The doll that Americans love -- and love to hate -- turns 50 this year. In honor of Barbie hitting the half-century mark, the Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City is featuring the exhibit Celebrating 50 Fabulous Years with America's Favorite Doll, plus a slew of related events, including lectures, film screenings and craft times for kids. In conjunction with the exhibit, feminist author and blogger Courtney E. Martin visits the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library on Thursday to talk about girls, their self-image, and how Barbie figures in. We caught up with Martin via e-mail for a teaser on the subject.
Your book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, addresses the pressure for women to have it all. How has feminism influenced this widespread mindset? How has Barbie?
As
I have often said, we are a generation that was told that we could be
anything, and we heard that we had to be everything. The message was
feminism's--this empowering notion that women should have access and
opportunity. The mistranslation was in the modeling. Once our mothers
had more access, they went for it, but they were unable to balance it
all. I believe that the next generation is charged with figuring out
how to have access, but also learn how to say no.
Barbie, to my
mind, is more of a tool of the imagination than anything else. I think
that -- at least for my generation -- she became a vehicle for our dreams
of having it all ... we played out various scenarios on the floors of our
bedrooms before we ever had to actually enter boardrooms and complex
romantic relationships.
Although she's just a plastic doll, is it possible for Barbie to be a positive role model for girls?
Yes,
in the sense that she can facilitate the imagination and encourage
girls to role play their different impressions of womanhood. However,
nothing holds a flame to the role model potential of our mothers,
sisters, teachers, and friends.
Can you imagine a Feminist Barbie?
Sure, why not? Just give her a blog and a pair of hip glasses, maybe a companion copy of Manifesta, and you've got yourself Third Wave Wendy.
Did you grow up playing with Barbie? If so, what did you like about her?
Yes.
Yes. And yes. I liked that my Barbie world was one that I could become
totally engrossed in with my best friends. It was a world of our
construction, where we could play out all of the dramas we saw going on
in the adult world in the safe confines of our bedrooms.
How can American girls and women overcome the idea that they must have it all and be perfect?
We
need to shift the paradigm from achievement and appearance to joy,
fulfillment, and relationships. Until women feel as entitled to say no
as they do to say yes, as capable of letting opportunities go as they
do seizing them, we won't truly be realizing the joys of equality.
Does Barbie represent an image of perfection?
Yes
and no. Physically she represents an image of delusion. Mattel has
certainly framed her life as one of perfection, although I think they
have far less power than the little girl naming and enlivening her
Barbie with a story.
Your book is about eating disorders, and when we think of eating disorders, we immediately think of women wasting away. Given the epidemic of obesity in America, is the problem going the other way, too? Are some women so affected by the pressure that they become apathetic about their size, which can also be dangerous? Where is the line between being OK with an imperfect body and knowing when work on it?
Eating
disorders and obesity are flip sides of the same problem, not separate
issues. Americans have a problem with the middle path -- eating when
we're hungry, stopping when we are full, moving in ways that make us
feel happy. We've let outsiders -- the diet industry, "food" producers,
mass media -- tell us what's good or bad for us instead of listening to
our bodies' wisdom.
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Lohan Moves to Rehabilitation Today. If this is simply not just her aiming to steer clear of jail then it's really stupid! She actually is about to look at prison for around 4 weeks disregarding who the judge is. After all in LA actually 6-8 days!
Lindsay Lohan is absolutely not going any where that can stop her from acting, so once more, I call Baloney to this extreme in depth inpatient rehab rubbish. There is not any way Lindsay Lohan or her mama will overlook this chance to make $. And clearly she will never despise that scram band sufficiently to give up the jack and coke and live without stuffing sh*t up her foul nose.
...we are a generation that was told that we could be anything, and we heard that we had to be everything.
Yes. Succinctly put.
No one--male or female--has it all. Decisions are made, and balances are forged. There are only so many hours in a day.
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