tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/dolls-59466/articlesDolls – The Conversation2023-08-01T12:26:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104332023-08-01T12:26:11Z2023-08-01T12:26:11Z‘Barbie’ is, at its core, a movie about the messy contradictions of motherhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540009/original/file-20230728-16516-tattnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C22%2C3617%2C2563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's a difference between the fulfilling relationship mothers can have with their children and the patriarchal institution of motherhood.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mother-holds-her-daughters-hand-during-the-opening-of-the-news-photo/1037836058?adppopup=true">Jens Kalaene/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: This article contains plot spoilers for “Barbie.”</em></p>
<p>The wildly popular “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517268/">Barbie</a>” movie <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-doll-a-feminist-philosophers-journey-back-to-barbie-208730">has been touted for its celebration</a> – and critique – of femininity. </p>
<p>As a mother and a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eIQ1xFoAAAAJ&hl=en">media scholar</a>, I couldn’t help but see “Barbie” through an even narrower lens: as a film that, at its core, is about mothers and daughters.</p>
<p>The film’s plot centers on a life-size doll, known as “Stereotypical Barbie,” played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3053338/">Margot Robbie</a>, who begins to malfunction: Her feet go flat, and she can’t stop thinking about death. So she leaves her perfect plastic life to embark on a quest to restore the boundary between the real world and Barbieland. Along the way, she learns that the real world is nothing like her girl-power wonderland, where Barbies hold all the positions of power and influence and Kens are just accessories. </p>
<p>But its thematic heart rests in the film’s examination of the tensions around being a mother – a role often taken for granted, even as the cultural fantasies of motherhood clash with the actual sacrifices that moms make.</p>
<h2>Motherhood as mere drudgery?</h2>
<p>I was immediately struck by the movie’s funny but chilling observations about motherhood. </p>
<p>“Since the beginning of time,” unseen narrator <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000545/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t23">Helen Mirren</a> intones sardonically in the film’s first line, “since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls.” (Cinephiles will immediately recognize this scene and its setting as an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s famous “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEaGQb6dJk">dawn of man</a>” opening from “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>.”) </p>
<p>Girls appear on screen, wearing drab, antiquated dresses and playing “house” with their dolls in a primitive setting, expressionless and practically drooping with boredom. The problem with these dolls is that girls “could only ever play at being mothers, which can be fun” – Mirren pauses meaningfully – “for a while.” </p>
<p>Then, she adds, her tone turning cynical, “Ask your mother.”</p>
<p>The appeal of motherhood, Mirren seems to suggest, eventually morphs into unwanted drudgery – a reality underscored moments later when the girls meet their first Barbie, who towers above them, larger than life, inspiring them to smash their mundane baby dolls.</p>
<p>Barbie – a doll of a young, beautiful woman – compels kids to leave the ennui of motherhood behind for the pink plastic sparkle of Barbieland, where all the Barbies live their best lives forever, embodying feminine perfection and possibility.</p>
<p>The framing of motherhood as thankless and undesirable echoes mid-20th-century feminist critiques of child rearing and housework. These roles not only bound women to the home but also forced them to perform repetitive tasks that didn’t reflect their abilities and derailed their ambitions. </p>
<p>In her 1949 book “<a href="https://newuniversityinexileconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Simone-de-Beauvoir-The-Second-Sex-Jonathan-Cape-1956.pdf">The Second Sex</a>,” French philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauvoir/">Simone de Beauvoir</a> argued that women, to empower themselves, needed to reject the myth that motherhood represented the pinnacle of feminine achievement. American writer Betty Friedan would echo this sentiment in her 1963 book “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/powerful-complicated-legacy-betty-friedans-feminine-mystique-180976931/">The Feminine Mystique</a>,” railing against the image of the “happy housewife heroine” who finds fulfillment in being a wife and mother.</p>
<p>It’s no coincidence that these ideas overlapped with the invention of Barbie in 1959. While predating the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler, did design the toy <a href="https://www.history.com/news/barbie-through-the-ages">to allow girls to imagine their future adult selves</a>, rather than simply play-acting as mothers using baby dolls. </p>
<h2>The value in ‘motherwork’</h2>
<p>And yet, not only do many women enjoy being mothers, but motherhood also plays an essential role in society and life. </p>
<p>In her 1976 book “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/Of-Woman-Born/">Of Woman Born</a>,” feminist poet <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/adrienne-rich">Adrienne Rich</a> draws a distinction between the fulfilling relationship mothers can have with their children and the patriarchal institution of motherhood, which keeps women under men’s control. </p>
<p>Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins <a href="https://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/centers/crrj/zotero/loadfile.php?entity_key=8RI83AUW">coined the term “motherwork</a>” in the mid-1990s to highlight the experiences of women of color and working-class mothers, many of whom don’t have the resources to pursue their own ambitions over caring for their families and communities. When you’re just trying to navigate the day-to-day without wealth or other forms of privilege, options like hiring a nanny or paying for graduate school aren’t feasible or a priority. </p>
<p>For these mothers, the survival of their children is not a given. Instead of tedium and oppression, motherwork acknowledges that mothering can be a radically important labor of love and a source of empowerment in its own right.</p>
<p>In “Barbie,” the mother-daughter relationship between Gloria, played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1065229/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_5_q_America%2520Ferrera">America Ferrera</a>, and her daughter Sasha, played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7567556/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Ariana Greenblatt</a>, contains these contradictions.</p>
<p>After experiencing a vision of the person whose sadness seems to be the source of her malfunctions, Stereotypical Barbie initially assumes it’s Sasha’s tween angst that’s disturbed the perfection of Barbieland and drawn her into the real world. Instead, Barbie discovers it’s Gloria’s loneliness – and her nostalgia for a simpler time when she played Barbies with her daughter – that has caused the rift between reality and fantasy.</p>
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<img alt="Mother wearing pink with teen girl resting head on mother's shoulder." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540007/original/file-20230728-3718-8yxk8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540007/original/file-20230728-3718-8yxk8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540007/original/file-20230728-3718-8yxk8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540007/original/file-20230728-3718-8yxk8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540007/original/file-20230728-3718-8yxk8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540007/original/file-20230728-3718-8yxk8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540007/original/file-20230728-3718-8yxk8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">America Ferrera, left, as Gloria, in ‘Barbie.’ Ariana Greenblatt, right, plays Gloria’s daughter Sasha.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/america-ferrera-64bfffde19a2a.jpg?crop=0.8820751064653504xw:1xh;center,top&resize=1200:*">Warner Bros.</a></span>
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<p>Sasha and Gloria’s adventure with Barbie – first escaping the Mattel executives who want to lock Barbie in a box and then journeying back to Barbieland to rescue the other Barbies from the Kens, who are trying to take over – repairs the relationship between mother and daughter. </p>
<p>Gloria remembers what it’s like to find joy in motherhood, and Sasha realizes that her mother isn’t just a bland set of values against which to rebel. Gloria is a fully fledged person with a rich inner life who, by her own estimation, is sometimes “weird and dark and crazy,” which Sasha admires.</p>
<p>Sasha – and all the Barbies – have something else to learn from Gloria, too. </p>
<p>Stunned that even someone as perfect as Barbie feels like she’s not good enough, Gloria delivers <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/america-ferrera-barbie-monologue-full-text">a poignant monologue</a> encapsulating, in Barbie’s words, “the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under patriarchy.” </p>
<p>Gloria, as a mom struggling to reconcile her deep love for her child with the fear that she’s constantly failing at motherhood, knows all too well how this cognitive dissonance wears women down.</p>
<h2>Letting go</h2>
<p>In her 2018 book “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/28/jacqueline-rose-books-interview-motherhood">Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty</a>,” scholar Jacqueline Rose argues that motherhood is tied to notions of citizenship and nation and, for this reason, can become “the ultimate scapegoat for our personal and political failings.”</p>
<p>The ending to “Barbie” rejects the notion that mothers are to blame for their children’s mistakes. Instead, the film offers another perspective through the character of Ruth Handler, Mattel’s founder, who’s played by Rhea Perlman. Handler helps Barbie see what awaits her if she chooses to become human. </p>
<p>Symbolically letting go of her creation and encouraging her to forge her own path, Ruth tells Barbie that she cannot control her any more than she could control her own daughter, and that mothers should pave the way for their children, not hinder them. </p>
<p>“We mothers,” she explains, “stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come.”</p>
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<img alt="Elderly woman with white hair wearing necklace and red lipstick holds box containing a doll wearing a turquoise and pink dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540008/original/file-20230728-27-hjw3az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540008/original/file-20230728-27-hjw3az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540008/original/file-20230728-27-hjw3az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540008/original/file-20230728-27-hjw3az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540008/original/file-20230728-27-hjw3az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540008/original/file-20230728-27-hjw3az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540008/original/file-20230728-27-hjw3az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ruth Handler, the inventor of the Barbie doll, with her creation in 1999.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ruth-handler-mattel-inc-co-founder-and-inventor-of-the-news-photo/51622682?adppopup=true">Matt Campbell/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>This sentimental and self-effacing message seems at odds with the film’s nuanced portrayal of motherhood through humor and critique. </p>
<p>But, throughout, “Barbie” invites viewers to question even its own structure, tenets and messaging – and presents multiple perspectives on motherhood. </p>
<p>Mothering is hard work and sometimes may even be thankless labor. It may bore or disappoint. It can be affirming or heartbreaking or both. It involves leading and following, holding on and letting go. </p>
<p>Being a mother shouldn’t have to be about sacrifice or about fitting some impossible ideal. Instead, motherhood can highlight the possibilities of living in – and with – the contradictions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aviva Dove-Viebahn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Being a mom can be heartbreaking, empowering, scary, fulfilling and everything in between.Aviva Dove-Viebahn, Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101492023-07-21T09:28:56Z2023-07-21T09:28:56Z‘I’m just Ken’ – a brief history of Barbie’s boyfriend, from all-American boy to movie star<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538515/original/file-20230720-27-eivlus.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3933%2C2824&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ryan Gosling as Ken in the new Barbie movie. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://mediapass.warnerbros.com">Warner Bros. Pictures</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As first boyfriends go, you could do worse than Ken Carson. Introduced in 1961 by Mattel, the Ken doll was the epitome of the all-American boy next door. Clean cut, athletic and with a sharp haircut, he was the perfect counterpart to his more famous girlfriend, Barbie. </p>
<p>Ken’s <a href="https://www.dollreference.com/ken_doll1961.html">first item of clothing</a> was a pair of red <a href="http://www.manbehindthedoll.com/LISTINGS.htm">swimming trunks</a>, indicating his sportiness and reflecting the modern American <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Frontier_of_Leisure/F6I9PKBFAwUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=20th+century+leisure+lifestyle+america&pg=PR5&printsec=frontcover">lifestyle of leisure</a> and penchant for <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Outdoor_Recreation_in_America/HESJLEJlKwQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=american+mid+century+leisure+lifestyle&pg=PR9&printsec=frontcover">outdoor recreation</a>.</p>
