Barbie Should Be Banned Research Paper

Pearl Whiteley

Mrs. Barnett

English III

4 March 2016

Is Barbie Living in a Barbie World? Barbie has been around for a good amount of time. She has a distinguishable box that almost everyone knows. The true question is: should Barbie be banned? Despite controversy and horrible reputation, such as being associated with and resembling a sex doll (Wood 1 of 3), she has risen above and beyond the negatives to show her true self. The chief executive and co-founder of Mattel, Ruth Handler, was on a family trip in Switzerland when she passed a store and saw a doll she wasn’t too fond of (Wood 1 of 3). The doll’s name was Lilli, and she was “... a prostitute gag gift handed out at bachelor parties” (Dockterman 2 of 10). The idea of Barbie came to

Imagination is when you can use your mind to make things that are inanimate come to life, such as Barbie. Little girls grab their dolls and play in a make-believe world. This is imagination. According to Courtney E. Martin, “[she] didn’t really play Barbies so much as [she] invented twisting, turning versions of the adult female lives of [her] wildest imagination” (1). Barbie is a figure that a child can use their imagination to be whoever they want to be. Martin also states that “Barbie wasn’t an oppressor; she was an exciting vessel that we could fill up with all of our confusion and excitement professional life and plenty of self- confidence” (1). People want to say Barbie is a bad influence, but is she real the problem? A mother has a major impact in her daughter’s life. A girl’s number one role model in her life is her mother. A mother and daughter have an unbreakable bond that they share. So wouldn’t it be the mother’s fault rather than Barbie’s? Martin acknowledges that “...none of the dolls has ever held or will ever hold a candle to as how much power our own mothers’ have to influence on ideas about femaleness, bodies, and power” (1). It’s agreeable to many people that a young girl will look up to her mother more than a plastic doll. There is absolutely no way a mother cannot keep her daughter from looking up to her. If a child sees their parents doing something, the child will think that the action is acceptable even if it is not positive. Martin points out that women find it easier to put blame on a doll than taking responsibility of what they say about their physical features (1). Martin also explains how “[so] many of the young women whom [she] has spoken to describe a mother who would say to them, ‘You are beautiful! You are perfect! Don’t ever let anyone tell you different,’ then turn to the mirror and in the next breath say, ‘Ugh, I look gross today.’” (1). This shows how fast a woman will not take the blame