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The Corruption Of Barbie Dolls

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Barbie Dolls were created by Ruth Handler in 1959, and are the ideal image to young girls. The average girl from ages 3-11 owns at least ten Barbie dolls and spends hours playing with them. They have a reputation for setting off a bad example to girls. Over the years, some parents assumed their children were trying hard to look exactly like the doll. It’s no secret that the doll has an exaggerated figure, with a small waist, impossibly long legs and a smile too perfect to be true. In 1956, Mattel debuted a “Slumber Party Barbie” that came with a scale that was set to one hundred and ten pounds, and a magazine that said “How to Lose Weight” on the cover and on the back “Don’t Eat”. Surely this sounds absolutely horrifying and shocking. Parents …show more content…

How do we know that all children who buy Barbies see her as a physical role model? Nobody can really say for sure that the physical appearance of the doll isn’t dangerous, because it’s very possible that it is. Though, is the doll really all that corrupting?
It is 2015 and society changed in a way that allows women to have more equal rights. Unlike in 1956, people who abused women verbally and physically weren’t considered all that crazy. Women were put down in many ways, they were told they weren’t good enough for anything or that they couldn’t be anyone. Today, women can do or be whatever they want because in the U.S, gender equality is valued. I do think Barbies can potentially be harmful towards some girls and that when they were first created, they were meant to give off the wrong example. Because things have changed so much over the years, I don’t think that’s what Barbies should be depicted as. Barbie teaches little girls that they can be whoever they want to be, and do whatever they want to do. The doll has been released with so many different collections that include different jobs and different hobbies. Some of the jobs that she is created with were seen as something women shouldn’t have been doing when they were first created, but Barbie does them anyways. Would have people thought in the 50s that a women could be an astronaut, race car driver, surgeon, pilot, officer, soldier, or a professional athlete? Today, women can be all those

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In the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, the tone of the poem starts off with a child-like feel to it. The main character in the poem is a girlchild who “was born as usual” (line 1) but never gets the chance to feel contend or safe in who she is for her character but is judged by others for her looks; when all she wants is to be accepted for who she is as a person. The girlchild in this poem embodies all girls in society. It shows a little insight that each little girl was made to feel unaccepted because of their inadequacies at one point or another. Particularly in women, society has continuously had some type of control over each individual’s lives.

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Many girls around the world are playing with Barbie dolls. What they are hidden from is that those dolls are bringing them down. Little girls have a wish to be just like the Barbie doll and that sets a bad example. Barbie was originally supposed to be a role as an adult and show gender equality upon the dolls. Barbie dolls are bad influences because they cause eating disorders, false hopes, and lower self-esteem.

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