Happy Birthday, Barbie!
Published February 27, 2005
Before my daughter’s 4th birthday party one of the mothers asked if my daughter might like a Barbie. I shuddered.
We didn’t own Barbies. I grew up believing that Barbies perpetuated a male-dominated society and sent entirely the
wrong message to young girls. I was taught that no girl should aspire to look like a Barbie. Her role models should be
strong, empowering women like Gloria Steinem and Virginia Neal Blue (I have yet to figure out who she is).
My mother had marched for equal rights in the 1970’s, dragging along her barefoot and impressionable daughters.
She had worked tirelessly for oppressed women and fought the good fight for equal pay in the workplace. She wanted
me to aim high in the working world, dispel the myth that women couldn’t hold high-powered jobs, and to shatter the
glass ceiling.
What’s more: she would be at my daughter’s birthday party.
Clearly, I had to make a choice. Did I prevent my daughter from having a Barbie, that leader of fashion and females,
or did I say yes, thereby allowing my daughter to make her own decisions about what a woman should look like, how
she should behave and what kind of work she might want to do?
Plus, with my mom at the party, I felt a sense of obligation to be true to her. True to the values and high moral
standards of my own upbringing, where no Barbie dared cross the threshold of my youth.
I labored over the decision, so afraid I was that one Barbie would lead to Glitter Nails and a drawer full of makeup, and
one of those electric light vanity mirrors (the very word sounded narcissistic). What would be next? Cinderella and
Sleeping Beauty?
“No,” I finally said. “I don’t think she’s ready for Barbie.”
“OK,” the other mother agreed. “I’m not sure how I feel about Barbie anyway. She’s so…demoralized. But – my
daughter loves her,” she added flippantly.
At the party my daughter opened up gifts that included wooden musical instruments, books, a tie-dye kit, our third
Candyland game, and a cloth doll with no face so she could imagine her own features (my daughter scrunched up her
nose and politely set it aside). All politically correct; all in keeping with Grandma’s feminist bent.
Then came my mother’s gift. She was laughing nervously.
“I hope you’re ok with this,” she giggled. I couldn’t imagine what caused her to act so girlish.
My daughter ripped open the bunny wrapping paper and screamed with delight.
“A Barbie!” she shouted.
“A Barbie?!” I shouted.
I looked at my mother in disbelief.
“What about equal rights? What about male dominance? What about – her boobs,” I whispered.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said patronizingly. “It’s just a doll.”