Within the field of Social Psychology, the most agreed upon age at which children form and begin to follow cultural stereotypes is age five (Psychology Today). Mattel Inc., the company that owns Barbie, starts marketing their dolls to children ages three and up. As more than a doll, as a role model and a representation of the ideal woman, Barbie’s form, perceived values, and lack of authenticity create a complicated paradox between celebrating diversity, perpetuating colonialism, and sexualizing the “primitive”.
Barbie’s form and non-white females in United States capitalist society are both treated as silent, unimportant, demeaningly sexualized objects in the eyes of the patriarchy. Bell Hooks, in her 1992 essay “Eating the Other: Desire…