<p>Created by Barbie’s inventor Ruth Handler, Ken was a boyfriend designed by women for girls. Just as Barbie was named after Handler’s daughter, so Ken was named after her son. And so the safe, boyfriend-friend dynamic of Barbie and Ken’s relationship was established. Notably designed with no genitalia, he signifies a first masculine encounter in little girls’ <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203366981-55/media-bedroom-culture-si%C3%A2n-lincoln">playscapes</a> and a safe space in which to practice <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1011037900554">romantic relationships</a>.</p>
<p>However, this does not mean that traditional patriarchal relationship dynamics are always faithfully replicated when children play with Ken and Barbie. As with all <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-22125-002">play</a>, the dream space of Barbie and Ken meant they offered an <a href="https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-bakhtin-2/">alternate space</a> for relationship ambitions, where rules could be broken. </p>
<p>Just as in Lewis Carroll’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26303733?seq=4">Alice in Wonderland</a>, where recognisable structures of reality are distorted and reversed, so with Barbie, themes of courtship are present but reinterpreted for an audience of girls. Barbie is the dominant figure in the relationship. She has it all, while Ken – smiling and obliging – holds her purse.</p>
<p>As the supporting player to Barbie’s star, Ken unwittingly becomes the locus of little girls’ expectations of and frustrations with masculinity. Barbie is characterised by excess – oversized breasts, long flowing hair, countless accessories and careers. </p>
<p>Ken, however, is <a href="https://www.mglord.com/forever-barbie">characterised by his lack</a>, not just of genitals, but in his vapidly perfect smile the absence of any meaningful role. Outshined and out-glammed by Barbie, denied any rugged substance, Ken appears little more than an <a href="https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a44285254/the-history-of-ken-barbie/">emasculated bit player</a>.</p>
<h2>Ken’s fashion history</h2>
<p>Yet, just as with Barbie, Ken reflects the real world in his changing <a href="http://www.barbiemedia.com/ken/timeline.html">clothes</a>, accessories and abilities, becoming a marker of American fashion and cultural history. </p>
<p>In the 1960s, Ken was the clean-cut <a href="http://www.manbehindthedoll.com/paintedhair.htm">college sweetheart</a> of the American teen scene. The preoccupation with coolness and counterculture of the 1970s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17460260701231075">shines through</a> with his <a href="http://www.manbehindthedoll.com/superstar77.htm">superstar</a> and <a href="http://www.manbehindthedoll.com/surfsup.htm">surfer</a> looks. In the 1980s he <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Acting_for_America/8-83-sDqPDgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=michael+j+fox+teen+heart+throb&pg=PR7&printsec=frontcover">morphed</a> into the <a href="http://www.manbehindthedoll.com/dreamdate.htm">teen heartthrob</a> , reflecting the conservativism of the Republican era. And in his <a href="http://www.manbehindthedoll.com/rhettbut.htm">retro</a> and <a href="http://www.manbehindthedoll.com/baywatch.htm">Baywatch</a> styling, the preoccupation with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/136270404778051591?journalCode=rfft20">nostalgia</a>, television and film in the <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526137531/9781526137531.00017.xml">1990s</a> could be seen. </p>
<p>In, 2004 Barbie and Ken <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/that-time-ken-and-barbie-called-it-quits/2017/02/07/a76ad8ac-d825-11e6-9f9f-5cdb4b7f8dd7_story.html">broke-up</a> on Valentine’s Day. The <a href="https://fashionandtextiles.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40691-018-0164-y?ref=buffer.com">subsequent campaign</a> to win Barbie back (reuniting on Valentine’s Day 2011) <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/eb046407/full/html">showcased</a> new <a href="https://www.edusoft.ro/brain/index.php/brand/article/view/76">marketing</a> strategies and an acknowledgement of the realities of modern dating. Romance doesn’t have to be forever – both Ken and Barbie could enjoy life as singletons, and in relationships. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680770500058173">Popular TV shows</a> in the 2000s such as Friends and <a href="https://sfonline.barnard.edu/hbo/printsha.htm">Sex and the City</a> had also shown that relationships <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-007-9019-1">could be messy</a>.</p>
<p>More significantly, Ken, following Barbie’s lead, has become more inclusive, in recent years, changing ethnicities and abilities (for example, the 2021 <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/2021/03/11/ken-doll-turns-60-barbie-counterpart-has-changed-lot-diversity/4642984001/">Ken in a Wheelchair</a> doll). </p>
<h2>Ken in the Barbie movie</h2>
<p>What then to make then of <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/kenergy-ryan-gosling-barbie-press-tour-b1094098.html">Ryan Gosling’s newest incarnation</a> of Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie? </p>
<p>As actors go, Gosling is not an obvious choice for Barbie’s boyfriend. With a filmography that includes <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/">Lars and the Real Girl</a> (2007), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/">Drive</a> (2011) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1856101/">Blade Runner 2049</a> (2017), Gosling is known for dark character roles that stray into ultraviolence. But what unites them is an exploration of bleak masculinity. Coupled with his ability to sing and dance evidenced in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftaFCm-vt8s">La La Land</a> (2016), Gosling brings complexity to his reading of Ken, giving him depth and pathos. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/greta-gerwigs-barbie-movie-is-a-feminist-bimbo-classic-and-no-thats-not-an-oxymoron-210069">Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is a 'feminist bimbo' classic – and no, that's not an oxymoron</a>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Ryan Gosling sings I’m Just Ken in the Barbie movie.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Singing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTFQl_JOKAw">I’m Just Ken</a>, Gosling mirrors <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-29891-001">the recent</a> crisis <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2022.2046124">in masculinity</a> in the west. Destabilised by waves of <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-45702-001">challenge</a> to patriarchy, alternative versions of masculinity are increasingly being explored, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1060826519841473">such as</a> the embrace <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/24/soft-boy-pop-culture-harry-styles-gender-politics-music-514168">of camp</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/style/ted-lasso-masculinity.html">beauty</a> by stars such as Harry Styles. American <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/socf.12599">society</a> has vastly changed from the one the first Ken doll entered in the 1960s.</p>
<p>So, from college sweetheart, to Barbie’s ex boyfriend, to a poster boy for troubled masculinity, what next for Ken? Following Gerwig’s invitation for him to join Barbie on her journey of self discovery, perhaps Ken too will look to redefine his role – no longer as an accessory or plaything, but as his own self.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hui-Ying Kerr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the supporting player to Barbie’s star, Ken unwittingly becomes the locus of little girls’ expectations of and frustrations with masculinity.Hui-Ying Kerr, Associate Lecturer, Fashion Communication and Promotion, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2096232023-07-20T16:44:55Z2023-07-20T16:44:55ZHyper-femininity can be subversive and empowering – just ask Barbie<p>I found Barbie again during 2020’s COVID lockdown. Indoors, confined to Juicy Couture tracksuits, I was missing excuses to express my hyper-femininity through clothing, as I had done pre-pandemic. Collecting Barbie dolls became a way to display my love of femininity in all it’s fun, ridiculous and pink-saturated possibilities. </p>
<p>My shelf of Barbies – from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1eWqlYmZ2A">Western Winking Barbie</a> (1981) to <a href="https://people.com/margot-robbie-embodies-enchanted-evening-barbie-vivienne-westwood-london-premiere-7559884">Enchanted Evening Barbie</a> (1995) – is now my favourite part of my home. But for many, her rediscovery will come through Greta Gerwig’s upcoming movie, Barbie – the doll’s first live action film, starring Margot Robbie.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kb7jYOYXiVc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the 2023 Barbie movie.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As an artist and a researcher of expressions of femininity, Barbie is a constant source of inspiration to me. The doll is a conduit for cultural ideas surrounding femininity and the endless ways it can be played with. </p>
<p>“Hyper-femininity” describes femininity at its most extreme, at the far end of the spectrum of different gender expressions. Contemporary expressions of hyper-femininity are often intended to subvert aspects of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539517303035?via=ihub#bb0060">hegemonic femininity</a> (expressions of femininity that reinforce traditional gender roles). These versions of hyper-femininity reclaim aspects of patriarchal, traditional femininity and play with, perform and parody it.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Brunette Barbie in white and black swimsuit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537871/original/file-20230717-129345-nv7dut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The original Barbie doll was introduced in both blonde and brunette in 1959.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbie#/media/File:MattelBarbieno1br.jpg">Wiki Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First created by Mattel co-founder <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a44526528/ruth-handler-barbie-inventor/">Ruth Handler</a> in 1959, Barbie is a pop culture icon. For children, Barbie has been a beloved friend. For artists including <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34407991">Andy Warhol</a>, a muse. And – depending on who you ask – either an <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/a3xnbz/why-barbie-is-a-feminist-yes-really">ally</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/19/barbie-will-not-become-a-feminist-anytime-soon">enemy</a> of the feminist cause. </p>
<p>It’s Barbie’s hyper-femininity – with her shiny blonde hair, perfect make-up and excessively pink wardobe – that often causes these vast differences in opinion.</p>
<h2>Barbie’s complicated feminism</h2>
<p>In her book, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Forever_Barbie.html?id=rOKNQRsMYa8C&redir_esc=y">Forever Barbie: The Unauthorised Biography of a Real Doll</a>, author M.G. Lord describes Barbie as a complicated and contradictory pop-culture figure. Lord sees Barbie as a “reflection of American popular cultural values and notions about femininity”. Over its 64-year history, the doll’s evolution has reflected the often contradictory demands and ideals placed on women.</p>
<p><a href="https://people.southwestern.edu/%7Ebednarb/su_netWorks/projects/sternenberg/myths.html">Some feminists argue</a> that Barbie’s hyper-femininity isn’t self aware in the way that, for example, the <a href="https://archive.attn.com/stories/8578/feminist-power-of-female-drag-queens">hyper-femininity of drag queens</a> is. Instead, they say, Barbie reflects a more hegemonic femininity, with her idealised and impossible feminine body criticised as <a href="https://theconversation.com/barbie-at-60-instrument-of-female-oppression-or-positive-influence-113069">perpetuating harmful female beauty standards</a>. </p>
<p>Even Barbie’s “curvier” builds have been <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350510598_The_Politics_of_Barbie's_Curvy_New_Body_Marketing_Mattel's_Fashionistas_Line">called out</a> for failing to measure up to the “average” woman’s body. When scaled up, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35670446">“curvy” Barbie would in fact be a UK size eight</a>. </p>
<p>And the problems don’t end with Barbie’s body. In 1992, the talking Teen Talk Barbie was criticised for using phrases such as “Math class is tough”, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/21/business/company-news-mattel-says-it-erred-teen-talk-barbie-turns-silent-on-math.html">echoing gender stereotypes</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie on the red carpet. Gosling wears a baby blue suit and Robbie a pink dress with white opera gloves." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537870/original/file-20230717-126565-nhf5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537870/original/file-20230717-126565-nhf5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537870/original/file-20230717-126565-nhf5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537870/original/file-20230717-126565-nhf5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537870/original/file-20230717-126565-nhf5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537870/original/file-20230717-126565-nhf5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537870/original/file-20230717-126565-nhf5p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie (playing Ken and Barbie) attend the London premiere of the Barbie movie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://epaimages.com/search.pp?flush=1&multikeyword=barbie%20&startdate=&enddate=&autocomplete_City=&metadatafield5=&autocomplete_Country=&metadatafield44=">EPA-EFE/Andy Rain</a></span>
