Barbie for All?

As a young girl I was an avid Barbie player and often had neighbor friends over for play dates exchanging clothing, reinventing her image, or were we inventing ourselves in an attempt to grapple with what it means to female and feminine. At that time (during the 80's) there were very few African-American Barbie Dolls. The first I remember receiving was when I was about nine years old. I remember opening up the snowman decorated package on Christmas morning to find yet another Barbie, but this on looked slightly different. Her features, shape, and size were the same as the Barbie I was familiar with, but instead of having long, flowing hair she had a small curly afro. I remember being very disappointed with this, primarily because one of the major joys in playing with Barbie was creating new and exciting hair styles. Overall, I think it was at this time I began to realize the absence of dolls and images of girls and women who looked like me. A problem many young girls are still facing today.

Now as a mother to a soon to be fifteen year old daughter and educator, I am less willing to buy into Barbie and other images that do not reflect my daughter and the girls I work with. Spigel in "Welcome to the Dream House" talks about the politics, race, racism, and sexism so ever present in the Barbie "world". She further expounds on the the participation of men in the collector industry and the unwillingness of our system to support women in creator roles of durable art, even as it relates to Barbie dolls which have traditionally targeted females. Barbie Bazaar, the Mattel supported Barbie magazine, that includes an article about an African-American businesswomen (Helena Lisandrello) who created a product of "realistically ethnically mixed high fashion", yet have made minimal strides, at least at in my opinion, to have ethnic dolls readily available. I can speak to this only because I have attempted, when my daughter was much younger, to purchase an African-American Barbie. I personally do not participate in the Barbie industry regardless to new advancements towards the inclusion of race/cultural groups for this reason.

Spigel argues that playing with and reinventing Barbie is one way many young girls explore their femaleness, or femininity. I agree with this wholeheartedly and believe it is another way we socialize young people. Socialization is the process of introducing and preparing young people to live and be in the world. Socialization is a necessary part of understanding the world, parents play a major role in socialization. But has my experience playing with white Barbie's as a young girl influenced my perception of and participating in being female, feminine, and African-American. This is not a simple question and is why I choose the topic of identity for my popular education lesson. What I do know if many girls, particularly African-American adolescents are struggling with the questions: Who am I? and How do I fit into this world? Research continues to point to the fact that the identiy

While many other popular objects icons exist, Avril, Lil' Kim, and Foina few too many are realistic mirrors for young girls. Often girls view these objects, whether it is Barbie or the artists mentioned above, as images to strive for, but that they do not possess currently. What is our roles as educators to impact this reality?

I finally pulled it off !

I now officially have a blog I actually can stand looking at and desire to make better. This was an interesting process and sure I don't have it all figured out yet. I look forward to future conversations.