Ruth Bandler wasn’t plotting to change the way women look at themselves. She based the doll upon a doll that already existed in Germany, called the Bild Lily. As for the proportions, they exist that way mostly because they are proportions that make it easy to create clothing for the doll to wear and keep things from bunching up oddly.

And actually Barbie dolls last a good long time. There are still many examples of the original doll from the 1960s in great condition and there are many Barbie dolls in great condition from the late 60s and 70s and they are highly collectible. Do some dolls end up in landfills? Of course, but so does everything else in our children’s toy closets, so why blame Barbie in particular?

I corrected him. Not ONLY is there Jesse Jane, Pamela Anderson, the Barbee Twins and all these other women who do the B&B routine (bleach and boob job) but get this:

One day I saw my little 4 yr old neighbor girl across the street walking around on her tippy toes. I asked, “Why are you walking like that?” I thought she would tell me she was pretending to walk on a tightrope or that the ground was made of hot lava or something. Instead, she said, “I’m walking like Barbie!”

PS: I think it’s funny that Thomas made the leap from “anatomically correct” Ken to “erect penis” !

I disagree strongly with a number of the statements in this article:

Barbie is a girl’s first doll representation of a woman’s body? True, but doesn’t Mom’s body and self-image have a much stronger influence on the girl?

What’s up with Ken being a eunuch? What would be the point in giving a child a doll with an erect penis? As discussed above, these dolls are cheap. Maybe when Ken’s penis breaks off the girl can learn a new word–castration. For that matter, Ken has a build that the vast majority of men will never achieve. Assuming that the girl grows up to want men, do you think that she’ll be comparing her boyfriends to her childhood doll’s metrosexual boyfriend?

I’m rambling a bit (and I mean for this comment to be tongue-in-cheek), but I do think that the blame for female self image problems doesn’t reside in Barbie. It also doesn’t reside in the fashion industry–which is run by women and gay men for the most part. It doesn’t reside in men’s choices in women (which tend to much curvier shapes than are seen in women’s magazines). The problem lies with the advertising industry that is trying to motivate women to spend money on beauty/fitness products. [And I do admit that this industry is not only driven by men, but that it is selling Barbie Dolls.]