Every Girl’s Dream.

were beginning to come out as the image of feminine beauty. Society has unconsciously made

women focus their attention on their looks, which in my opinion has turned into a social disease.

I think that Barbie was an early advocator of the "beauty myth". A doll who, if she were real,

would be too thin to fit all of her internal organs and is too busty to stand under her own power.

Not once has a Barbie doll been sold with food as an accessory.

Barbie living in her pink palace and riding her pink corvette with her molded man Ken.

Barbie had taught me that every member of society was living this very same life. I have to

question if the weight of responsibility for this beauty myth falls only on Barbie's tiny plastic

shoulders? Is this doll responsible for exposing American women to one of the biggest social

problems that they have faced? That of self-image! She was introduced as a child's toy whose

main purpose was to remove or apply make-up, style hair, or spend fake money with fake

credit cards, but her purpose has served much more than that of simply being a doll. Barbie had

now redefined what is was like to be a feminine in our society.

Today one can see more of an ethnic variety when it comes to dolls, but the majority

has perfect white skin. I still believe that Barbie reigns as Queen of it all; queen of pink, of porn-

star bodies, of tiny designer clothes, and of tiny pink malls. Women see these images

everywhere: in every ad, on every television show, on the big screen, and staring down at them

from billboards. I think that Barbie has contributed largely to the problem, to the point she may

be the root of this situation. I think that more women are identifying their insecurities with their

low body image, as a result of this culture. For Example, the lawsuit against Mattel having to

change the size of Barbie's breasts, reducing them in size. Barbie also had to pack on a little

more weight in the waist area. This case alone spells out the simple fact that Barbie's picture-

perfect image has affected women in more ways than one.

For decades since her creation, Barbie has been seen as the perfect "American Girl."

She is everything from an African safarier to a Prom Queen.... and she has the perfect shoes

and dress to meet each occasion. She is everything that every girl or woman wants to be -

perfect. She gives women something to strive towards (body wise of course) and this image has

ultimately been one of the main causes of eating disorders in teenage girls.

Beauty has always preoccupied women. But over the past two centuries, as women

have gained more rights, the association of self-worth and appearance has intensified. There has

been this enormous change from girls being principally concerned with good works to now

being concerned with good looks as a measure of their self-worth.

Society plays many roles in peoples' lives. The biggest role that society plays with

females is how they should appear. All over the television, movies, and different magazine

covers, females come into view as looking very thin and beautiful. People that see these famous

females begin to idealize that body image. The male gender also visualizes these famous females

and thinks that all females should have this slender appearance. With movies, models, and

beauty pageants that dominate society, it's impossible for young, impressible adolescents not to

succumb to the desire of having a perfect body.

Through researching this thesis I have found that the female gender needs to realize that

it is okay to be any shape or weight. Women need to grasp the fact that they can be sexy and

attractive to men even if they are larger or if they are stick thin. On the other hand, the male

gender needs to accept the fact that females can be beautiful in many different ways. Men need

to understand that not all females can look like Pamela Anderson or even Jennifer Aniston, that

women of the real world are beautiful however they look. Barbie has although definately played

a large role in giving teens and women as a whole something to strive to look like, and in turn

has created a problem which society as a whole now views as extremely serious. Barbie needs

to be put back in her place. She needs to go back into the boxes that she came from and we

need to go back to viewing her simply as childs toy and not something that women look up to as

being the ultimate, or the peak of perfection.