Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The Good the Bad and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us
Barbie negative effect on kids
Compare Barbie doll and girl
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“I’m a Barbie girl in a Barbie World” a popular tune from the song Barbie World by Aqua. Barbie is the most known dolls in the world so it’s no surprise that she has a song about her, nine out of ten people know who Barbie is by just seeing a picture of her (Docterman). Most girls grew up playing Barbie and are clueless about her origin. Ruth Handler is the inventor of Barbie. Ruth is a hard working women who, with the help of her family, created a doll that change the world. Barbie changed the lives of any young girl who played with, she gives them the chance to play out their own destiny.
Barbie was not the first doll to be invented for young girls. For years young girls play with dolls, mimicking their mothers and preparing for the time in their lives when they are mothers. Young girls would play with flimsy two dimensional paper dolls or baby dolls. Changing the outfits on a paper doll was near impossible to do without ripping the paper and baby dolls seemed a little childish when girls got to a certain age. Other types of dolls that were around prior to Barbie are glamour dolls. Glamour dolls were dolls that replicated the face and body of a young girls with the twist of the doll wearing ornate
Her first outfit was a black and white striped bathing suit. She was assorized with black high-heels and white sunglasses (Crosley). Barbie also can out with her own controversy. Multiple feminist groups criticized Barbie with her petite waist and large breast (Time Life, 54). They believed that Barbie placed a unobtainable pressure on young girls to look like Barbie. Of course this expectation was hard to meet, Barbie’s estimated height and weight is 5ft. 9in and 110 lbs. During a woman’s strike for equality the signs the used read, “I Am Not a Barbie Doll”, (Docterman). Although some feminist thought Barbie gave girls too high of standards, Ruth had another goal in mind for
This website article provides the history of Barbie and her newly inspiring images for young women. Barbie was the new popular doll during World War 2 because she provided something inspiring for young girls and something that mothers felt strong about, independence. Barbie helped with what was being told to women, that they didn’t have to settle for being just a housewife or a stay at home mother. Women around the country could have a variety, a choice to work and have a career. “Barbie’s early professions were limited
For starters the title, “Barbie Doll” holds a meaning. It symbolizes the ideal figure of a female body. Society creates this ideal that is embed into every century. It is never ending. It is intended that she must have the twig like arms and legs, the minuscule waist and nose,
Barbie was created by Ruth Handler, whose husband co-founded Mattel, the world's largest toy company. She noticed a gap in the market as she saw her daughter, Barbra, playing with adult paper dolls. At the time, the market for young girls was focused on baby dolls, but Barbra and her friends preferred to play with a grown-up version, dressing them up in outfits and pretending they were the grown up women they were playing with. Ruth then thought to create a 3- dimensional fashion doll that she would name Barbie after her daughter, Barbra. When presenting the idea to executives at Mattel, she was shot down, being told that they were too expensive to make for the amount of detail Ruth ...
“If Barbie was designed by a man, suddenly a lot of things made sense to me,” says Emily Prager in her essay “Our Barbies, Ourselves” (Prager 354). Prager’s purpose for writing this essay is to explain the history of Barbie and how the doll itself has influenced and continue to influence our society today. Prager is appealing to the average girl, to those who can relate to the way she felt growing up with Barbie seen as the ideal woman. Emily Prager uses a constant shift between a formal and informal tone to effectively communicate her ideas that we view women today based upon the unrealistic expectations set forth by Barbie. By adopting this strategy she avoids making readers feel attacked and therefore
At the beginning of "Barbie Doll", it reads "This girlchild was born as usual". This line shows that their is nothing wrong with this girl. She is your average child that plays with "dolls that pee-pee" and " miniature GE stoves and irons". She does not realize that anything is wrong with her until "a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs". She was normal and happy, then society points out that she is different then the model in Seventeen magazine.
Barbie's image through the shape of her body and all of her accessories is beginning to lead to many issues in our world. Barbie is portraying a negative impact on society through her influential being as a plastic doll. In 1965 the slumber party package was on the market showing buyers how straight forward she is with her products and accessories. The package had all of the normal slumber party things like a robe, comb, and hair rollers but it also had a weight scale set at a permanent weight of "110" and a disturbing book on weight loss that read in all caps, "DON'T EAT." This package is an example of how misleading Barbie and her products really are because it is implying to children that they should not eat and that if they grow up
One of the most controversial aspects of Barbie is her appearance. Her body is widely criticized for being too thin and out of proportion. To see how a real woman would look if she attained Barbie's proportions, Winterman (2009) took the measurements of a woman who was 27 years old, 5 foot 2 inches tall and a size 10. She later applaied Barbie's measurements to the woman. In order to match the doll's proportions, the woman would have to grow 24 inches in height, which would make her extremely tall (7 feet 6 inches). A similar analysis on Barbie's measurements was made by Galia Slayen (2011). As a part of the first National Ea...
