screen, societal screen. We learn to live in our own dichotomy.
Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget the little girls who notice our actions, take into account the things we say about our bodies, the way we stare at ourselves in the mirror with disdain, the message we send them through the dolls they are taught to love—like Barbie.
Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll. She became inspired after she saw a German doll called Lilli. Lilli first appeared in a German tabloid as a sexy pin-up cartoon for men. Due to her popularity among male readers, the cartoon was turned into a doll—not for children, but for men, and they had their choice between a seven inch Lilli and an eleven inch Lilli. Handler saw the Lilli doll while she vacationed in Switzerland in the 1950’s, and decided that her daughter might like to play with it. She bought one for her daughter, Barbara, and one for herself. Handler believed that girls needed a doll with a mature female figure with which to play and practice adulthood, and at the time there weren’t any. Handler, who was a co-founder of Mattel, then worked on and created the Barbie doll. I’d like to believe that Ruth Handler’s intention wasn’t malicious. She couldn’t have known that Barbie’s fantastical figure would come to symbolize the quintessential woman.
When I imagine Barbie, though, I imagine her struggling with a lot of the same weight and body image demons that a lot of women do. I imagine Barbie pulls up to her house—the house all of her friends and she refer to as her dream house—after a long day at the animal hospital. I imagine she loves the song that just came on the radio, so she sits in her pink convertible singing until it’s over. She used to be a singer but gave it up because she wanted to be more than a pretty voice with a pretty face. Before becoming a veterinarian, she tried her hand as a flight attendant, a teacher, an astronaut, a chef, a dentist, a surgeon, and a business executive—just to name a few. Some call her flighty, but she can’t help the fact that she’s good at everything she does. She leaves each job on good terms; everyone she has ever worked with adores her, and tells her she’s free to come back any time. In fact, some days she does. She doesn’t remember vet school, but she must have gotten great grades as one of the premier animal hospitals in the nation offered her a job before she graduated. It happens to be in the same city as her house, as is NASA, which is lucky for her. A lot of things are lucky for her.
She opens the car door and unfolds her legs. Sports cars are so little, but she wouldn’t be caught dead driving anything else, even though it’s hard for her to get in and out. I imagine Ken comes out of the