Barbie Stereotypes

Throughout the decades, the shaming of a woman’s body has become much more influential on how young girls and adult women see themselves. Society creates the image of the ‘perfect women’ based on body curvature and other extremities. The use of social media is usually blamed for warping the minds of females based upon body image, but that is just one small factor of it. Companies are even making mirrors that adjust the appearance of a person’s body, such as creating slimmer waists and longer legs. Dolls, such as the Barbie, made by Mattel, have also have created an unrealistic image of how a real woman should look like. Young girls first get introduced to Barbie dolls as a way to be entertained, but as most girls grow out of the doll playing stage, they start to worry more about the way they look.

In the article, “Inventing Barbie”, paragraph one it states that Mattel’s doll, Barbie, was introduced in February of 1959 by founders, Ruth and Elliot Handler. Ruth originally thought of the idea while her daughter, Barbara, was playing with paper dolls. She realized that as her daughter grew older and began to imitate adult conversations and the world around her, she needed a three-dimensional

Kang states, “We do not need a scientific study to prove that Barbie represents a completely unrealistic image of a women's body, and with her endless array of clothes, cars, and accessories. She constantly feeds superficiality, consumer culture, and status anxiety.” Kang also discussed a 2006 study from the University of Sussex that was named "Does Barbie Make Girls Want to Be Thin? The Effect of Experimental Exposure to Images of Dolls on the Body Image of 5- to 8-Year-Old