Mattel Vs. Multicultural Barbie

Barbie, a name that people all around the world know, is just a doll, but throughout the past 50 years she has become the icon of physical appearance and a luxurious lifestyle for young girls and women. In the 1950’s, Mattel, the company that worked with Ruth Handler to produce the doll, soon became the first to sell a doll with a woman’s body as a children’s toy. Beginning with Malibu Barbie, also known as the “dumb blond” stereotypical Barbie, and progressing to multicultural versions of Barbie to please consumers, the physical differences between Malibu Barbie and Multicultural Barbie proved that Mattel was capable of altering the doll for the better. As our culture and societal standards have changed, Barbie has faced the challenge of keeping …show more content…
If Barbie was a real person, she would be 5’9”, weigh 110 pounds, and her body fat percentage would be so low that she would not even be able to live a healthy life (“Brainwashed by Barbie...”). Studies have proven that girls that have been exposed to Barbie at a young age are more concerned about having a thin body, and other dolls do not place the same thoughts in young girls’ minds. Children as young as 6 and 7 have been found to already find beauty only in stick-thin bodies, and the curvy, tall, and petite Barbies have not and will not be accepted by all consumers. A young girl testing out the new curvy Barbie had continually called her “fat” and joked about her appearance with the other girls, but as soon as an adult entered the room, the young girl’s attitude towards the Barbie became less degrading and she and the other young girls acted as if they had not just made fun of her minutes ago. I think that it is outrageous that children at the age of 6 are already conditioned to think that having a stick-thin body is the only way to be beautiful. 90% of people that suffer from eating disorders are young women between the ages of 12 and 25, and many of these women interviewed claimed that they had