Dangers of Barbie Girl

Dangers of Barbie Girl

Toys started out as children’s entertainment, but have toys always just been for entertainment? Or can they affect the way a child develops, or interprets the world around them? The toys you play with as a child send messages that can influence your idea of what is socially acceptable. Toys teach you how to become who you are because of the roles they play. Media plays a major role in that, if you have a certain toy that comes out in a TV series, you play with the toy the way the media portrays the toy to be used. There are many different examples of how toys reinforce social norms. For example, Barbie is a doll that many young girls praise for her beauty and the social life media puts on her. Barbie is only one of many popular toys that subliminally sends a message of female gender roles to young children. Even though Barbie just seemed like a doll to play with, she makes it desirable to grow up to the cult of domesticity, which reinforces the traditional lifestyle that has been imposed upon women. Barbie creates the cultural myth that to be beautiful women must look like her. Barbie gives the impression that everyone should look like her in order to be beautiful. This impression gives the idea for girls to accept the fact that when they grow up they will fall under the cult of domesticity. I’m not saying that all girls belong to the cult will, but it creates the idea that they might grow up to be housewives and that it is okay because Barbie sets a great example. The cult of domesticity revolves around being the center of the family.
In the cult of domesticity women are suppose to be perfect in virtue, delicate, passive. Women in the home were honored and seen as extremely important and respected. To be a woman was honored to the extreme. Women were the queens of their home and played the important role in preserving the family's memory and caring for the children and husband. People believe that women are the glue of the family and the ones that kept men civilized and Christian. Women were the heart of the home. Barbie, however, contradicts what feminist groups fought for. Barbie was a victim of the sad truth like what feminist groups over the years fought for. In the past Feminist groups began to push their agenda for equal rights for woman; it seems there is still a long way to go. Yes, women’s rights and equality have improved drastically since then, and women hold positions of power; however, society still reinforces typical female stereotypes such as being a care taker, staying at home, being able to be incompetent to hold positions of power or managerial positions, and the high standards of beauty. The high standards of beauty that Barbie put also contradict feminist groups, because Barbie makes it so you have to look a certain way to be beautiful, and men expect that of women. Emily Prager the author of “Our Barbies, Ourselves” supports the idea that Barbie contradicts feminist groups. Prager states that “Barbie appeared about the same time in my consciousness as the feminist movement – time when women sought equality and small breast were king.” Barbie contradicts feminism because Barbie is made to physically beautiful. Even though she plays male roles she doesn’t enforce them and chooses to play what is socially expected of woman roles. Now some have argued that Barbie is actually a proponent of feminism. Barbie turned social stereotypes for woman into social standards. She puts social standards on women that they are meant to stay in the home. And because you are a women you should be spoiled like Barbie. Barbie has mansions, cars, pools, beaches, airplanes, shoes, clothing, etc., but at the same time she is a doctor, veterinarian, an astronaut, jobs typically held by man. She plays roles that say women can do anything they want; yet she doesn’t enforce those roles. The stereotype she has put on herself create those social standards. The dominant role for Barbie is that of caretaker/beauty queen materialist. Not only would Barbie choose to stay home, she would stay home for Ken. Ken was made years after Barbie to play the role as her boyfriend. Ken was made for Barbie, yet Barbie would do everything for Ken. This is an example of how Barbie plays a big role of falling under the cult. She acts as an object to Ken, as a trophy. While Ken is away at work Barbie is at home waiting for him to come home. Barbie dolls were toys that mothers would give to their daughters as just a doll, but from so much that the girls played with them they became attached to them, and would look at them as role models. But later on in life the child has so much love for the doll they’ll start thinking of Barbie as if she was perfection. The thing about Barbie, the designers made her aspects unreachable but overwhelmingly desirable. Girls thought that to be perfect you must look like Barbie. Gary Cross in “Barbie, G.I. Joe and Play in the 1960s” stated “With her breasts and slender waist, Barbie came literally to embody the little girls image of what it meant to be grown up.” So growing up they would try to make themselves as pretty as her. Making their self-esteems go down if they didn’t feel like they couldn’t wear what she would, or do what she does. Barbie’s dominant impression was her looks. Barbie wouldn’t just look beautiful, but her body was built out of proportion to human traits where it would be impossible to look like her. Her waist is so tiny, and her breasts are way to big for her back to support, legs so long with size feet of a little girl. Prager also stated “It is a fact of Barbie’s design that her breast are so out of proportion to the rest of her body that if she were a human woman, she’d fall flat on her face.” But some how all girls wanted to look like her, the struggle women face just to feel the way they think beautiful is, just because media has brained washed them to think that looking like Barbie is being beautiful. Women would suffer through anorexia, be bulimic, and certain other stuff just to be able to look like that. Barbie is at that age where you’re younger than an adult but older than a teen. Right after a girl breaks out of her cocoon and turns into a beautiful butterfly of a woman. According to Cross “She was neither a baby child, nor a mother but liberated teenager, almost a young woman.” That is what young girls aimed for. So as girls got Barbie’s they had the expectations of looking like Barbie, not realizing that they not only bought a doll but false hopes. There are more toys than just Barbie that can be evaluated like this, it’s not just aimed towards girls but as well for boys. For example a G.I. Joe is a violent action figure, and it would make it seem okay for young boys to play roughly, they would think it’s ok to be aggressive. However, I’m not implying that if you owned an action figure you would all of a sudden be violent, but if you would play with them as media told you that you should, you would depict them as the medias violent portrayal. Consumers subconsciously buy toys for their children that affect the children in a way that they don’t realize. Toys like Barbie impose a specific type of female gender roles to young impressionist girls, such as those that Barbie’s roles were. So if you are thinking about purchasing a Barbie doll for your daughter, you might want to consider what can come of it. Do you want your daughter to believe that Barbie is perfection? If you want to encourage your child’s imagination, there are better ways to do so. You can start by a children’s book. Let your child be the actor, don’t allow the toy to tell your child how to be.