Whee! I never thought I’d have the context to write about this, so thank you Mattel, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie!
All my girlfriends had Barbies. I had Raggedy Ann. I’d like to think that even then, pre-Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, Mom thought Barbie presented a skewed version of women in society. She did outfit me for feminine roles, with a metal kitchen set and an Easy-Bake Oven, neither of which were big hits the day after Christmas though I did develop a lifelong love of cooking. But not because I’m a woman.
In our small village, we lived for the summer with Dad leading all our dead-end street’s kids (girls, too, if Dad played, everyone got to play) played an evening touch football or softball game. At age eight, we moved the country and to swimming, berry-picking, weeding Mom’s garden, mowing instead of dolls. Winters, up north of course, were full of sledding, snowman-making and baking many cookies.
I went to a liberal arts college run by Franciscan friars. My first advisor was a large priest who wanted me to go along and get along, girls didn’t really belong there and were only there until they got married. When I chose sociology as my major, I asked the department chair to be my advisor, as he actually was interested in my gaining an education. It was this priest who gave the annual Barbie Lecture.
This lecture was the hot ticket of the semester and I got to hear it, once, in the late seventies. He began by stating that Barbie would be 7’11” tall in real life and gave her measurements in human terms. It was an excellent lecture by a Catholic priest on the role of women in society.
Another priest who I adored for his art history classes, opened my mind even more with Renaissance and Reformation, where he had several classes on the role of women (as Priests!) in the Catholic Church and how that role was designed then chipped away at by the powers that be over the centuries.
As to the Barbie Lecture, I don’t recall if Father C. ever mentioned the missing piece of anatomy on the Ken doll. No doubt members of today’s small but dedicated membership of the Toxic Masculinity Society would blame women for that, probably women from Mattel!
While I didn’t understand my lack of a Barbie doll as a child, I certainly do now. My life is better off having spent that time reading or doing other things than playing with dolls. Oh, btw, when my brother was a kid, a friend of his gave him a G.I. Joe for his birthday one year. As he opened it, Mom said “Look, a boy doll!” I don’t think he ever looked at it again.
Yes, I do believe that there are differences between men and women, that we are all equal and are here to use our strengths to help one another. Cheers! Yes, I’ll see the new movie, but probably wait for it to come out on tv. Dee
Cooking with Dee 