Soapbox

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby?

This weekend, while wandering through Walmart with my kids, I came upon something that I found disturbing.
Actually, just wandering through Walmart is somewhat disturbing for me, but in some small towns, and for some items, one has few other options. Which is, of course, their entire corporate goal in a nutshell. But I digress.

There, taking up an entire endcap in the toy department was the newest offering in the Barbie line of fake womanhood marketed to American girls: Biker Barbie. She is some sort of Harley Davidson tribute/wetdream/nightmare, resplendent in pink leather chaps no less, over blue jeans, a tight, lace-up corset style leather vest (half-way unlaced!) and a huge Harley tattoo across her upper back and shoulders.  (And yes, I understand that this doll is, in theory, marketed for adult “Collectors” but it was on an end cap in the toy department)

Biker Barbie has somewhat “edgier” platinum blonde hair and make-up, but rest assured that she still sports that sexy yet sexless feminine ideal that women and girls are supposed to embrace and emulate: utterly hairless body, disproportionately long legs, impossibly narrow, almost boyish hips and waist, huge thrusting breasts and overly large, cow-like eyes. Behind her, in image only, is her own hog, making her the queen of the road.
Is this liberation? Barbie meets the open road, commander of her machine, true master of her destiny!? Perhaps. I certainly do not, in theory, have any issue with an adult doll who rides a motorcycle, and while I’m not sure a massive tattoo is something I want little girls to be encouraged to get, plenty of wonderful people whom little girls look up to in real life have them. So why not Barbie? But….

I remember when they introduced Dr. Barbie when Katie was little, and I felt so… cheated. Barbie is a doctor now! Good for her! She’s smart and professional, with dreams beyond just snagging Ken and driving around in that stupid pink convertible! So… why is she wearing a micro-miniskirt under her white lab coat and tottering around in pink stiletto slut pumps? How can a doctor possibly do rounds like that? What patient is going to listen to what she is saying when she’s flashing that much leg?

This is progress? It reminds me of the Virginia Slims commercial: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Sure! Now women can get lung cancer from fashionablecigarettes! Wow- lucky us!
What kind of message are we sending? It’s OK to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or even to ride a motorcycle, ladies- as long as you wear pink and keep yourself looking like eye-candy at all times!
It would have been too much to expect to see Barbie looking like a strong, independent leather-lesbian biker. I get that. But God forbid Barbie ride her Harley in a t-shirt and jacket. Or wear a helmet!

All the “professional” Barbies I have ever seen retain that hyper-sexed image in some way. And, for every Barbie doll who is an artist or a volleyball player, there are 5 or 6 Barbie Dream Princesses with tiaras and permanent eye shadow. I’m sure Mattel marketing would tell us that is what they offer because this is what little girls want: the princess bride fantasy. But I would argue that this is what girls want mostly because this is what we tell them, over and over, in a hundred ways both subtle and overt, is the best they can aspire to!

Consider almost every Disney teen awakening movie you have ever seen, featuring the mean, beautiful rich girl who is cruel to but eventually vanquished by the sweet, honest plain girl… who even gets the mean girl’s boyfriend when someone shows her how to put on make-up and it turns out that she is beautiful too!!
Ta da! How convenient.
I think of all the popular female singers out there- some quite talented, who cannot seem to open their mouth without first baring their breasts and shaking their ass for the camera. Do they have so little faith in their own voice that they think no one will listen to them if they don’t put on a soft-core porn show? Or do they consider a singer’s voice to be of secondary importance to her looks? Once again: be whatever you want to be girls,  reach for the stars– just make sure you are flashing some cleavage at all times.

What are we telling our daughters? When Hillary Clinton was running for president, remember how many people sniped~ not about her policies or programs, which were legitimate targets- but her thick ankles and the clothes she wore?! Elena Kagen got the same treatment. Who would want a president or supreme Court justice that doesn’t look like a Barbie doll?!

This issue neither began nor ends with Barbie, Biker bitch or otherwise. Barbie is only a symptom of a low-level but chronic malaise in America.
We confuse and frustrate our daughters, bombarding them with impossible ideals of the beautiful, thin, big chested, perfect nosed, elegantly coiffed women who wake up in the morning with lip gloss on and can walk all day in 4″ heels, in slow motion, with their hair blowing sexily in the wind… even indoors. Every police force, law office and hospital on television is populated by women like this (and only women like this), all wearing tight, half-buttoned clothes with perfect eyeliner and lipstick after a 12 hour day, and we are told it is “realism” because their character occasionally worries about her sick kid. Yeah, thanks, that makes them just like us!
We tell our girls, “Go to college! Be smart! Make something of yourself…. but you’d better be hot while you do it, or you’re a failure.” Without “the look” you’re just a sweet old maid cat lady.

I know- I need to get over it. America will always value the beauty queen over the scholar or leader; the Victoria’s Secret “angel” in garters, stilettos and pouty, bee-stung lips over the Secretary of State who merely prevents a war. And while the TV beauty isn’t always insipid or stupid, looks are clearly the important part of the package, more important than brains, or heart.
It starts with the baby beauty pageants, where the contestants sport tiny wigs- because a 10 month old isn’t actually beautiful if she doesn’t have a full head of wavy, sexy, adult hair to blow in the wind… even indoors.

You know when I will begin to believe that things are truly progressing for American women? When they come out with  a Michelle Obama Barbie: feet flat in cute, practical shoes, strong arms, smaller breasts, clothes off the rack from Old Navy-  proud and smart and out to do good and change the world. That’s what I’d like to see on the shelves of Walmart.
Yeah. I’m not holding my breath.