90% of girls ages three through ten owned at least one Barbie doll. Ruth Handler’s idea for children to live there adult fantasies through a toy, came to life in a tall beautiful blonde doll. Barbra Millicent Roberts, or Barbie for short was named after Handlers daughter. Barbie was originally molded after the European Lilli doll that was made to be a gag gift, but Handler transformed this idea into so much more. The first Barbie doll was created in 1959, changing the toy making industry forever. This simple idea turned into a massive success. The sponsor of the phenomenon was Mattel Inc. founded by Ruth Handler and her Husband. Ruth Handler’s original idea of Barbie was revolutionary due to the many impacts on society this small doll created.
Her poem, “Barbie Doll,” tells the story of a young girl who was short-lived. She was beaten down by society's expectations of what she should be. The poem was a major eye-opener for many, especially considering the time period it was written in. It helped to put the inappropriate and materialistic standards that women continued to be held up to on full display. It broadcasts the effects of these insane standards with an uncensored, real and raw approach.
In the short story "Barbie-Q,” by Sandra Cisneros, the young girls didn't mind they did not receive other things such as new Barbie's or Ken Barbie's and the friends to go along with the dolls (206). These girls were just happy to play with their own dolls. The girls have bonded with each other and they enjoy playing with each other's dolls. A doll brings two or more children together for fun and social entertainment. Have you ever listened to a child frequently you will hear a child say " so what” that means the child really don't care, it don't matter; nothing else mattered to the two little girls. In the short story "Barbie-Q,” by Sandra Cisneros to purchase a brand new Barbie doll meant that the dolls are expensive in the store so the girls are very happy and pleased to own a second hand Barbie. When the parent places the dolls in the child's hands the dolls take on the character of the owner's beauty; culture; how girls see themselves and the future when the kids are all grown up. Barbie is a fun toy to dress up. Each child has her or his own imagination of a Barbie doll. I, too, myself, like watching all the different cultural background Barbie dolls in the malls or Macy's Department Store around Christmas times. Most large department stores dress
Marge Piercy wrote the Barbie Doll poem in 1973, during the woman’s movement. The title of the poem Barbie Doll, symbolizes how females are supposed to appear into the society. In the poem Barbie Doll, the main character was a girl. She was described as a usual child when she was born. Meaning that she had normal features that any person could ever have. Piercy used “wee lipstick the color of cherry candy” as a smile to describe the child before she has hit puberty. After the character hit puberty, the classmates in her class began to tease her saying “you have a big nose and fat legs.” (Piercy pg. 1) Having a big nose and a fat leg is the opposite of what females are supposed to be presented as in the gender stereotype. In the society that the girl lives in, follows the gender stereotypes that presented females as a petite figure with a slender body. These expectations made the character go insane. She wanted to fit into the society so she “cut off her nose and legs and offered them up.” (Piercy pg. 1) Even though the girl was “healthy, tested intelligent…” (Piercy pg. 1) no one saw that in her, but her appearances. In the end of the poem the girl end up dying, a...
Although Barbie was created as a toy for girls, the sexual nature of the doll suggests it was created for the pleasure of men and envy of women. Prager compares the figure of Barbie to the kind of women who would be seen in the Playboy mansion or be a frequent guest on explicit television shows. This is the image of a mans...
In a way, Barbie is a role model for girls to look to for confidence, because she is extremely talented and educated, and is considered the example of a career woman. Juggling over 130 careers on her resume, Barbie has accomplished the above and beyond. From rock start to pilot,Barbie has had every job a child could possibly ever dream about. This includes her being an astronaut and going to the moon; four years before Neil Armstrong. Even in the 90s, she ran for president before woman even made the presidential ballot. “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” From the start Ruth Handler, the co-owner of the Mattel creations and creator of the Barbie doll, created Barbie for the purpose of inspiration to young girls. Handler saw that her young daughter, Barbara, enjoyed playing with adult female doll...
When I was very young, I owned very many Barbie dolls. To me, they were just so beautiful, and flawless, and I loved them very much. But the Barbie that said the most to me was the President Barbie. This spoke to me. It said that anyone, anywhere, of any gender, socioeconomic status, background, sexuality, ethnicity, race, or belief system could be anything they ever wanted to be, as long as they worked hard enough to achieve it. And this is a very important message, and it is a message that Barbie sends to people every day, all over the world.
Barbie was first launched in March 1959, after Ruth Handler, president of Mattel, Inc., went on a trip to Europe and discovered a unique German doll, “Bild Lilli.” The aforementioned doll was special in that she was an adult, whereas man...