll once said, “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented that a woman has choices,” (Handler). However, Barbie has proved to serve the opposite effect and

Barbie, at the age of 41, is one of the longest living toys in America. Analyzing her early history can give a person a look into the societal trends and culture of the late 1950's and early 1960's. There is evidence of fashion innovations in Barbie's wardrobe. Also, one can see the perception of females by society, such as what they should look like, how they should act and dress, as well as what their future goals could be. The following essay follows Barbie's history from 1959 to 1963, covering her development, her appeal to children, and her existence as a cultural artifact of the time period.

Young girls have been playing with Barbie dolls since the dolls inception at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Recently, researchers have been skeptical on whether the dolls have an effect on the self-image of girls who play with them. In order to determine if Barbies have an impact on young-girls self-concept, clinicians have carried out several studies where they monitor the interaction between the young girls and the famous figurine. From these experiments, scientists concluded that Barbies can have a bearing on a girls self-image, making the consumers who buy the doll more aware of the issue Barbie

In both poems “Barbie Doll’ and “homage to my hips” the speakers focused on the same idea but had different ways of expressing those ideas. In the poem “Barbie Doll” written by Marge Piercy shows how a young girl is affected by the idea of a “perfect” body that society thinks a girl should have. A Barbie doll is a toy that young girls play with. Barbie is an unrealistic way of how a young girl should look and can ultimately lower one’s self-esteem. The company that makes Barbie decided that it would be beneficial for young girls to see the different body images one can have. On the other hand, in the poem “homage to my hips” the speaker Lucille Clifton is proud and appreciative of her hips. She is able to go against the standard norm of how society wants girls to look and gives her hips the importance that they are actual people themselves. Although “Barbie Doll” and “homage to my hips” have a similar theme while the poets used a different structure and literary devices to portray how society sees a young girls’ body image.

As I was on the hunt for the perfect gift for an 8 year old’s birthday, I discovered the doll market is quite different than my coming of age. Undoubtedly, Barbie is still problematic, but now she has competitors, including Bratz, and Monster High dolls, who are noticeably thinner than barbie and dressed up to look like grown women getting ready for a night of clubbing than a game of tennis. As I pick up the first doll box, I find a doll chained up in a slither of clothing with a blank expression on her face, a prominent thigh gap, with the tagline “GREAT for girls ages 5 and up!” By all means, I never imagined in my life that I would miss Barbie. For that reason, I begin to sit myself down in the toy aisle to start googling everything I could about these dolls on my

What was that one doll every little girl just had to have growing up? What doll made little girls obsess with perfection? What doll set the unrealistic standards for girls starting at ages three or four? Barbie is a children’s toy that was first introduced to the market in 1959. Barbie was the perfect role model for all girls. She was perfectly skinny, had a perfect boyfriend and family, perfect hair, perfect house, perfect everything, but her existence is completely ironic. Although Mattel, creator of Barbie, attempts to make Barbie absolute perfection, all her imperfect buyers are wondering why they cannot look like the beautiful doll. She is responsible for the diminishing young girls’ self-confidence. Lisa Belkin believes girls in today’s society cannot comprehend what true beauty is because they were so entranced with the idea of Barbie in her online article “Banning Barbie.” Barbie should be pulled off the shelves immediately. Barbie’s looks, actions, and lust for materialistic objects are the blame for the degeneration of assurance in young girls and women.

Sandra Cisneros’s short story, “Barbie-Q”, describes the life of a young girl never identified by name and the less-fortunate life she and her family lead. The child explains how new toys are a rare find, but she loves Barbies. While entailing the family’s trip to the local flea market, she and her sister find Barbie dolls with water and smoke damaged. The main girl states the flaws of the Barbie, but counters with the positivity of having any dolls to play with. Through this struggle, however, the girl learns to cope with the gender roles and standards set by her peers and neighbors, particularly for women. Cisneros writes with these ideas in relation to her own childhood, motivated by the social standards of gender roles and body image in relation to the Barbie.

The problem surrounding Mattel Inc. is their mismanagement of international subcontractors and vendors and the production of certain toys (the manufacturing process), as well as their inability to adapt their marketing strategy or product to the constantly changing “demographic and socioeconomic trends.” This is supported by Mattel’s legal battle with Carter Bryant and MGA, their forced recall of certain toys that were manufactured overseas, and the increasing rate at which traditional toys are becoming less appealing to today’s young audience. Essentially, Mattel’s mismanagement and oversight lead to violations in terms of ethical and social responsibilities and safety standards.

One study took a group of 6th grade girls and had them play with Barbie’s, then later asked them what their views of Barbie were:

Launched on March 1959, the Barbie doll is a toy that was first put on display in New York. It quickly garnered a lot of attention with the target audience of the creators, young girls. This doll was different than its previous dolls because it was a doll that was an ideal representation of a woman. Thus allowing young girls to use their imagination to create and act-out what this doll’s life is like and what their future would potentially be. To successfully understand this toy, we must think like C Wright Mills, a sociologist who asks to use our sociological imagination, the intersection of one’s biography and history. This artifact reflects and perpetuates the dominant ideology of how to perform your gender the “right” way in the early 1960s. I will argue this demonstrates West and Zimmerman’s concept of “doing gender” which is clarified with Judith Butler’s concept of socialization of gender.