Barbie "dress me up, sex me up"

So many women and children across the globe have owned at least one Barbie doll in their childhood [or perhaps just life in general]. As a child Barbie to me was seen as the essence of womanhood, it was a ‘perfect version’ of who I was to become, yet I was always aware that she wasn't realistic, even children can grasp that plastic is fake - it might seem like a simple way to realise such a concept but it suffices for curious children's minds.
I don’t know when this concept of Barbie changed for sure but my guess it that it was somewhere between the early 90’s when I was a toddler and the early years of 2000.

I feel that it’s mainly adults feeling uncomfortable with how their children might interpret the toys rather than the 5-12 year old’s suddenly saying “I want to look just like Barbie, I want to have a waistline like her and perky boobies too”…seriously, come on. Some people have said that Barbie encourages unrealistic expectations for women to be thin, pretty and tall, however the fact remains, once more is this a child’s thought? No. They are FAR too young to make comments like that and actually mean to follow them up. Sure some children may actually be like this truthfully, however for the majority this isn’t true.

I believe because today’s society is extremely pessimistic, this concern has been blown way out of proportion. What’s wrong with children wanting to look like a pretty doll? Nothing. They are too young to do much about it. That is where parenting comes in, not Mattel Corporation. If anything Barbie is basically innocent in comparison to the wildly out there Bratz Dolls, who are FAR more sexualised than most dolls on the market; with some of the dolls wearing g-strings while having dummies between their lipstick-lined Jolie lips and wearing stilletos too.

In the end, in my opinion; it’s more to do with how the parents of the children handle the situation depending on how their child interprets the dolls.


Nicole A