Effects Of Barbie On Mental Health
When the average female thinks back to her childhood, the first three things that spring back to memory are: Lelli Kelly’s, My Little Pony’s and of course a Barbie doll. For many young children Barbie wasn't only a doll. She was a confidante, a companion you could tell all your days problems and it would make you feel as though someone was listening. Barbie turned into a massive element of a young girl's life. I can almost instantly recall a time where I threw a temper-tantrum and took the scissors to her golden wig, in a burst of outrage. Or the feeling you get when your younger sibling tears the head off of one of your dolls from your cherished possession is a feeling that will linger with you for a very long time.
The world-wide famous Barbie doll was created 60 years ago by a company called Mattel and in spite of being a doll, Barbie is a multivariate figure; she has invited negative impacts into the lives of many young children. Barbie has left many girls with body image issues, unstable mental health, diminished their confidence as these girls aspire to achieve this ‘impossibly perfect’ image that the Barbie doll portrays. However, Barbie’s image is majorly unrealistic . Studies show that her neck is twice as long as the average female, and her feet only a girls size three. This means that she would be incapable of lifting her head and there is an almost a 0% chance that she would even be able to walk. According to the measurements of her stomach and waist, she wouldn't be able to fit half of her organs inside her body, nevermind to try and digest food.
Cindy Jackson is a real-life example of someone who has undergone the needle many times, on her journey as she aspires to recreate the image of Barbie on a human body. Cindy said “I looked at a Barbie doll and said, ‘This is what I want to look like’ I want to be her”. Since the age of just size years old she has fantasized about transforming herself into Barbie and $500,000, 31 surgeries and 14 years later and has become the ‘human Barbie’ that she set out to be.
In my opinion, Cindy is the perfect example of the amount people are willing to endure to obtain this utopian look. In today's world it's not hard to believe that beauty is distorted by many things. For example, social media and many brands from within the toy industry. Young children are brainwashed into thinking that the skinnier you look the better.
The very first barbie that Mattel created came with blonde or brunette hair. The co-founder of Mattel, a woman named Ruth Handler and she herself was a white woman. 2 years later the red haired Barbie was introduced and it wasn't until 1961 that the very first black Barbie was released labeled ‘Barbie black friend’. In 1979 the line of African American and Hispanic dolls were brought into stores. However, in 2016 Mattel made an eye opening move of releasing dolls called ‘the fashionistas’ that were tall, petite and curvy. They also varied with seven different skin tones, alongside new eye colours, facial features and hair colour. In my opinion, it’s disappointing to see that isles in stores across the globe are still filled with the original blue eyed, blonde haired Barbie.
In today’s year, Mattel has primarily stopped labelling her dolls by race but if you look back at the first doll of colour they never once said ‘Barbie’, like the original white one did on their boxes but instead they were labelled ‘Black Barbie’ or ‘Hispanic Barbie’. Regardless of what they are tagged now, their message is still prominent. ‘White is right’. When it comes to families of different races trying to buy a doll for their child they are forced to shop a different line entirely. Those Fashionista dolls are just a cheap, detached, different line of singular dolls and nothing more. Yet Mattel will willingly offer the exact same white doll to expand your already white doll collection with. The brand of dolls called ‘Bratz’ has supported every race, shape and size, alongside many other leading doll brands, from their first day of release. So from my standpoint, what Bratz instantaneously got right about diversity, Barbie has unsuccessful achieved in 60 years.
I also argue that Barbie impacts girls in many other ways rather than just her body image or her diversity. I strongly feel that she has many negative impacts on how girls view their careers. According to researchers at Oregon State University “girls who play with Barbie dolls tend to see fewer career options available to them compared with the options available to boys”. I agree with this statement made by the university because I believe that the doll itself supersedes the role of career aspirations displayed by its apparel. In other words, for me it has always been irrelevant whether Barbie was costumed as a United States Air Force Pilot or as an Olympic skier, her sexualized embodiment repeatedly supplants whatever adornments were encased with her.
