I was sitting on the bus, regular after school day. All the little kids on the bus were hopping around in their seats, trying to loosen their seat belts and squealing about random conversations like why one hot wheels car was better than the other. I'm suddenly pulled into a conversation with the 2nd graders about dolls and one Asian girl told me:
"When I grow up, I'm gonna change my hair to blonde and stay as pale as possible so I can be perfect like Barbie!"
I think you can imagine the shocked look on my face when she told me that.
This rant is basically going to be about why I don't agree with young girls playing with Barbie's and I don't expect a lot of people to read this so I'm just going to try and keep it short and simple.
If you are still doing your GCSEs and you're taking Media as one of them like me, then you'll know from one of the media theories (the Culmination Theory) that the more time you spend with something, the more you are influenced by it. In this case, a girl who is aged 3-6 and on average owns 12 Barbie dolls would probably be influenced to think that in order to look pretty and fit into soceity, they would have to look exactly like Barbie.
I don't mind if a girl aspires to look healthy or pretty, but I simply DON'T agree that Barbie is a suitable role model for young girls who want to look pretty. The reason I believe so, is because of this image:
6 ft tall, flat stomach, perfect waist, hips, butt size and perfect long skinny legs.
I have so far never met a SINGLE woman who has achieved that image and was happy with it.
However I did look up that some people think that Barbie stops the female stereotypes, like stay-at-home mum and housewife looks.
Give me a flipping break.
This isn't STOPPING female stereotyping. IT'S INFLUENCING IT! This 'perfect image' look is exactly what's inspiring the 'dumb blondie' stereotype, the 'anorexic maniac model' stereotype and don't get me started on the 'Shopaholic' stereotype.
I'm not saying that Barbie's are the ONLY things that are influencing girls into anorexic diets and turning women into sexual objects. There's a WHOLE load of other kinds of media that influence that image and it really annoys the heck out of me, but I wrote this to rant about Barbie's only, so not gonna go that far.
In my humble opinion, girls shouldn't spend their time worrying on their looks, because they should be able to like themselves just the way they are and shouldn't care what other people think of them (even though both sounded cliche).
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