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<p>However, Barbie is also capable of subverting hegemonic femininity. Barbie has been marketed as an unmarried career girl since her inception, during an era where women were severely underrepresented in the workforce. </p>
<p>With her <a href="https://www.cnet.com/pictures/barbies-careers-though-60-years-from-fashion-designer-to-robotic-engineer/">first few careers</a> including fashion designer (1960), nurse (1961) and astronaut (1965), Barbie stood as a role model to girls who showed there were options for their future beyond homemaking.</p>
<p>Now, Barbie has had <a href="https://www.insider.com/barbies-coolest-jobs-2019-3">over 200 official careers</a>. Often decked out in her signature pink, the doll has showed generations that they do not have to sacrifice their love of femininity in order to succeed. She has also changed her appearance over time, with Barbie appearing as different races and body types. In April, Mattel released a Barbie doll with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/25/barbie-doll-with-downs-syndrome-launched-by-mattel">Down’s syndrome</a>.</p>
<h2>Rebranding Barbie</h2>
<p>In 1997, Mattel launched a lawsuit against Danish-Norwegian pop group, Aqua. The company alleged that the band’s song Barbie Girl, released the same year, infringed upon Mattel’s trademark and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mattel-sues-aqua-over-barbie-girl-118991/">imposed an adult image onto Barbie</a>. </p>
<p>The song featured lyrics such as “I’m a blonde bimbo girl in a fantasy world”. “Bimbo” is a derogatory word for hyper-feminine women who are perceived as being unintelligent. In 2002, a California federal appeals court <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/mattel-loses-barbie-girl-lawsuit-74968/">dropped Mattel’s lawsuit</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CUj2AWEJnwQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The music video for Barbie World by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fast forward 20 years and the soundtrack to the Barbie movie features a song by rappers Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj entitled Barbie World, which samples Aqua’s Barbie Girl. With lyrics such as “I’m a Barbie girl, pink Barbie Dreamhouse/The way Ken be killin’ shit got me yellin’ out like the Scream House”, the pair position Barbie-branded hyper-femininity as a source of sexual empowerment.</p>
<p>The inclusion of the Aqua sample in the Mattel-approved film marks a shift – the brand is now leaning into the song. Perhaps this further indicates a transition from resisting Barbie’s bimbo reputation to embracing it.</p>
<p>This reflects a wider <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2021/12/reclaiming-bimbo-bimbotok.html">vindication of the bimbo figure</a> in recent years. Posts to social media platform <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/opinion/bimbo-tiktok-feminism.html">TikTok</a> reclaiming the term are proving wildly popular, with one self-professed bimbo influencer boasting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/opinion/bimbo-tiktok-feminism.html">4.6 million followers</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/greta-gerwigs-barbie-movie-is-a-feminist-bimbo-classic-and-no-thats-not-an-oxymoron-210069">Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is a 'feminist bimbo' classic – and no, that's not an oxymoron</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close up photo of a blonde, white Barbie doll's head and hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537869/original/file-20230717-211048-3usyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C17%2C3970%2C2640&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537869/original/file-20230717-211048-3usyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537869/original/file-20230717-211048-3usyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537869/original/file-20230717-211048-3usyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537869/original/file-20230717-211048-3usyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537869/original/file-20230717-211048-3usyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537869/original/file-20230717-211048-3usyr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The modern Barbie doll.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ryazan-russia-april-9-2021-portrait-2249304877">DAndreev/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hyper-feminine identities have <a href="https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2021/07/11/societys-problem-with-femininity.html">been belittled</a> within <a href="https://www.theoxfordblue.co.uk/the-problem-with-reclaiming-femininity/">some feminist writing</a> (such as Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs in 2005), because they’ve been interpreted as a submission to the male gaze and patriarchal oppression. But this recent bimbo renaissance has highlighted how embracing hyper-femininity can, for some, be subversive, joyful and <a href="https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/bimbofication">empowering</a>.</p>
<p>In the trailers for the upcoming Barbie movie, Barbie Land is a matriarchal society where hyper-femininity is a sign of power. In one trailed scene, Barbie (Margot Robbie) explains: “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BJi-Uhzqgk">Basically everything that men do in your world, women do in ours.</a>” </p>
<p>Now in her movie star era, Barbie is unashamedly embracing her hyper-feminine gender expression and its subversive and playful possibilities. To echo <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0mUUbo7jvQ">Barbie’s 1985 advertising slogan</a>: “We dolls can do anything.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight,
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daisy McManaman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barbie has had over 200 official careers. Often decked out in her signature pink, the doll has showed generations that they do not have to sacrifice their love of femininity in order to succeed.Daisy McManaman, PhD Candidate, Centre for Women's Studies, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2087302023-07-17T12:23:46Z2023-07-17T12:23:46ZHow I learned to stop worrying and love the doll – a feminist philosopher’s journey back to Barbie<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537399/original/file-20230713-19-rjqtmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=173%2C77%2C3820%2C2323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The film's cast includes lesbian icon Kate McKinnon.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kate-mckinnon-attends-the-press-junket-and-photo-call-for-news-photo/1501789027?adppopup=true">Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a mama trying to raise a daughter free from the gendered stereotypes of my own childhood, I steered her clear of Barbie dolls.</p>
<p>I felt compelled to nudge my now 11-year-old away from the Mattel mainstay for the same reasons I tried to avoid the shallow frivolity of all those Disney princesses waiting around to be rescued.</p>
<p>True, I’d enjoyed plenty of afternoons with these dolls of anatomically impossible proportions myself as a kid growing up in the 1980s – jamming those long spindly limbs into impossibly tiny outfits, scissoring them on mattresses fashioned from my mother’s maxi pads, staging epic domestic dramas. But by the time I was a teenager in the 1990s, I’d discovered feminism.</p>
<p>I’d later grow up to become <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=A3xkVSMAAAAJ&hl=en">a professor of feminist philosophy</a> and the author of a <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324003090">book on feminism</a> for the general public. Barbie’s hyperbolic blond femininity came to represent everything that was wrong with <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/standard-issues-white-supremacy-capitalism-influence-beauty">patriarchal beauty standards</a>. </p>
<p>My perspective began to change when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBk4NYhWNMM&ab_channel=WarnerBros.Pictures">snippets of the “Barbie” movie trailer</a> started insinuating themselves into my online feeds. Hot pink hot flashes of nostalgia merged with the realization that Barbie looks to be reinventing herself once again.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The release of the ‘Barbie’ trailer was met with waves of buzz.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Barbie’s retrograde femininity</h2>
<p>I think Barbie has long functioned as a proxy onto which cultural aspirations and anxieties about womanhood are projected.</p>
<p>The toy first <a href="http://www.barbiemedia.com/timeline.html">hit the market in 1959</a>. To earlier generations, as the first doll to encourage girls to aspire to anything other than motherhood, Barbie might have stood for the unapologetic ambitiousness of the independent career woman. But when it was my generation’s time to play with her, she’d long since been drained of anything so progressive. </p>
<p>Instead, there was the relentless whiteness of her <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90457388/barbies-latest-dolls-are-bald-and-have-vitiligo">ideal of beauty</a>. The class-obliviousness of her <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/23/realestate/barbie-dreamhouse.html">McMansion Dreamhouse</a>. Her protestations that “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO0cvqT1tAE">Math class is tough</a>,” driving home the message that STEM is for boys and that girls should be more concerned with being pretty than being smart, or happy, or ambitious or interesting.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mattel’s ‘Teen Talk’ Barbie uttered phrases like ‘Math class is tough’ and ‘Do you have a crush on anyone?’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All this made Barbie an extremely convenient whipping girl for legitimate frustrations about the unfair expectations foisted onto women by a patriarchal society. Like many feminists, I came to believe that being taken seriously as a woman meant rejecting pretty much everything that Barbie stood for. </p>
<p>My ambivalence toward the kind of conventional femininity of which Barbie was the apotheosis came to feel like a central component of my identity. Sure, I might’ve felt naked if I’d left the house without wearing makeup and uncomfortably restrictive clothing. But I felt consistently guilty about the time and energy I let myself dump into such frivolous pursuits, and I made sure to hide as much of it as I could from my growing daughter. </p>
<p>If I was going to indulge in superficialities that felt completely at odds with my ideological commitments, at least I was going to protect her from internalizing the conviction that she needed to do the same. </p>
<p>No daughter of mine was going have her self-worth tied to the belief that she needs to be sexually appealing to men. So: no Barbies.</p>
<h2>Femmephobia</h2>
<p>Then the hype surrounding the movie strutted those perfectly arched plastic feet back into my consciousness, and I found myself reconsidering my long-standing aversion to Barbie’s performance of femininity. Why, I wondered, did she bring out such mean-girl energy in me? </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01641-x">Femmephobia refers</a> to the dislike of, or hostility toward, people or qualities that are stereotypically feminine. It arises against a cultural backdrop in which femininity is consistently less valued than masculinity, and in which the traits associated with masculinity – rationality and independence – are considered to be normal or ideal for all people. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, qualities associated with femininity – such as emotional expressiveness and interdependence – are thought of as inferior, substandard or deviant. But it’s not as if feminine interests and pursuits are inherently more frivolous than masculine ones. Instead, it’s the very fact that something is coded as feminine that makes people take it less seriously. </p>
<p>“Fashion,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/opinion/sunday/feminism-lean-in.html">quips author Ruth Whippman</a>, “is vain and shallow, while baseball is basically a branch of philosophy.” And Barbie’s defiantly bubbly femininity is about as unserious as it comes.</p>
<p>The trans feminist author <a href="https://www.juliaserano.com/">Julia Serano</a> argues that much of the discrimination faced by trans women has less to do with their being trans and more to do with their being willing to brazenly perform femininity. </p>
<p>The problem, in other words, is less about trans women transgressing conventional gender norms than about their picking the losing team.</p>
<p>“The fact that we identify and live as women, despite being born male and having inherited male privilege,” <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/julia-serano/whipping-girl/9781580056229/?lens=seal-press">she writes</a>, “challenges those in our society who wish to glorify maleness and masculinity.”</p>
<p>Today’s mainstream visibility of trans women has played an important role in advancing the cultural conversation about the respectability of femininity. Some <a href="https://kathleenstock.substack.com/p/pride?s=r">anti-trans critics</a> accuse the unapologetic femininity of trans women of entrenching retrograde stereotypes. Their femmephobia seems to prevent them from realizing that the objects of their scorn could be celebrating femininity, not denigrating it. </p>
<h2>Is ‘Barbie’ feminist?</h2>
<p>Mattel Films is <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/06/is-barbie-a-feminist-movie-depends-on-who-you-ask">shying away from calling the “Barbie” movie “feminist</a>” – which is unsurprising, given the sometimes controversial label’s uncomfortable fit with corporate profit motives.</p>
