Identities And Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People?

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.

This research looks at the association of masculinity with violence, racism, power and the objectification of women, which has been around since early civilization. This study also shows how these concepts are still evident today in the media. Masculinity in the media is portrayed as muscular, violent, angry, aggressive, dominant, and warrior like. The rhetoric in media, as it relates to masculinity, has influenced the amount of violence in the world.

In the movie “looking for alibrandi the director presents the viewer with the idea that people can attain an enduring sense of both identity and belonging. The director believes that many life experiences compel us to alter our sense of self. Both text, movie and the story of my friend suggest that our identity changes depending on

     It is my opinion that Prager has failed in her attempts to persuade the reader that Barbie is a tool created from male fantasy or a poster child for modern feminism. If anything this essay has helped me to realize that Barbie is a combination of both worlds. She is both sexually appealing to men and someone that women can admire and even a toy that little girls can play with and hope to be like when they are older. I still remain adamantly devoted to my Barbie dolls, seeing her as neither temptress or sexually frustrated object.

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

     Identity is one of the main questions throughout all of our readings, because it is hard for people to accept who they are in society. Accepting their identity as a minority with little if any freedoms

According to Salmon, 1985 (Salmon 1985, p171), development and change are not limited to childhood but continue throughout our lives. It is however argued that personal identities are similar to social identities, and include group or collective identities.

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.

Each individual possesses an identity that makes him or her unique in their own special way. This identity is considered a marker that helps define and shape the person, even as they develop by means of age or wisdom. In addition to that, various factors, such as ethnicity, gender, religion, language, or culture, contribute to establishing one’s identity. Although each identity is different, Andrew Solomon acknowledges another difference amongst one’s identity. This difference depends on whether someone encompasses a horizontal identity or a vertical identity.

In Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll" a young girl is troubled by the classification of what it takes to become a beautiful woman. "Barbie Doll" details the image that society projects upon women. From an early age young women struggle to conform to the standards that society has defined for them. Beautiful dolls such as Barbie are frequently the first source of association that young girls have with the image that society has placed upon them.

When the dolls were first sold, Mattel used the slogan “We girls can do anything”. Since then it has been joined by similar phrases like “Be anything. Do everything.” and the more recent “What happens when girls are free to imagine they can be anything?” The message that Mattel is trying to push is that young girls will play with the doll, and by doing so will imagine themselves living vicariously through Barbie. There have been many iterations of Barbie, and Mattel proudly flaunts all the various careers that Barbie has had over the decades. Careers that include being an astronaut, firefighter, nurse, teacher, and even the president of the United States. Yet the most popular, perhaps the stereotypical image of Barbie, is the one first

How does a Barbie influence young girls in today’s world? Young girls are more into Barbie dolls than any other toy. Barbie has become the ideal role models for all young girls. Barbie perfect appearance, perfect clothes, perfect hairs, perfect makeup, perfectly…perfect. Young Girls need someone, who will validate their dreams, inspire, their hearts, and represent all the positive, healthy ideals life and the young girl start thinks Barbie is the one who they want to become. Girls start comparing their own life with Barbie’s. But they don’t think, Barbie is not the one who going to teach you how to live in the society, how to talk to the elders, how to be a girl, how to dress, no, Barbie

If men and women do not think critically about the ideas, that are constantly on display by the media, these negative ideas of gender roles with other sexist ideas while become accepted and practiced like they are today. In, bell hook’s film Cultural Criticism Transformation, hook makes it clear there is a direct link between representation and how we live our lives. One representation clearly displayed in media is the masculinity of violence. This idea that men are violent is clearly operant in young adult “twelve- to twenty-year-olds made up about 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2005, they were responsible for some 28 percent of the single-offender and 41 percent of multiple-offender violent crimes”(Prinstance). Media has constantly displayed men as violent and when men repeatedly watch these same images they feel the need that they must live up to these ideas to be a

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.