Glenda Simms
DOLLS ARE introduced to little girls at a stage when they are developing their linguistic and thinking skills. It is also a time when they are making sense of things and the world around them. It is normal therefore for little girls to identify with their first dolls. It is within this psycho-social developmental space that Barbie, the 'wonder doll' tried to forge her presence.
Barbie was the western society's chief weapon against the so-called 'war on fat'. She was designed to keep girls and women on 'treadmills' of diets, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia. She was conceptualised to provide Ken, her boyfriend, with the 'right look' and the opportunities to turn up at the 'high brow' functions appropriately adorned with a woman who fitted the corporate image of success.
Barbie, no doubt, helped Ken along his path to success. She had a whole wardrobe of beautiful and stylish clothing, a closet of wigs and tons of costume jewellery and perfume.
When her image was appropriated in an effort to be politically correct she was the glossy and over polished black or 'near black' woman, the Mediterranean woman and the Asian woman. Sometimes she was even a bit daring and turned up to the soirees in a poncho or a sari.
POLITICALLY CORRECT
In a sense, the people who created and marketed Barbie ensured that they could not be called racist or ethnocentrist. Like most other politically correct inventors and producers of goods and services, a white, blonde, blue-eyed doll was given the appropriate tinge of colour to satisfy her multi-ethnic consumers. But, for all intent and purposes she was still white, blonde and reflected an unreal image of womanhood of any race.
In effect, no woman has ever been truly comfortable with Barbie's size. However, there have been several attempts in different cultures to emulate her ability to reinvent herself in terms of her career and her educational attainment, without trying to look like her physically.
In the April/May 2000 edition of Ms. Magazine, Kate Rounds included in her clippings, the profile of an Australian doll which was a real challenge to the global fascination with Barbie and her lifestyle. Rounds pointed out that "Barbie may have learned her logarithms" but she cannot compete with the Feral Cheryl the "new Australian doll on the block".
Feral Cheryl is described as "not blonde, nor ridiculously thin". In fact, this 'down-under' sister is not seduced by the accessories and trappings that occupy the North American Barbie. Instead Feral Cheryl "goes barefoot, has tattoos, dreadlocks, simple clothes and a handmade rainbow bag. She lives simply, has a healthy body shape and pubic hair."
Also in an editorial published in the May 2, 2004 edition of the New York Times, we are told that in Russian society where there has been a marked proliferation of beauty contests and other "mirror, mirror, on the wall" pastimes, Russians do not see the "inhumanely svelte" as the ideal. They are more predisposed to select beauty queens who are "normal looking" and more in line with the majority of the new generation of young Russian women.
It seems as if the Russian woman might not want to go back to her "hard hat in the steel foundry" persona but she also does not want to be the anorexic Barbie of the American imagination.
Carol E. Lee in an editorial published in the March 30, 2004 edition of the New York Times pointed out that the evolution of women's roles and the impact of the feminist revolution was chronicled in the life of the Barbie doll. Barbie was Mattel's most famous doll and she was a figure of controversy from her creation.
Feminists argued that the fashion model Barbie represented a body image that could only be approximated by young women who dieted to states of anorexia nervosa or bulimia. On the one hand, Barbie was seen as in a committed relationship with Ken but on the other hand she was never married. Feminists might have seen this as a signal of a liberated woman, others might have argued that Barbie was merely a stereotypic traditional 'commitment freak'.
Whatever might be the popular opinion about Barbie, Lee argues that in the '70s, like a generation of young women who pushed against the limitations of their gender, the 'wonder doll' went to college and 'became a surgeon and a downhill skier'. In the '80s, Barbie changed her career and reinvented herself with the changing times. Lee pointed out that in the '90s, Barbie entered the United States Presidential race. True to form, according to Lee, by 1998 Barbie's "breasts shrank and she gained a little weight".
SPLIT
In 2004, two days before Valentine's Day, Mattel announced that Barbie and Ken had split up. Perhaps there is both a logical and an economic explanation for Barbie's demise. In reality, her inventor had died and the granddaughter of Barbie's founder is a "new young woman" who in all likelihood enjoys hanging out in the upscale malls eating ice cream and drinking high protein shakes and a "healthy" burger. At night, this type of young woman is to be found with her rich friends in the coffee bars sipping on decaffeinated coffee au lait and other high calorie designer drinks.
This modern young woman will be more like the Emme that Alicia Roache describes in the April 25, 2004 edition of the Daily Gleaner. According to Roache, 'Madame' Emme is "modelled off a 38-year-old, full figured woman. True to form, the image makers and the power brokers who define, reinvent and control women's lives and appearance are arguing that Emme is reflecting an unhealthy lifestyle. She is celebrating 'fat'."
It appears as if Barbie's dimensions, which typifies "less than one in 100,000 women" is more in line with the thinking of these image makers. This view of the ideal woman is steadily being questioned by many women even in predominantly Caucasian populations.
While Barbie's size has been the focus of feminist criticism, it is also instructive to note that Barbie has also tried to reflect the many changes that the more progressive women of the world have been struggling for.
But no 'doll' can set the stage for a woman's right to be who she is. Women are more than 'plastic' and 'form'. So while we have no problems with dolls for girls, we will ensure that our definition of self is not manipulated by Mattel or any other corporation.
So may Barbie find happiness with or without Ken, who no doubt will quickly reinvent himself with Viagra.
Dr. Glenda Simms is the executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs
