On previous posts, I talked about how fabulous Barbie has been for many girls and women’s lives. Now I’m going to analyze the other side of Barbie dolls. Barbie came to revolute the doll’s world. As I said on previous posts, Barbie was first on sale in 1959 and it produced a great impact on many girls because this was the very first plastic 11 ½” doll in the United States that looked as a fashionable perfect and beautiful woman in miniature. However, not everybody shared this opinion. Many specialists argued that Barbie dolls were not a good model figure for girls who tried to imitate everything they see.
Linda Lowen’s article “Barbie’s impact on girls and women” said that according to a Boston University student: K. Wysocki, Barbie’s legs would be 50% larger than her arms, when a normal woman has her legs 20% larger than her arms and her neck would be twice larger than a normal woman’s neck, which will make this impossible to keep the head standing by itself. Specialists said that if Barbie were a real life woman, she would be 170 cm tall and weigh 54 kilograms. She would have measurements of 96 cm for her breast, 45 cm for her waist and 86 cm for her hips. These measurements look spectacular but at the same time they are unreal. Statistics shown that only 1 out of 100,000 women would develop this body naturally. A real woman with these measurements and due to her skinny waist would not be able to menstruate and for instance, would not be able to get pregnant.
Due to all the critics Barbie dolls received from parents, specialists, and society in general, Mattel had to make Barbie undergo several changes in her physical appearance when in 1999 they say Barbie doll’s sales dropped from $2 billion to $1.5 billion.
People might blame Barbie dolls for some psychological and eating disorders on girls such as anorexia and bulimia, but to bring to an end, we cannot completely blame these dolls of making girls turn sick and obsessive about their figure, because at the end when it comes the time for deciding what to eat, responsibility is implied in every aspect of our lives.
Sources:
Lowen, Linda. "After 50 Years, What Is Barbie's Impact on Girls and Women?"Women's Issues - All About Women's Issues. About.com, 09 Mar. 2009. Web. 31 Aug. 2011. <http://womensissues.about.com/b/2009/03/09/after-50-years-what-is-barbies-impact-on-girls-and-women.htm>.
"Barbie Body Image - How Toys like Barbie Influence Our Body Image." Teen Beauty Tips...Helping You Find Your True Beauty! Web. 31 Aug. 2011. <http://www.teen-beauty-tips.com/barbie-body-image.html>.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteOnce again,
your post is really interesting *3*
I've heard about the alimentary disorders that some girls have adopted to be like Barbie, and that people blame Barbie for that.
I think that is stupid to blame a doll for that, Barbie is a beautiful toy, if the girls get sick because they're not eating properly is responsibility of the parents, they are the ones responsible of make sure their kids have proper habits and education. Anyway, that's how people is.
Thanks for the information,
Goodbye, GBU, have a nice day.
Hi jazmine! I really love your post it is really interesting to know that people could blame to a doll for this problems, I think that is really a jocke, I mean when I was little I used to play with them all the time and I consider myself a fan of them and I can tell that the doll doesn´t have anything thing to do with the eating disorders seen today, I totally agree with Hanabi is more the attention and responsability that is shown by the parents because more than anything what a child immitates is what they see every day at home (their parents) and if they are not with them the child end doing whatever they want and by their ignorance they can get into bad decisions and that is the point when I think that all the problems starts, besides In my personal thoughts I believe that Barbie instead of being a bad model as many specialists argued it is rather a good model by that the fact that in every movie or tv show she tries to have good manners, in some movies she makes exercise, and shows the importance of it and she is always the good person in the story and when you think it like it is a doll it became really illogical to blame it because at the end who takes every decision is you and only you depending in the responsibility and maduration of each one that is why I think that what specialist think about the origins of the problem is a completely wrong statement:)
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