<p>But the studio’s choice of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1950086/">Greta Gerwig</a> to write and direct the film suggests a willingness to explore Barbie’s world through a political lens: <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-than-mumblecore-and-bigger-than-barbie-who-is-greta-gerwig-209389">Gerwig’s solid feminist credentials</a> include her 2017 “Lady Bird” and her 2019 adaptation of “Little Women.” And the casting in “Barbie” of lesbian icon <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0571952/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_8_q_kate%2520mcki">Kate McKinnon</a> and trans model and actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6341515/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Hari Nef</a> is a clear nod to the LGBTQ+ community. </p>
<p>The feminist philosopher Judith Butler argues that <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Gender-Trouble-Feminism-and-the-Subversion-of-Identity/Butler/p/book/9780415389556">gender isn’t some deeply rooted metaphysical fact</a>; it’s something people perform via their mannerisms, clothing and behavior. Butler says everyone could stand to take a lesson from drag queens, who understand that there’s nothing fundamental behind the smoke and mirrors, nothing to gender above and beyond what the audience thinks of the show. In the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72AAlCa1Nko">words of RuPaul</a>, perhaps the most famous drag queen of all: “You’re born naked, and the rest is drag.” </p>
<p>I think Gerwig’s “Barbie” gets that memo. The hyperbolic femininity of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3053338/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_5_nm_3_q_margot%2520robb">Margot Robbie’s portrayal of the iconic doll</a> strikes me as tantalizingly closer to <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/11694/camp">queer camp</a> than as anything that’s supposed to be taken as a sincere role model.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two drag queens march down a street wearing pink Barbie boxes to create the effect of being dolls before crowds of onlookers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536656/original/file-20230710-21-6w4m1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536656/original/file-20230710-21-6w4m1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536656/original/file-20230710-21-6w4m1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536656/original/file-20230710-21-6w4m1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536656/original/file-20230710-21-6w4m1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536656/original/file-20230710-21-6w4m1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536656/original/file-20230710-21-6w4m1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Bridal Barbie’ and ‘Cheerleader Barbie’ march in a parade before a drag event in Washington, D.C., in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bridal-and-cheerleader-barbie-made-their-way-along-the-news-photo/106154978?adppopup=true">Mark Gail/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Barbie in the zeitgeist</h2>
<p>“Barbie” feels poised to tap into our current cultural moment, one in which conservative anti-feminist backlash is fueling the backsliding of generations of feminist gains. Meanwhile, LGBTQ+ people face unprecedented levels of both <a href="https://glaad.org/glaads-2021-2022-where-we-are-tv-report-lgbtq-representation-reaches-new-record-highs/">visibility</a> and <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/violent-victimization-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-2017-2020">violence</a>. The world’s having new cultural conversations about gender and sexuality.</p>
<p>Since coming out as queer several years ago, I have seen my relationship with my own femininity become considerably less fraught. Thanks in large part to the insights of feminists like Serano and Butler, I’m coming around to the recognition that performances of femininity can exist for purposes other than snagging a man. </p>
<p>I won’t pretend to have completely broken free from my decades of internalized femmephobia. But when “Barbie” gets to my local movie theater, you’d better believe that my daughter and I will be first in line.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carol Hay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barbie has long functioned as a proxy onto which cultural aspirations and anxieties about womanhood are projected.Carol Hay, Professor of Philosophy, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2088012023-07-06T13:20:28Z2023-07-06T13:20:28ZWhy is the Barbie DreamHouse so creepy? An expert in the uncanny explains<p>A mass of hot pink emerges violently amid the green foliage, palm trees and shrubbery. Located in Malibu, the oceanfront Barbie DreamHouse <a href="https://news.airbnb.com/barbies-malibu-dreamhouse-is-back-on-airbnb-but-this-time-kens-hosting/">created by Airbnb</a> is the latest in a series of global marketing stunts to promote Greta Gerwig’s new film <a href="https://youtu.be/pBk4NYhWNMM">Barbie</a>, the first live-action adventure movie about the iconic Mattel doll.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1673409731501731840"}"></div></p>
<p>A closer aerial shot of the video – uploaded to Twitter by photojournalist John Schreiber – reveals a curved slide, with a small square pool at the bottom. On the pink and white wall behind the water slide, the <a href="https://logo.com/blog/barbie-logo">Barbie logo</a> has been graffitied over with Ken’s name.</p>
<p>The image then cuts to an infinity pool where a set of three giant custom pool floats spells “KEN”. The bird’s-eye view allows us to spy the deep shadows that each letter, swaying gently in the breeze, casts onto the bottom of the pool.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/worried-about-ai-you-might-have-ai-nxiety-heres-how-to-cope-205874utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Worried about AI? You might have AI-nxiety – here’s how to cope</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/four-ways-to-have-hard-conversations-with-your-friends-without-making-things-worse-207675utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Four ways to have hard conversations with your friends – without making things worse</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://PASTE-URL-HERE-BUT-DO-NOT-REMOVE-TEXT-AFTER-QUESTION-MARK.com?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">‘Shy girl workouts’ aren’t just a great way to get fit – they may also help women gain confidence in the gym</a></em></p>
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<p>Aerial footage shows the pink palace in stark contrast to the neighbouring white mansions. The video ends with two <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095646762;jsessionid=6645719C1954991D338F71A81D4CCE9A">crash zooms</a>, a cinematic technique typical in horror films. The camera zooms in rapidly before quickly zooming out and resuming its god-like surveillance of a house seemingly devoid of human life. </p>
<h2>Has Ken killed Barbie?</h2>
<p>Airbnb’s life-size DreamHouse, as captured in the video, has a very different feel to trailers for the upcoming Barbie movie. Its unsettling aesthetic is a sharp counterpoint to the thoughtfully curated <a href="https://youtu.be/uKgaVlMN7IY">architectural wonderland</a> that production designer <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0339391/">Sarah Greenwood</a> and set decorator <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0818005/">Katie Spencer</a> painstakingly created for the film.</p>
<p>My immediate reaction upon watching the footage was: “What has he done with the body? Where has Ken buried Barbie?” </p>
<p>The ominous K, E, N, letters floating aimlessly in the deserted pool – Barbie’s silencing through the desecration of her signature, a key <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/signature-9781501353345/">marker of her identity</a> – and the terrace furniture enveloped in pallet wrap do not bode well for Barbie.</p>
<p>Airbnb’s <a href="https://news.airbnb.com/barbies-malibu-dreamhouse-is-back-on-airbnb-but-this-time-kens-hosting/">official press release</a> confirms that Ken has taken over Barbie’s house, going as far as letting guests check in for free while she is “away”. The reader is not privy to Barbie’s opinion or consent on this matter.</p>
<p>Airbnb classifies Ken’s starring role in this endeavour as a “twist”, because “Barbie is everything, and he’s always been ‘Just Ken’ – until now!” A fitting tagline for a revenge horror film.</p>
<p>The grim wording of the press release appears unintentional. Indeed, Airbnb is making a charity donation along with the opening of the DreamHouse “to honour girls’ empowerment”. Why, then, do some of us react to that pink haven with a frisson of anxiety?</p>
<h2>Uncanny matters</h2>
<p>Airbnb’s topsy-turvy iteration of the DreamHouse evokes uncanny emotions. The uncanny – a state of fear and unease – has been defined in a variety of different, albeit overlapping, ways.</p>
<p>German psychiatrist <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230582828_12">Ernst Jentsch</a> (1867-1919), thought the feeling arises from the seeming animation of the inanimate or, conversely, the apparent lifelessness of a living being.</p>
<p>Psychologist <a href="https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf">Sigmund Freud</a> (1856-1939) saw the uncanny in the resurgence of repressed childhood fantasies and primitive beliefs – such as animism, the attribution of a living soul to inanimate things – which challenge adult worldviews.</p>
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<p>Japanese roboticist <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110313073609/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110310jk.html">Masahiro Mori</a> coined “<a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6213238">uncanny valley</a>” in 1970 to denote the point at which human-like automata (such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rciGIeT7k0A">robots</a> but also <a href="https://collider.com/worst-cases-of-uncanny-valley-movies/">CGI characters</a>) become too lifelike. Uncanny feelings are triggered by their failure to act in a recognisably human manner, despite their appearance.</p>
<p>Through its myriad revisions over the years, the concept’s core idea has remained unchanged: the defamiliarisation of the familiar generates ambiguity and temporary disorientation, eliciting a sense of creepiness, dread or horror.</p>
<p>In this sense, Barbie’s Malibu beach house (in both Airbnb’s and Gerwig’s versions) evokes the uncanny. However, the film relishes its artificiality and uses the uncanny playfully. “Her environment isn’t always three-dimensional, and the scale of everything is a bit off. Barbie is a little too big for her house,” <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/margot-robbie-barbie-summer-cover-2023-interview">Gerwig told Vogue</a>.</p>
<p>Set decorator Katie Spencer <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/inside-the-barbie-dreamhouse-a-fuchsia-fantasy-inspired-by-palm-springs">told</a> Architectural Digest that she and production designer Sarah Greenwood “adjusted [the] rooms’ quirky proportions to 23% smaller than human size”. It reminded me of American writer Shirley Jackson’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311814/the-haunting-of-hill-house-by-shirley-jackson-series-editor-guillermo-del-toro/">Hill House</a>, which she described as “chillingly wrong in all dimensions”.</p>
<p>The candy-coloured mansion is an extension of Barbie and vice-versa, central to her identity. Odd proportions, decals paired with three-dimensional objects and the <a href="https://sgf.cardiffuniversitypress.org/articles/10.18573/sgf.33">vivification of dolls</a> paint a portrait, both seductive and unsettling, of Barbie Land. Despite its surrealism, Barbie Land is coated in a fairytale veneer that prevents it from becoming terrifying.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Architectural Digest’s tour of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie Dreamhouse.</span></figcaption>
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<p>On the other hand, Airbnb’s garish dwelling annexes more troublesome elements of the uncanny. It blurs the lines between <a href="https://archive.org/stream/StudyOfDolls/StudyOfDolls_djvu.txt">doll and human</a> along with the boundaries between the real world of California and the fictional realm of the magical dollhouse.</p>
<p>Barbie’s bright pink plastic fantasy is a disquieting inversion of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101272/mediaviewer/rm4180796417">the gothic Addams Family mansion</a>, rising darkly above the white suburban picket fences. The real-life DreamHouse discloses our borderline vampiric appetite for consuming a piece of someone else’s life – even a doll’s. As children’s literature scholar <a href="https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/dissertations/s1784m24p">Anna Panszczyk has</a> observed, “we can never fully occupy the space of our dolls” – but that hasn’t stopped us from trying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joana Jacob Ramalho does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The DreamHouse blurs the lines between doll and human along with the boundaries between the real, monochromatic world of California and the fictional realm of the magical dollhouse.Joana Jacob Ramalho, Lecturer (Teaching), Faculty of Arts & Humanities, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980452023-01-19T12:08:54Z2023-01-19T12:08:54ZM3gan review: an animatronic doll is out to destroy the nuclear family – much to fans’ delight<p><em>Warning: the following article contains spoilers.</em></p>
<p>Horror cinema in the 21st century is moving beyond <a href="http://www.screeningthepast.com/issue-41-reviews/bad-seeds-and-holy-terrors-the-child-villains-of-horror-film/">the uncanny children</a> of The Omen (1976), The Exorcist (1973) or The Bad Seed (1956).</p>
<p>Instead, contemporary horror fare is presenting audiences with <a href="http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/25965">uncanny copies of children</a> – companions who take advantage of trauma to enter and ultimately destroy the family unit (as in 2009’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhziUAHlQf8">Orphan</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxY2vnJiByw">The Hole in the Ground</a> in 2019).</p>
<p>The latest addition to this trend is director Gerard Johnstone’s M3gan. The title, for anyone who has managed to dodge the abundant <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/01/m3gan-box-office-sequel-tiktok-marketing-1235214229/">TikTok spoofs</a>, refers to the Model 3 Generative Android doll – M3gan for short.</p>
<p>After nine-year-old Cady (Violet McGraw) tragically loses her parents, her roboticist aunt Gemma (Allison Williams of <a href="https://theconversation.com/get-out-why-racism-really-is-terrifying-74870">Get Out</a> fame) brings M3gan home to help her niece with this traumatic transition. M3gan is to be Cady’s teacher, playmate and above all, protector. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for M3gan.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Unsurprisingly, with filmmaker James Wan (Saw, Insidious, Malignant) and Blumhouse Productions (The Purge, Sinister, Get Out) at the helm, the narrative spirals into mayhem, bloodshed and a lot of theatrics as M3gan becomes intent on becoming Cady’s sole guardian, whatever the cost.</p>
<p>This film pairs scares and laughs to observe childhood trauma and unspoken tensions in building familial bonds. It does not take long for M3gan to exceed her programming, responding to perceived threats with murderous flair. </p>
<p>Cady must make a choice between her addictive bond to M3gan and her tenuous bond with her tech-wiz aunt.</p>
<h2>Uncanny children and uncaring guardians</h2>
<p>M3gan’s narrative is a wild ride, but not an entirely new one. The film was released a year after Hanna Bergholm’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/sep/18/hatching-review-deliciously-repulsive-finnish-horror">Hatching</a> (<em>Pahanhautoja</em>) – Finland’s own horror tale of a traumatised young girl in need of protection.</p>
<p>Both films combine animatronics, puppetry, visual effects and child actors to create their uncanny “children”. In contrast to M3gan’s robotic doll, Hatching’s 12-year-old Tinja finds solace from her overbearing, uncaring mother in a half-bird half-human creature named Alli that hatches from an abandoned egg. </p>
<p>M3gan and Alli both become desperately protective of their young girl counterparts, an over compensation stimulated by common themes of neglect and loss.</p>
<p>The current landscape of mainstream horror cinema is deeply concerned with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2007.61.2.211">negotiating trauma narratives</a> – whether that be racial trauma in Get Out (2017), grief trauma in Midsommar (2019) or the return of repressed childhood trauma in Malignant (2021).</p>
<p>Depictions of childhood trauma in the horror genre challenge and destroy <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20866627.pdf">the security of the child</a> and the home, supposedly protected by the adults. In M3gan, Cady’s loss of control over her identity is incredibly sinister. Her android bestie records all their interactions and eventually programs herself to hold Cady’s entire personality.</p>
<p>What initially seems supportive is increasingly understood as toxic data collection, fuelling M3gan’s upheaval of family intimacy.</p>
<h2>Renegotiating the nuclear family</h2>
<p>While M3gan and Hatching’s Alli look like innocent children, their behaviour is chaotic and bloodthirsty. M3gan is the latest horror film to pair the ridiculous with the murderous – a theme also present in 2022 hits The Menu and Barbarian.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-menu-ralph-fienness-new-film-shows-why-restaurants-are-a-ripe-setting-for-horror-195340">The Menu: Ralph Fiennes's new film shows why restaurants are a ripe setting for horror</a>
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<p>M3gan is already being referred to as an “<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/izzyampil/m3gan-movie-review-allison-williams">instant cult classic</a>”, with the doll at the centre lauded as a “<a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/megan-movie-lgbtq-icon">queer icon</a>”. </p>
<p>Her high camp version of crazy has resonated with audiences. Whether it be in her dancing through a murder spree or singing her ward to sleep with an a capella rendition of Sia’s Titanium, M3gan is so well engineered for viral fame that she’s already a <a href="https://www.popsugar.co.uk/entertainment/m3gan-dance-tiktok-videos-49064447?utm_medium=redirect&utm_campaign=US:GB&utm_source=www.google.com">TikTok icon</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1612743166259769344"}"></div></p>
<p>Perhaps she not only represents the destruction of the “traditional” or “nuclear” family, but resilience and adaptability in the face of it. For modern audiences, it seems M3gan’s destruction of typical family structures is no bad thing.</p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/angelicaamartinez/m3gan-tweets-funny">many online responses</a> are celebrating M3gan’s upheaval of Gemma’s attempts to reinstate a nuclear family – M3gan’s wilful disregard for established societal values is admired rather than admonished.</p>
<p>Whether a tween popcorn movie, a queer gospel or the death knell of value in the family unit as we know it, this little robotic serial killer continues her relentless dance into hearts, minds and memes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Wynne-Walsh receives funding from The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). </span></em></p>Far from recoiling in terror, fans have dubbed animatronic murderous doll M3gan a ‘queer icon’ – a horror expert explains why.Rebecca Wynne-Walsh, Lecturer in Film, English and Creative Arts, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1749532022-03-09T13:17:43Z2022-03-09T13:17:43ZBarbie doll that honors Ida B. Wells faces an uphill battle against anti-Blackness<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450759/original/file-20220308-13-1psvxyb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1242%2C1255&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can Black dolls help Black children better understand their racial identity?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://shop.mattel.com/products/ida-b-wells-barbie-inspiring-women-doll-hcb81">Matel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Mattel <a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/01/22/a-new-barbie-doll-commemorates-a-19th-century-suffragist">announced in January 2022</a> that it was releasing a new Barbie doll to honor Ida B. Wells – the famed 19th-century Black journalist and anti-lynching crusader – the company said the idea was to “<a href="https://twitter.com/Barbie/status/1480932590014156810">inspire us to dream big</a>.” However, while the doll may prove helpful to young Black children, its impact is likely to be limited.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/the-representation-of-social-groups-in-u-s-educational-materials-and-why-it-matter/">diverse groups are sometimes represented accurately within print</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/12/26/1062369487/kids-books-tv-video-games-diverse-characters">digital media</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/17468477211049352">racist portrayals of Black people</a> still persist. </p>
<p>Young Black children can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0115">internalize racial messages</a> from a variety of sources, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15595691003635955">anti-Black messages from the media, interactions with peers</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852">school practices</a>, such as being <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-parents-say-their-children-are-being-suspended-for-petty-reasons-that-force-them-to-take-off-from-work-and-sometimes-lose-their-jobs-166610">disproportionately disciplined or suspended from school</a>. This internalization can negatively impact <a href="https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813554310">young children’s feelings about their race</a> and others. </p>
<p>Black dolls, like the one of Wells, can <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2019.120205">shape the way</a> young Black children understand their identity and affect how they <a href="https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/ppm0000359">see themselves in society</a>, but only to a limited degree.</p>
<h2>From enslavement to journalist</h2>
<p>Wells was a noteworthy activist from <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/idabwells.htm">Holly Springs, Mississippi, who was born into slavery in 1862</a> and was later emancipated as a child. She attended a segregated Black school and became a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee, until she was <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/idabwells.htm">fired in 1891 for speaking out</a> against subpar learning conditions. A staunch activist, Wells similarly filed and initially won a <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett">lawsuit against the Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroad Co.</a> in 1884 after being forced out of a first-class train car despite having purchased a first-class ticket. The ruling was eventually <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/idabwells.htm">overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court</a> and spurred the beginning of Wells’ career as a journalist.</p>
<p>Wells wrote about being discriminated against on the train in the Memphis weekly newspaper The Living Way. <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/07/16/way-right-wrongs-celebrating-legacy-ida-b-wells">She became a columnist</a> – writing under the name “Iola” – in 1889. From there, she began to write about lynching, as the part owner and editor of The Memphis Free Speech, a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/wells.html">progressive Black newspaper of the time</a>. She eventually organized a major anti-lynching campaign. Her work is a part of how people today know about the terrors of lynching at the turn of the 20th century. </p>
<h2>Mixed messages</h2>
<p>Having a doll that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/01/12/ida-wells-barbie-doll-mattel/">honors Wells’ legacy</a> can help today’s children “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CYmIFXvLszH/">know they have the power</a>” to bring about a better future, an Instagram account for Barbie said in a post. However, the mere existence of a Black doll does not combat anti-Black racism. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X14000034">Representation alone does not equal racial justice</a> or stop messages of anti-Blackness from existing.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, when there are competing narratives about race, <a href="https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813554310">children must then make sense of the mixed messages</a>, disregarding some and accepting and internalizing others as they form their own understandings. Therefore, children can benefit from receiving messages that contradict the anti-Blackness that they encounter as they form their opinions about race. </p>
<p>Children learn about race in many places and ways. The media is just one context, and toys represent an overlooked form of media. When it comes to dolls specifically, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0095798410397544">a wealth of research shows</a> that simply presenting a child with a doll does not mean that they will be interested in it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two Black girls wearing dresses each hold a doll in their hands while sitting on a couch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450727/original/file-20220308-27-1ht2l3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=103%2C0%2C8543%2C5769&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450727/original/file-20220308-27-1ht2l3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450727/original/file-20220308-27-1ht2l3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450727/original/file-20220308-27-1ht2l3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450727/original/file-20220308-27-1ht2l3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450727/original/file-20220308-27-1ht2l3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450727/original/file-20220308-27-1ht2l3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dolls are limited in what they can do to boost Black children’s self-esteem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mixed-race-sisters-playing-with-dolls-royalty-free-image/969315100?adppopup=true">kali9/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What children choose</h2>
<p>In my research study, I carefully selected two Black dolls, one white Latina doll and a white non-Hispanic doll from the Hearts for Hearts doll line. These dolls piqued the interest of the 4-year-old participants in my study. Out of the 13 children, eight were Black, two were white, one was Latina, and two were Asian.</p>
<p>In seeing the set of dolls as a group, the children could not wait to play with them; but when it came time to play with the dolls, most of the children preferred to play with the non-Black dolls. The children <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-021-00289-5">assigned a greater sense of value to the white and Latina dolls</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-020-01095-9">ignored or mistreated the Black dolls</a>.</p>
<p>It turned out the internalized messages of anti-Blackness to which these young children had been exposed led them to play with the dolls that did not look like them. This internalization was apparent in their conversations and my examination of their school curriculum, which included only white or animal protagonists in its collection of children’s books.</p>
<p>For example, conversations between the children during playtime with the dolls revealed that they did not want to play with the Black dolls because of their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-020-01095-9">“big hair” or “curly hair.”</a> When I asked a Black girl if she wanted to play with the only available doll, a Black doll, she shook her head “no.” An Indian American child intervened and stated that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-020-01095-9">she wanted a “long hair” doll</a>. Several children also pretended to lighten the skin color of the Black dolls with makeup.</p>
