Growing up with Barbies, it's hard not to let the physical appearance of the doll effect how you think your own body should be. As a child, it’s hard to understand that almost every aspect of the original Barbie’s body is unattainable without copious amounts of unhealthy and dangerous plastic surgery. Because of this, children grow up with unavoidable thoughts in the backs of their heads about how they’re supposed to be.
The stereotypes of how people need to look are outrageously unattainable by anyone, boy or girl. Girls are supposed to be flawless, with perfect features, thin but with just the right amount of curves. Boys are supposed to be strong, masculine and athletic. In addition to their separate stereotypes, both genders are expected to have perfect hair, perfect skin and are expected to fit perfectly into society as if it were all just an enormous game of "Tetris." It’s wrong; men and women should be who they are and look the way they do, and it shouldn’t be a problem, but it is. Society’s beauty standards have been causing problems with not only people’s physical appearances, but more importantly their confidence in who they are.
But this is all just what we have been told we're supposed to be for the past few years. With the help of social media and sporadic movements towards the end to false body images, it is possible that the stereotypes are slowly starting to fade. It’s hard to understand why everyone can’t be accepted for how they look. Everyone is made to look different, so why are we all put under the same stereotypes? Why is anyone even put under stereotypes in the first place?
Mattel, the makers of Barbie, recently came out with a new line. It’s about time, right? It’s been 56 years since the first Barbie came out, and almost every little girl since has grown up with the same thin, flawless and perfectly featured plastic doll. The new line of Barbie can be seen as revolutionary. It can be seen as the start of a new age, an age without false body imagery. These Barbie’s come in all different sizes, colors, and with various different features. These Barbie’s reflect what society is in real life. It gives small children a better expectation of what society expects, which is to be who you are. Less of what they should look like and more of what Barbies should be: a toy. Barbies shouldn’t be a doll made to give the false image of how to look; they should just be a doll.
The video below explains a little bit more of what the new Barbies are and how little girls feel about the new appearance of their favorite dolls.
The little girl in the video says, “It’s important for Barbies to look different, you know? Like the real people in the world.” This is what girls should think of their dolls, for their dolls should be relatable and they should look like someone they might see in the real world. The original Barbie is nowhere near anyone you might see in the real world, and if you did it would be a woman whose features are extremely disproportional. These dolls come in different sizes (tall, curvy, or petite) and they come in seven different skin tones. Bottom line is the amount of pressure put on girls to have a perfect body sucks and the positive efforts toward eliminating female stereotypes is a change for the better.
So come on Barbie, let’s go party.
