Barbie Doll Culture

Flipping through a magazine I see images loading the pages selling advertisements to women. They offer suggestive slogans saying much more than what the product in itself is. What are these advertisements really saying? “Fight Against Aging”, “Be Delicious”, or “Discover the Power...” selling products that will fix the average women into becoming “perfect”. Society has redefined the word “feminine” or “beautiful”, turning these words into sexual descriptions that minimize the powerful idea of a woman. America has created a “barbie doll” culture.
Beginning in childhood, girls are surrounded by various influences. The family is a powerful and important tool in a young girl’s life that usually corrects any wrong ideas she may have. On the other side, the family can also damage a girl’s perspective by planting misconceptions, eventually misleading her with false “truths”. “Feelings of personal worth are influenced by performances, abilities, appearance, and the judgments of significant others” (Elder, G.,1968). Many times a young girl simply needs the role of a strong, confident woman to show her she can become an individual that the media has not yet created. “Past and present relationships help form their self identity” (Elder, G.,1968). If girls have that example, they may visualize themselves in that place.
Growing up, a young girl is continually questioning her identity. It is a time of unusual change and major decision that most girls cannot firmly grasp (Rosenberg, M.,1965). “The problem of the adolescent girl in working out her adult femininity involves conscious and unconscious questions about what sort of person she should be, which characteristics would make her desirable and successful, which goals are open to her and which closed” (Allen & Unwin, 1975). Girls come head to head with their self worth versus the “barbie doll” the media is portraying. It is a contradicting scene that seems to be unavoidable. The barbie doll symbolically became an image that young girls were wanting to become. “Ironically, the dimensions that Barbie would not even be anatomically possible on humans” (Barbie's Effects on American Suburban Culture. year unknown). Although this impossibility is well known, a girls mind is blinded because she is attempting to fit into a mold. “For here is a young person caught up in a biological and social process, poised between childhood and becoming an adult...” (Allen & Unwin, 1975) Adolescence is a challenging and awkward stage in life, full of uncertainty. “Society does not have a clear set of expectations for the adolescent. In some ways he is treated as a child, in other ways as an adult” (Morris Rosenburg, 1965). Teens are striving for an untouchable image because they have not pinpointed the true identity they should fulfill.
The average American sees 3,000 ads per day and will spend three years of their life watching commercials (Killing Us Softly 3, 2002). Advertising is the foundation of mass media; their goal is to sell (images, products, success, normalcy...) and try to tell us who we are and who we should be. “It tells us as women that what is most important is how we look. They wrap our minds around the concept of what beauty is...they make us feel ashamed and guilty if we fail” (Killing Us Softly 3, 2002). They make us think that if we just try enough we can look like the “ideal image”, they convince us to push ourselves until we reach a basically unattainable goal. The advertising agency went from a $20 billion profit in 1979 to a $180 billion profit in 1999; this is just 20 years for a 160 billion dollar jump (Killing Us Softly 3, 2002). These numbers reflect the example of how girls have become engulfed in consumerism today.
Pornography is a harsh word that has become “the blueprint in which we are represented in this culture” (Killing Us Softly 3, 2002), an idea that is stuck to ads created everyday. It has simmered down to mainstream images that make us oblivious of the discriminating picture portrayed. We need to take a step back and deconstruct the ideology to understand what is really within the image. Women’s bodies are being abused to sell a commodity. Many of these ads are distorting our views on our sexuality and are passive, as well as misused. Advertisements create a world where women are objects instead of subjects.
Girls sacrifice their true inner selves from their outer selves so that they adapt to the culture around them. Eighty percent of women claim to feel inadequate as a woman (Killing Us Softly 3, 2002), not feeling entirely up to status with the rest of the perfect world. Girls are in fact weighing their self esteem, something that has become a cultural norm. They have become an object of sex, vanity, and vulnerability that is covering the pages of ads. Young girls, teenage girls, and older women are trying to become a constructed image, an image that only computers and a team of specialists could create with time and money. “It is painful to imagine that a girl may experience so much confusion and anxiety over shaping a positive identity that she inhibits her own intellectual and personal interests” (Allen & Unwin, 1975). It is despairing that girls are deteriorating their own inner personality trading it for something so fake and unrealistic. The adolescents have to brought to the idea that being genuine, natural, and realistic is more than imperative in her life.
A woman’s struggle with body image is almost inevitable. One in five girls have eating disorders, usually being anorexic or bulemic (Killing Us Softly 3, 2002). Girls between the ages of 10-12 report that they really are afraid of being fat when they grow up (Beyond Killing Us Softly, 2000). This really means that girls are really afraid of growing and developing as a woman . Adolescent girls need to come to terms that self acceptance of their own body is not defeat. In our society we haven’t been seen beautiful in our strength. The fact is that everyone’s body makes sense on their own terms; it isn’t until we realize this will we succeed.
Men do not face the same challenges that women do. They don’t live in a world where their bodies are judged and consistently talked about in embarrassing and degrading ways. Men’s stereotypes are not as related to the body and are not as personal (Killing Us Softly, 2002). There is an idea that is called “..patriarchy, the sociopolitical system characterized by systemic male privilege and power” (Beauty Politics and Patriarchy. 2001). This type of society insists that women produce an impossible, but ideal image. Ultimately, it’s hard for men to see past the barbie depiction bombarding their minds and distorts the value of a normal, beautiful women. In every day life, this becomes a problem in their expectations of what a girlfriend or wife should normally look like. At this point, both sexes are disappointed by an idea that does not even exist.
The competitive and high standard of beauty stimulates resentful feelings amidst the women of our culture. “..beauty myths foster competition, divisiveness, and distrust..” (Beauty Politics and Patriarchy. 2001). The tension that is brought to the table from our society disturbs the unity that women power contains. The mindset that one female is more beautiful or better in the “man world” robs the friendship that two females can have. Barriers are too easily made when a goal to be the best is the only thing in sight.

As a society America needs to change, not only the ads, but also attitudes that run so deep in our culture. Authentic and freely chosen lives are necessary. Women need to begin seeing the realistic side to beauty. She needs to see what it really looks like without the makeup, touch-ups, lighting, surgery; without the barbie standard. Women need to see that “amazing” isn’t packaged into one type. It is important that the artificial image of the right look isn’t found, but what her own look truly is. Examining reality is a great anecdote. Are women going to let corporations define who and what they are? Corporations shouldn’t be able to shove the female gender into a tiny little cage. “When our bodies and identities are in tune, they reflect each other. This beautiful synchronicity throws the world a much needed curve. It hums with an energy that affects everything and everyone it touches. It changes the culture” (Body Outlaws, 2000).










Bibliography
Elder, G. (1968). Adolescent Socialization and Personality Development. US: Rand Mcnally & Co.

Rosenberg, M. (1965). SOCIETY AND THE ADOLESCENT SELF-IMAGE. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Unknown. (2000). Body Outlaws: Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity. Emeryville: Seal Press.

(1975). Adolescence: The crises of adjustment. London: Allen & Unwin.

Unknown, U. (Director). (2000). Beyond Killing Us Softly: The Strength to Resist [Documentary]. USA: Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc..

Unknown, U. (Director). (2002). Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image of Women [Documentary]. USA: Media Education Foundation.

Beauty Politics and Patriarchy: The Impact on Women's Lives. (2001). In Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender. Oxford: Elsevier Science & Technology. Retrieved October 24, 2008, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/8020045

Barbie's Effects on American Suburban Culture. (year unknown).The Barbie Doll as an Artifact of Suburbia. http://www.otal.umd.edu/~vg/mssp96/ms07/cult.htm