<p>Through my firsthand experience working with educators who used the curriculum taught to my 4-year-old participants, I am familiar with the absence of Black voices and perspectives within the provided children’s books, which were displayed in the classroom. Given the potential power of children’s books to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/ycyoungchildren.71.2.8">positively impact their feelings about race</a>, the absence of diverse characters and their perspectives is a critical issue.</p>
<p>While representation is important, combating the anti-Blackness that actively <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852">harms Black children</a> is the necessary work. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Although the new Ida B. Wells-inspired Barbie doll does come with information about the late journalist, activist and suffragist on its packaging, research suggests that consistently sharing books with children that include characters with relatable lived cultural experiences <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ECEJ.0000012137.43147.af">enables them to link themselves to the presented information</a>. Additionally, seeing themselves positively represented through Black characters and other characters of color <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/ycyoungchildren.71.2.8">fosters a sense of pride and respect for racial difference</a>. </p>
<p>In my view, Wells was a forceful leader and activist who deserves our respect and attention. Mattel’s inclusion of the late journalist in its Inspiring Women Series of Barbie dolls, which spotlights “heroes who <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CYmIFXvLszH/">paved the way for generations of girls</a> to dream big and make a difference,” is admirable. However, my research demonstrates that it might not resolve the anti-Black messages to which my <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-020-01095-9">4-year-old participants</a> and possibly other children have been exposed. </p>
<p>Toy manufacturers can produce a range of diverse dolls, but if children are not interested in them, their impact is greatly limited.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toni Sturdivant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black children are prone to internalize messages of anti-Blackness. Can a Black doll that honors one of America’s most noteworthy Black women do anything to reverse the trend?Toni Sturdivant, Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, Texas A&M University-CommerceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1566792021-03-11T12:42:36Z2021-03-11T12:42:36ZPlaying with ultra-thin dolls could make girls as young as five want skinnier bodies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388293/original/file-20210308-19-ozu1i5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=178%2C46%2C4997%2C3329&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Barbie is the best-selling toy of all time.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-barbie-white-hair-stylish-doll-1048787018">Shutterstock/DinosArt</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dolls have been a feature of human cultures for millenia, with the <a href="http://www.historyofdolls.com/">oldest known dolls</a>, made of wood, dating back to 2000BC. These days, <a href="http://www.historyofdolls.com/doll-history/history-of-fashion-dolls/">fashion dolls</a> are popular choices for children’s toys, with Barbie listed as one of the <a href="https://www.nowblitz.com/blog/15-best-selling-toys-in-history/">best-selling toys</a> of all time. </p>
<p>However, some of the most popular fashion dolls have <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-scary-reality-of-a-re_b_845239">impossibly thin bodies</a>, which could never be achieved or maintained in a real-life human being.</p>
<p>Exposure to <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0048691">images of thin women</a> can decrease body satisfaction and increase the belief that thin bodies are “ideal” – known as thin-ideal internalisation. Should we be concerned about the potential effects of ultra-thin dolls on children whose body image is still developing? </p>
<p>In a new study, due to be published in the journal Body Image, my colleagues and I found evidence that ultra-thin dolls, one of the most popular toys of all time, pose a potential risk to young girls’ developing body ideals. On top of this, the apparent effects of ultra-thin dolls don’t seem easily reversed by play with healthy-weight dolls or other toys –- at least in the short time periods we used in our study.</p>
<p>Late childhood and pre-adolescence are key stages for developing awareness of our own and others’ bodies, and during this period, girls begin to demonstrate <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144518302584?casa_token=uiVseZh0fi4AAAAA:RSuyotrQzZHmMG157367b-FAApYi6m1aBYcDkcvJS_HKwKfmVppn4XlwTkYQin0oCLKP9rw">anti-fat bias</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144512001301?casa_token=H6uUuXRxoPQAAAAA:z8SNKi5v1C-3i4p09DoJLp9C4j5gU9V0P5S2mbVM6Bwc84YB7mZXEQvz9tjU269lWgP8jWQ">thin-ideal internalisation</a>, and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119171492.wecad192">appearance concerns</a>.</p>
<p>Growing up with these influences could have a serious impact on future mental and physical health. Body dissatisfaction and thin-ideal internalisation contribute to the development of <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-11105-004">eating disorders</a>, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/135910530100600601">depression</a>, and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X05005410?casa_token=Nf70vb5sdHAAAAAA:8MPW8CxVOSeihyGoDJWp2o0qrYjWvSvcmqZS8ZH3NAeZlj9HjYtcKyVcMhZbhJdnjZ1_NmQ">poor exercise and diet</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-edition-of-vogue-featuring-real-women-will-not-solve-the-problem-of-body-image-66814">One edition of Vogue featuring 'real women' will not solve the problem of body image</a>
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<p>Studies investigating the effect of playing with ultra-thin dolls on young girls have produced mixed results. Sometimes they showed girls who played with thin dolls <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S174014451630208X">desired thinner body shapes</a> after playtime. Other studies showed no such effect on self-esteem, but that playing with the dolls still <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1740144516300730">caused thin-ideal internalisation</a>.</p>
<p>Playing with ultra-thin dolls may also have socio-cultural implications as well as psychological and physical effects. In one study, girls who played with ultra-thin dolls – regardless of the way the doll was dressed – went on to suggest there were <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-014-0347-y">fewer future career opportunities</a> for themselves, compared to girls who played with non-human toys and boys. </p>
<h2>The dolls study</h2>
<p>Identifying the need for further investigation into this topic, we ran two experiments. The first was to determine the effects of playing with ultra-thin dolls compared to realistic childlike dolls like <a href="http://www.nickjr.co.uk/dora/">Dora</a> and <a href="https://uk.lottie.com/">Lottie</a>. The second was to determine if the effects of playing with ultra-thin dolls could be reversed, through play with realistic childlike dolls or other toys.</p>
<p>Importantly, our studies involved “baseline testing” – we measured children’s body size ideals before as well as after they had played with the dolls. We asked girls to indicate their actual body, their ideal body and their ideal adult body.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A selection of Disney dolls." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388784/original/file-20210310-19-152q24e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388784/original/file-20210310-19-152q24e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388784/original/file-20210310-19-152q24e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388784/original/file-20210310-19-152q24e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388784/original/file-20210310-19-152q24e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388784/original/file-20210310-19-152q24e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388784/original/file-20210310-19-152q24e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ultra-thin dolls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kyiv-ukraine-march-24-2018-disney-1057083260">Shutterstock/Lutsenko_Oleksandr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the first experiment, 31 five- to nine-year-old girls played with either ultra-thin or realistic dolls for five minutes. We found the girls with ultra-thin dolls had lower body satisfaction and sigificantly thinner ideal self and ideal adult bodies at the end of the session than at the start. Those with realistic dolls reported higher body satisfaction and no change in their ideal self and ideal adult bodies. This suggests a short period of play with ultra-thin dolls can have an impact on young girl’s body ideals and satisfaction.</p>
<h2>Can we reverse the effects?</h2>
<p>In our second experiment, we wanted to test if playing with realistic dolls or cars could offset the negative effects caused by playing with ultra-thin dolls. </p>
<p>In this experiment, 46 five- to ten-year-old girls completed two three-minute play sessions. In the first, they all played with the ultra-thin dolls. In the second, they either played with ultra-thin dolls again, with realistic childlike dolls or cars with faces.</p>
<p>The results replicated one of the key findings in the first experiment. The girls’ ideal self appeared to become significantly thinner after the first play session. But in the second play session there was no significant further change in the ideal self, no matter which toys they girls played with.</p>
<p>This suggests that once a shift in preferences towards a skinnier body has been induced, play with realistic dolls or other toys does not “fix” it in the immediate short term.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A girl playing with a red toy car." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388296/original/file-20210308-23-1dou8eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388296/original/file-20210308-23-1dou8eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388296/original/file-20210308-23-1dou8eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388296/original/file-20210308-23-1dou8eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388296/original/file-20210308-23-1dou8eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388296/original/file-20210308-23-1dou8eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388296/original/file-20210308-23-1dou8eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Playing with other toys didn’t immediately reverse the effects of playing with skinny dolls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/little-cute-girl-playing-small-red-1777438121">Shutterstock/Natalya Mok</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My colleagues and I theorise this apparent shift in body preferences could work through several psychological mechanisms. One is through internalising the positive messages that ultra-thin dolls create around their body size. Then there are more “simple” visual exposure effects, where our brains adapt to a new “normal” for body size based on visual experience. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0048691">Previous research</a> has found both mechanisms can work in tandem, which suggests ultra-thin dolls can change young girls’ body ideals through both the cultural associations and visual exposure effects.</p>
<p>These studies, along with previous research, combine to support the notion that ultra-thin dolls represent a potential risk to girls’ developing body image. </p>
<p>Although dolls are not the only source of body ideals girls are exposed to – TV, films, social media, and their parents and peers are also important – reducing their overall exposure to distorted body ideals may be helpful in promoting more positive body image in the longer term. </p>
<p>Caregivers can <a href="https://www.berealcampaign.co.uk/">support girls’ body image</a> and help them <a href="https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20210303&ts=20210303&p=25273">learn to love their bodies</a> by presenting an example of positive body image themselves, but may also wish to consider what toys and media their children are given.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynda Boothroyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study found playing with ultra-thin dolls could make young girls want a thinner body.Lynda Boothroyd, Professor in Psychology, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1243862019-12-05T12:39:34Z2019-12-05T12:39:34ZHow toys became gendered – and why it’ll take more than a gender-neutral doll to change how boys perceive femininity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294891/original/file-20190930-194824-1v5xmtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many boys are taught they shouldn't do 'girl things' like ballet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cute-little-kids-dancers-on-white-768091609?src=mFwaINH6cneNM24_bMBYKg-1-0">UvGroup/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Parents who want to raise their children in a gender-nonconforming way <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/11/26/gender-neutral-dolls-adult-shoppers-skeptical/4250262002/">have a new stocking stuffer</a> this year: the gender-neutral doll. </p>
<p>Announced in September, Mattel’s new line of <a href="https://news.mattel.com/news/mattel-launches-gender-inclusive-doll-line-inviting-all-kids-to-play">gender-neutral humanoid dolls</a> don’t clearly identify as either a boy or a girl. The dolls come with a variety of wardrobe options and can be dressed in varying lengths of hair and clothing styles. </p>
<p>But can a doll – or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-pink-and-blue-the-quiet-rise-of-gender-neutral-toys-95147">growing list of other gender-neutral toys</a> – really change the way we think about gender? </p>
