Barbie reveals her feminst side

I feel like Barbie’s gotten bad rap over the years.

I understand her extremely large breasts, itty-bitty waist and non-existent ass make her seem like she’s a bad example for little girls. Clearly the doll is not proportionate and some feel it may give girls a complex about their weight and looks.

As someone who played with Barbies well beyond a socially acceptable age (Yeah, I still broke out the Barbies in middle school) I can attest that there is more to the doll than her looks.

I have memories as a kindergartner playing Barbies on the porch of our trailer. In many ways Barbie gave me the opportunity to create stories before I even knew how to write. Barbie, you could say, was one of the first who inspired me to explore fiction writing.

Barbie could be anything I wanted her to be, from a stay-at-home mom, to a successful business owner.

Of course there are some odd things about Barbie that I notice as an adult that I didn’t notice as a child. Looking back, my Barbies’ lives seemed to be a lot like an episode of Sister Wives, since I only had two Ken dolls and had dozens of Barbie dolls.

And yes, there wasn’t as much diversity in my trunk of Barbies as I wanted. My family wasn’t as eager to buy minority Barbies as I wanted them to be. I remember getting a Hawaiian Barbie seemed like a big feat. And sure, it bothered me that all my Barbies came in the same shape and size. I did have a Gem and the Holligram’s doll, which helped alleviate this problem. The purple haired Holligram was much bigger than Barbie. In fact, she was the same size as Ken. Sometimes Ken would wear her clothes. Apparently he was transgender before I even knew what transgender meant.

My point is, for all her flaws, Barbie can also be a great creative outlet for girls. I played with Barbies almost daily for well over five years, okay likely more like eight years. I put Barbie away for good by the end of my sixth-grade year. And in seventh grade I started writing short stories like there was no tomorrow. Barbie helped get my creative juices going and they were eventually unleashed on a 75 cent Mead spiral notebook. I turned out to be a rather well adjusted feminist, not in spite of Barbie’s influence but perhaps because of it.

I hope to have a little girl someday and if she wants Barbies, I won’t hesitate to buy them for her.