BARBIE GIRL IN A WOMEN’S WORLD

   

Today is International Women’s Day (8^th March), tomorrow is Barbie’s Birthday (9^th March), that’s what I call irony.

Some years ago, I read about ‘Barbie’ having a negative impact on a young girl’s life. It was argued that girls tend to develop ‘body image’ issues. Well, I had a collection of twelve Barbie, now I am left with only six, does not manner, I do not play it anyway- it might look creepy if I do. But, Barbie was just a plastic doll for me, never an inspiration.

What did I do with my collection of Barbie?

My Barbie collection comprised of the bathing tub, kitchen set, fridge, bicycle, I had Ken (Barbie’s boyfriend) and Skipper (Barbie’s sister) and her young friends Nikita and Sunny, which were sold only in India and Windy. My favourite was Doctor Barbie because that was the first Barbie I had, it was kept locked.

As for the others, I put life on them and controlled them by being the writer and the director of the play where they were the actors. I was no Professor. X, but I made sure that they did their role assigned to them. The funniest part, I was also the one to say the dialogue in different tones, to make their plastic limbs move, picking and throwing them as per the demand of the scene. Every time it was a different story. The story was never- Barbie A and Barbie B are friends; Barbie A comes to meet Barbie B for a party and gets introduced to Barbie A’s boyfriend Ken, the later then steals the boyfriend, fight, tears, but true love wins. No, that was never the theme of my story. It was more of time travel, treasure hunt, ghost, detective etc. Their role changed according to the story, the genre depended on my mood, their character’s names were weird and the language was highly inventory. I was impartial, if in one story Barbie ‘A’ saved the day, then in the other story; I made her the evil villain. All those fun, all those happiness, I never looked at them as an inspirational model, they were more like my plastic playmates, and playmates come in different sizes and colours and characters. I enjoyed my childhood with Barbie around; they never bitched or abandoned me.

Dying while trying to be Barbie: folly-fully half

What is worrying the young girls so much? Dieting and being thin.  It is recorded that of all people with eating disorders, 90% are women between the ages of 12 and 25. And statistics shows that girls in the age group of 6 to 10 who ate significantly less food were also the ones who played with either a very thin doll or an average-sized doll. The epitome of thin doll comes down to Barbie, which literally means they starve themselves to death just to be Barbie.

Why should such young minds strive to be a plastic doll and not aim for higher goals? It has been argued that such anxieties are the product of media culture and society that praises thin body above anything else, leading to devaluation of the woman who does not fit into the frame of ‘size-zero’.

In the last decade, even the small towns of my state have become heterogeneous, stratified and fragmented. The emerging residential fragments tend to vary significantly in terms of physical and psychological environment. Further, towns are divided into number of localities in which imagined differences between cultures and classes are established as social as well as spatial boundaries bringing about growing consumer economy resulting in the increase in number and variety of products, such that the understanding of choice become more subtle and complex, but individuals tend to make choices in accordance with the demands mark by the society. In all these, we fail to appreciate the essence of living, if our society or peer insults a ‘healthy weight’, we risk being like an unattainable ideal/idol like Barbie, and we presume it to be normal.

However, if we think (there may be other arguments) such influences brought about by the agents of media and market imposes on our self-esteem and distorts the healthy way of living then why cannot we tell our friends, the young girls, our daughters that staying ‘alive is more better than dying trying to be a Barbie.’

*I don't have any problem with a thin woman, they are lovely as long as they are not destroying themselves just to get approval. And yes, I am not trying to be funny, people do not get my humour anyway.