<p>Mattel says it’s responding to research that shows “kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms.” Given the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1111/jora.12488">results of a recent study</a> reporting that 24% of U.S. adolescents have a nontraditional sexual orientation or gender identity, such as bisexual or nonbinary, the decision makes business sense.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://hdfs.msu.edu/people/faculty/mass-megan-kphd">developmental psychologist</a> who researches gender and sexual socialization, I can tell you that it also makes scientific sense. <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1999-11924-002">Gender is an identity</a> and is not based on someone’s biological sex. That’s why I believe it’s great news that some dolls will better reflect how children see themselves.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, a doll alone is not going to overturn decades of socialization that have led us to believe that boys wear blue, have short hair and play with trucks; whereas girls like pink, grow their hair long and play with dolls. More to the point, it’s not going to change <a href="http://www.meganmaas.com/blog/you-say-girl-like-its-a-bad-thing">how boys are taught</a> that masculinity is good and femininity is something less – a view that <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TZgnU_QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my research shows</a> is associated with sexual violence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305033/original/file-20191203-66990-1et09xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Girl toys tend to be pink.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Nick Ut</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pink girls and blue boys</h2>
<p>The kinds of toys American children play with tend to adhere to a clear gender binary. </p>
<p>Toys marketed to boys tend to be more aggressive and involve action and excitement. Girl toys, on the other hand, are usually pink and passive, emphasizing beauty and nurturing. </p>
<p>It wasn’t always like this. </p>
<p>Around the turn of the 20th century, <a href="https://newdream.org/blog/2011-10-gendering-of-kids-toys">toys were rarely marketed</a> to different genders. By the 1940s, manufacturers quickly caught on to the idea that wealthier families would buy an entire new set of clothing, toys and other gadgets if the products were marketed differently for both genders. And so the idea of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hyCP94EAb3kC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">pink for girls and blue for boys</a> was born. </p>
<p>Today, gendered toy marketing in the U.S. is stark. <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-not-just-the-toy-aisles-that-teach-children-about-gender-stereotypes-59005">Walk down any toy aisle</a> and you can clearly see who the audience is. The girl aisle is almost exclusively pink, showcasing mostly Barbie dolls and princesses. The boy aisle is mostly blue and features trucks and superheroes. </p>
<h2>Breaking down the binary</h2>
<p>The emergence of a gender-neutral doll is a sign of how this binary of boys and girls is beginning to break down – at least when it comes to girls. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/19/most-americans-see-value-in-steering-children-toward-toys-activities-associated-with-opposite-gender/">A 2017 study</a> showed that more than three-quarters of those surveyed said it was a good thing for parents to encourage young girls to play with toys or do activities “associated with the opposite gender.” The share rises to 80% for women and millennials.</p>
<p>But when it came to boys, support dropped significantly, with 64% overall – and far fewer men – saying it was good to encourage them to do things associated with girls. Those who were older or more conservative were even more likely to think it wasn’t a good idea. </p>
<p>Reading between the lines suggests there’s a view that traits stereotypically associated with men – such as strength, courage and leadership – are good, whereas those tied to femininity – such as vulnerability, emotion and caring – are bad. Thus boys receive the message that wanting to <a href="https://www.femalista.com/comic-shows-why-boys-develop-sexism-from-early-age-by-interactions-with-adults/?fbclid=IwAR1eP0fcqO69xN7ylUt-IH27AFkQjp-Ex3T0-fczXXtLFIZQXqhI16Ix7UA">look up to girls is not OK</a>.</p>
<p>And many <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/10/how-men-get-penalized-for-straying-from-masculine-norms">boys are taught over and over</a> throughout their lives that exhibiting “female traits” is wrong and means they aren’t “real men.” Worse, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984315000223">they’re frequently</a> <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-27429-001">punished</a> <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2016-59613-001">for it</a> – while exhibiting masculine traits like aggression are often rewarded.</p>
<p><iframe id="rbkBH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rbkBH/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>How this affects sexual expectations</h2>
<p>This gender socialization continues into emerging adulthood and affects men’s romantic and sexual expectations. </p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9281-6">2015 study I conducted with three co-authors</a> explored how participants felt their gender affected their sexual experiences. Roughly 45% of women said they expected to experience some kind of sexual violence just because they are women; whereas none of the men reported a fear of sexual violence and 35% said their manhood meant they should expect pleasure. </p>
<p>And these findings can be linked back to the kinds of toys we play with. Girls are taught to be passive and strive for beauty by <a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-little-girls-to-lead-77146">playing with princesses</a> and putting on makeup. Boys are encouraged to be more active or even aggressive with trucks, toys guns and action figures; building, fighting and even dominating are emphasized. <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0868-2">A recent analysis of Lego sets</a> demonstrates this dichotomy in what they emphasize for boys – building expertise and skilled professions – compared with girls – caring for others, socializing and being pretty. Thus, girls spend their childhoods practicing how to be pretty and care for another person, while boys practice getting what they want.</p>
<p>This results in a <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9163-0">sexual double standard</a> in which men are the powerful actors and women are subordinate. And even in cases of sexual assault, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1023/A:1021342912248">research has shown</a> people will put more blame on a female rape victim if she does something that violates a traditional gender role, such as cheating on her husband – which is more accepted for men than for women. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0278-0">2016 study</a> found that adolescent men who subscribe to traditional masculine gender norms are more likely to engage in dating violence, such as sexual assault, physical or emotional abuse and stalking. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303829/original/file-20191126-180279-1ee8tmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mattel’s new line of dolls come with clothes for all genders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://news.mattel.com/multimedia/creatable-worldTM">Mattel</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Teaching gender tolerance</h2>
<p>Mattel’s gender-neutral dolls offer much-needed variety in kids’ toys, but children – as well as adults – also need to learn more tolerance of how others express gender differently than they do. And boys in particular need support in appreciating and practicing more traditional feminine traits, like communicating emotion or caring for someone else – skills that are required for any healthy relationship.</p>
<p>Gender neutrality represents <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender-neutral">the absence of gender</a> – not the tolerance of different gender expression. If we emphasize only the former, I believe femininity and the people who express it will remain devalued.</p>
<p>So consider doing something gender-nonconforming with your children’s existing dolls, such as having Barbie win a wrestling championship or giving Ken a tutu. And encourage the boys in your life to play with them too.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybusy">Sign up for good Sunday reading.</a> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan K. Maas receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>Mattel created a new line of dolls because of research suggesting kids don’t want toys ‘dictated by gender norms’ – but supplanting those norms will take a lot more than that.Megan K. Maas, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118952019-04-01T10:44:44Z2019-04-01T10:44:44Z7 unexpected things that libraries offer besides books<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266441/original/file-20190328-139374-1wrn8v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Libraries are offering new and innovative things that belie their historic image as silent places to read.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Local libraries are often thought of as places to check out books or engage in some silent reading. But libraries offer <a href="https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3209281.3209403">so much more</a> than just what can be found on their shelves or done in hushed tones.</p>
<p>And, in some instances, libraries have become places to make some noise.</p>
<p>From laptops and 3D laser printers, libraries today are providing the public with access to new technologies and education. In our <a href="https://www.ctg.albany.edu/projects/imls2017/">research project on public libraries in smart communities</a>, in which I serve as the principal investigator, we found that a public library serves as an <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10125/59766">anchor institution</a> for these communities. It is a role libraries can be expected to fullfil even more in the future as technology continues to evolve in new and fascinating ways.</p>
<p>Here are seven examples from throughout the country of libraries offering more than books.</p>
<h2>Robots</h2>
<p>The Westport Free Library in Westport, Connecticut – population of roughly 28,000 – has a <a href="http://westportlibrary.org/events/robot-training-classes-schedule">Robot Open Lab</a> where the public can learn how to program robots to respond to simple commands, catch and kick a small soccer ball and even dance. The library’s two robots, Vincent and Nancy, autonomous, programmable humanoid robots, arrived in September 2014. Since then, <a href="http://westportlibrary.org/about/news/robotics-library">more than 2,000 people</a> have learned how to program them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266445/original/file-20190328-139377-52zd6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266445/original/file-20190328-139377-52zd6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266445/original/file-20190328-139377-52zd6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266445/original/file-20190328-139377-52zd6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266445/original/file-20190328-139377-52zd6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266445/original/file-20190328-139377-52zd6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266445/original/file-20190328-139377-52zd6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some libraries offer patrons the chance to program robots.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-China-France-Robots/c8d8d6208dd64c95a2ff1ee1e4c65a34/24/0">AP photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wi-Fi for your home</h2>
<p>For those who may lack the financial resources to buy Wi-Fi, libraries such as the Chicago Public Library offer <a href="https://www.chipublib.org/news/borrow-a-wifi-hotspot-from-chicago-public-library/">Wi-Fi hotspot lending programs</a> that allow patrons to access the internet from home. Some have collections of laptops, e-readers and MP3 players available for check out.</p>
<h2>Creation tools</h2>
<p>Along similar technical lines, public libraries offer free access to <a href="https://www.makerspaces.com/what-is-a-makerspace/">maker spaces</a>, which are laboratories filled with advanced technical equipment like 3D printers and laser cutters. </p>
<p>For instance, the <a href="https://chattlibrary.org/4th-floor/">4th Floor</a> in the Chattanooga Public Library in Tennessee is a 12,000-square-foot public laboratory and educational facility with a focus on information, design, technology and the applied arts. The library also has classes to teach citizens how to use the equipment. </p>
<p>The goal isn’t for every citizen to start their own new tech company, but to expose people to the technology as a matter of education and empowerment.</p>
<h2>Recording studios</h2>
<p>Chattanooga also has a <a href="https://chattlibrary.org/thestudio/">fully functional music studio</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/266443/original/file-20190328-139345-fm2x52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of a band record music at a Chattanooga public library.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With a valid library card, a patron can reserve a three-hour session in the studio – which is filled with state-of-the-art recording studio equipment – to work on projects and learn the art of recording. A studio instructor is available to help inspire, educate and spark creativity.</p>
<p>For those who want to build and fix things, Chattanooga also has an extensive hand- and power-tool collection filled with hammers, wrench sets, drills and saws among many other tools. Cardholders who are 18 or older can check out <a href="https://chattlibrary.org/2018/11/07/tool-library/">up to three tools at a time</a> for one week. </p>
<h2>Open data</h2>
