The following post is a guest post by Lauryn Macy Roberts, a graduate of Mount Mary College’s graduate writing program. Lauryn recalls growing up with Barbies and raising a daughter to play with the iconic doll — but not without at least a twang of feminist guilt:
She’s a blonde bombshell icon of the 1960s, so famous she only needs one name. Fans flock to see impressions of her hands and feet on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Marilyn? No, it’s Barbie, whose story is told in Tanya Lee Stone’s new book, The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: a Doll’s History and Her Impact on Us.
Ruth Handler, the brains behind Barbie, had not been a fan of baby dolls as a child, and she wanted to offer an alternative to young girls who might not see motherhood as their ultimate life goal. Why not market a doll that promotes independence instead of caretaking, Handler wondered? Why not market a doll that would be a role model through the lofty careers she pursued? But this doll would also stay feminine working in a man’s world. She’d wear thigh-high skirts and spike heels to accentuate measurements equivalent to 40-18-32 on an adult female.
It’s no wonder that Barbie sparked immediate debate when she hit the toy market, and Stone’s book is proof that the debate is still going strong today.
Never before had parents seen such a blatantly sexual toy. How could the doll’s image be healthy for a growing girl’s self esteem? Would parents even buy their daughters a doll with breasts? As I read The Good, the Bad and the Barbie, I found myself regularly checking my own Barbie meter. Was I a fan or a foe? Unlike the women who shared their childhood memories with the author, I had never had a Barbie doll growing up. When Barbie made her debut in March 1959, I was 11 and had already decided dolls of all kinds were too babyish for my attention. It’s likely I would have joined the Barbie fan club if she’d been around when I was 7 or 8, though. It’s also likely my mother would not have allowed that little plastic sexpot in our house. Mom had, after all, wrung her hands and worried that I had suffered permanent damage after seeing the movie West Side Story one weekend in seventh grade.
Years later, I had a daughter of my own and I was thrust into the To Barbie or Not To Barbie debate when one Christmas, my sister begged to be the one to give her only niece her first Barbie. Her first Barbie? I hadn’t yet decided if there would be one Barbie, much less a swarm of them. Did a good mother expose her daughter to a sexy doll whose image, even when pursuing a worthy career, was based solely on showing her long legs and hourglass figure to their best advantage?
I was relieved when my preteen daughter balked at wearing dresses and banned pink from her life. She was too busy building a cage for her pet rabbit and making plans to study primates in the African jungles, like her idol Jane Goodall, to be bothered with Barbie foolishness. It seemed I had dodged a bullet, unlike most of my friends.
My relief was short-lived, because one day my tomboy asked for a Barbie. I’d forgotten how strong peer pressure can be. Everyone else had Barbies and she was feeling left out.
After Barbie joined our family, my feelings toward the doll became more clear. I hated her. I’d like to say it was because Handler’s idea of femininity offended me, but the truth is, I hated the Barbie experience because it involved too many little pieces that could be sucked up into my vacuum cleaner every time I cleaned the house. Belts, jewelry, bows, and those ill-fitting shoes. How I hated those shoes! As soon as my daughter put them on her doll’s feet, they popped right off again. To this day, I suspect Mattel manufactured Barbie’s footwear a half size smaller than the doll’s feet on purpose to create a never-ending parade of parents, money in hand, heading to the store for replacements.
Stone’s book is a comprehensive and evenhanded history of an American icon. She’s careful to present both sides of the Barbie debate by including anecdotes from from girls currently loving or hating the doll and adults looking back on their Barbie days.
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