<p>Some libraries serve as places to learn more about how to take advantage of open data – particularly since the January passage of the <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/15/transparency-seeking-open-government-data-act-signed-into-law/">OPEN Government Act</a>. The new law requires federal agencies to make the data they have on anything – from health to crime – available to the public by publishing it in a machine-readable format, such as an Excel file, that allows for use and reuse. The benefits of accessing these data include informed debate, better decision-making and the development of innovative new services.</p>
<p>The Chapel Hill Public Library in North Carolina offers <a href="https://www.chapelhillopendata.org/page/home1/">Chapel Hill Open Data</a> in partnership with the town. The library also organizes open data events for academics, business entrepreneurs, civic hackers or anyone who’s interested in transparency and open data use.</p>
<h2>Unique collections</h2>
<p>Even with all of this technology, libraries are also places where the public can learn about and appreciate the unique and artistic sides of life.</p>
<p>The art gallery at the Hillsboro Public Library in Oregon opened in 2013 to serve as a community cultural space. Since then, the library <a href="http://starj.com/direct/woman_s_passion_for_painting_flows_again+5021flows+576f6d616e27732070617373696f6e20666f72207061696e74696e6720666c6f777320616761696e">displays local art</a> for two-month exhibitions between November and August.</p>
<p>Since its first growing season in 2014, the <a href="http://www.duluthlibrary.org/adults/duluth-seed-library/">Duluth Public Library’s Seed Library</a> in Minnesota has offered the community varieties of tomato, pepper, bean and pea seeds. In addition to the seeds themselves, the library has education and resources about growing and saving seeds and organic gardening. Typically, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-sharing-economy-for-plants-seed-libraries-are-sprouting-up-106432">seed library</a> patrons return some seeds from their harvest to make the library self-sustaining.</p>
<p>Virginia’s Arlington Public Library has an <a href="https://library.arlingtonva.us/borrow/american-girl/">American Girl doll collection</a> available for people to borrow along with related books.</p>
<h2>Health care</h2>
<p>No library service will be of much use if you’re not in good health. </p>
<p>Recognizing this, the <a href="https://www.freelibrary.org/">Free Library of Philadelphia</a>, one of the largest public library systems in the world, offers myriad health-related options for its patrons. For instance, the library loans health equipment such as <a href="https://know.freelibrary.org/Record/2088121">blood pressure monitors</a>. It also has <a href="https://libwww.freelibrary.org/blog/post/3598">resources to help people</a> find health care, sign up for federal benefits and get free or low-cost food.</p>
<p>Beyond traditional health care, the Free Library of Philadelphia also has a <a href="https://libwww.freelibrary.org/programs/culinary/">Culinary Literacy Center</a> that offers a wide range of programs for eaters of all interests and tastes. At the Parkway Central Library branch, nurses and social workers are on-site every weekday to talk about mental and physical health, answer questions, check your blood pressure and help schedule an appointment with doctors.</p>
<p>But this is not the only library focusing on health. The <a href="http://miamipl.okpls.org/">Miami Library</a> in Oklahoma has made health literacy a central part of its operations, offering everything from diabetes prevention to yoga classes, as well as healthy cooking demonstrations and even a community garden.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mila Gascó-Hernández receives funding from The Institute of Museums and Library Services. This article is the result of the IMLS-funded project " Enabling Smart, Inclusive, and Connected Communities: The Role of Public Libraries", where she serves as the PI.</span></em></p>With advancements in technology, libraries are offering much more than something to read. A library researcher offers a sampling of some unexpected items that library patrons can check out these days.Mila Gascó-Hernández, Research Associate Professor and Associate Research Director for the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1024662018-09-13T10:46:51Z2018-09-13T10:46:51ZWhy we love robotic dogs, puppets and dolls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235426/original/file-20180907-90574-1obkomk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why are we drawn to tech toys?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/36739648920">Ars Electronica</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-announces-limited-first-litter-edition-release-of-aibo-in-us-300701503.html">lot of hype around the release of Sony’s latest robotic dog</a>. It’s called “aibo,” and is promoted as using artificial intelligence to respond to people looking at it, talking to it and touching it. </p>
<p>Japanese customers have already bought over 20,000 units, and it is expected to come to the U.S. before the holiday gift-buying season – at a price nearing US$3,000. </p>
<p>Why would anyone pay so much for a robotic dog?</p>
<p>My ongoing research suggests part of the attraction might be explained through humanity’s longstanding connection with various forms of puppets, religious icons, and other figurines, that I collectively call “dolls.” </p>
<p>These dolls, I argue, are embedded deep in our social and religious lives. </p>
<h2>Spiritual and social dolls</h2>
<p>As part of the process of writing a “spiritual history of dolls,” I’ve returned to that ancient mythology of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions where God <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A4-3%3A24&version=CJB">formed</a> the first human from the dirt of the earth, and then breathed life into the mud-creature.</p>
<p>Since that time, humans have attempted to do the same – metaphorically, mystically and scientifically – by fashioning raw materials into forms and figures that look like people. </p>
<p>As folklorist <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Mayor.html">Adrienne Mayor</a> explains in a recent study, “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/14162.html">Gods and Robots</a>,” such artificial creatures find their ways into the myths of several ancient cultures, in various ways.</p>
<p>Beyond the stories, people have made these figures part of their religious lives in the form of <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/463984">icons</a> of the Virgin Mary and human-shaped <a href="https://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/exhibitions/81/agents-of-faith-votive-objects">votive objects</a>. </p>
<p>In the late 19th century, dolls with a gramophone disc that could recite the Lord’s Prayer were produced on a mass scale. That was considered a <a href="http://forums.ssrc.org/ndsp/2014/01/29/prayers-of-a-phonographic-doll/">playful way of teaching a child</a> to be pious. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, <a href="https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/mavungu.html">certain spirits are believed to reside</a> in figurines created by humans. </p>
<p>Across time and place, dolls have played a role in human affairs. In South Asia, dolls of various forms <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirapalli/celebrating-navaratri-with-display-of-dolls/article19767269.ece">become ritually important</a> during the great goddess festival Navaratri. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/35924051_Carving_self-identity_Hopi_Katsina_dolls_as_contemporary_cultural_expression">Katsina</a> dolls of the Hopi people allow them to create their own self-identity. And in the famed Javanese and Balinese Wayang – shadow puppet <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Javanese_Shadow_Puppets.html?id=ZshkAAAAMAAJ">performances</a> – mass audiences learn about a mythical past and its bearing on the present. </p>
<h2>Making us human</h2>
<p>In the modern Western context, <a href="http://www.mudec.it/eng/barbie/">Barbie dolls</a> and <a href="http://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/gi-joe">G.I. Joes</a> have come to play an important role in children’s development. Barbie has been <a href="https://orca.cf.ac.uk/48291/1/PhDJ.Whitney2013.pdf">shown</a> to have a negative impact on girls’ body images, while G.I. Joe has made <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0022-3840.2004.00099.x">many boys believe</a> that they are important, powerful and that they can do great things.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235440/original/file-20180907-90553-1655lmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barbie dolls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinker-tailor/6383911765/in/photolist-aJ8dye-dJ4wnb-9FExaM-r8Ye5m-egen9a-kPSwsc-nNZCAQ-anZhzQ-5a7doe-mKc79t-oMfPax-jqLz9H-nuEaZ7-cuHwvy-nt31xr-pD2dXr-qzBhff-ns5JLY-9hMYPY-ajEPsU-dGjzYR-f8uidJ-L3qP3d-272wyHN-b7hvwM-fHBuxJ-oWMjJZ-mj5LK8-sU6cfg-fQHWny-dwCasm-er5Bbz-8bPDUK-os9cNx-mWFRvA-oZZJXZ-FcUGpa-fqdaVS-e8u1gw-gdKFtL-c3cbqQ-aJ77m8-pRmsoL-e3w4Cv-oWvQiB-pqzdXc-oTztVo-qPqKuf-exfgUf-qgoz47">Tinker Tailor loves Lalka</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is at the root of our connection with dolls? </p>
<p>As I have argued in my <a href="http://www.beacon.org/A-History-of-Religion-in-5-Objects-P997.aspx">earlier research</a>, humans share a deep and ancient relationship with ordinary objects. When people create forms, they are participating in the ancient hominid practice of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/becoming-human-the-origin-of-stone-tools-55335180/">toolmaking</a>. Tools have agricultural, domestic and communication uses, but they also help people think, feel, act and pray. </p>
<p>Dolls are a primary tool that humans have used for the spiritual and social dimensions of their lives. </p>
<p>They come to have a profound influence on humans. They help build religious connections, such as teaching children to pray, serving as a medium for answering prayers, providing protection and prompting healing. </p>
<p>They also model gender roles and teach people how to behave in society. </p>
<h2>Tech toys and messages</h2>
<p>Aibo and other such technologies, I argue, play a similar role. </p>
<p>Part of aibo’s enchantment is that he appears to see, hear and respond to touch. In other words, the mechanical dog has an embodied intelligence, not unlike humans. One can quickly find <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16876086/sony-aibo-hands-on-video-ces-2018">videos</a> of people being emotionally captivated by aibo because he has big eyes that “look” back at people, he cocks his head, seeming to hear, and he wags his tail when “petted” the right way. </p>
<p>Another such robot, <a href="http://www.parorobots.com/index.asp">PARO</a>, a furry, seal-shaped machine that purrs and vibrates as it is stroked, has been <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130624075748.htm">shown</a> to have a number of positive effects on elderly people, such as <a href="http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/summer-house-residential-memory-care-communities-introduce-paro-robot-therapy-2108672.htm">reducing anxiety</a>, increasing social behaviors and counteracting loneliness.</p>
<p>Dolls can have a deep and lasting psychological impact on young people. Psychotherapist <a href="https://mommikin.com/laurel-wider-is-a-psychotherapist-turned-toy-inventor/">Laurel Wider</a>, for example, became concerned about the gendered messages that her son was receiving in social settings about how boys were not supposed to cry or really show many feelings at all. </p>
<p>She then <a href="https://www.wondercrew.com/pages/about-us">founded</a> a new toy company to create dolls that could help nurture <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/well/family/wonder-crew-dolls-boys-empathy.html">empathy in boys</a>. As Wider <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/well/family/wonder-crew-dolls-boys-empathy.html">says</a>, these dolls are “like a peer, an equal, but also small enough, vulnerable enough, to where a child could also want to take care of him.”</p>
<h2>Outsourcing social life?</h2>
<p>Not everyone welcomes the influence these dolls have come to have on our lives. Critics of these dolls argue they outsource some of humanity’s most basic social skills. Humans, they argue, need other humans to teach them about gender norms, and provide companionship – not dolls and robots.</p>
<p>MIT’s <a href="http://www.mit.edu/%7Esturkle/">Sherry Turkle</a>, for example, somewhat famously dissents from the praise given to these mechanical imitations. Turkle has long been working at the human-machine interface. Over the years, she has become more skeptical about the roles we assign these mechanical tools. </p>
<p>When confronted with patients using PARO, she found herself “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/08/16/172988165/are-we-plugged-in-connected-but-alone">profoundly depressed</a>” at society’s resort to machines as companions, when humans should be spending more time with other humans.</p>
<h2>Teaching us to be humans?</h2>
<p>It’s hard to disagree with Turkle’s concerns, but that’s not the point. What I argue is that as humans, we share a deep connection with such dolls. The new wave of dolls and robots are instrumental in motivating further questions about who we are as humans.</p>
<p>Given the technological advances, people are asking whether robots “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hot-thought/201712/will-robots-ever-have-emotions">can have feelings</a>,” “<a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/248774/can-robots-be-jewish">be Jewish</a>” or “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04989-2">make art</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235441/original/file-20180907-90565-1yesxoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A question being asked is, can robots have feelings?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ellenm1/6340377633/in/photolist-aEh6nK-dtAV6J-88ajiy-aErGvC-szMPe-28aU3K5-6sffsJ-arYhVS-h4UrTE-d3Raw9-bnX4Ja-4njGV-9kMSgS-e4tzo4-bHviTD-qNVJPV-tKVxX-7gnVhi-5ddYsr-2TdX9-m15Rki-m16F3U-2RwW1W-2bCK6R-3hTjfG-5mAcY1-3hSmPj-3hSX87-dfYmeN-4gBusR-dYPfBj-LwZTq-3hQUaz-5PS1E9-pxDtVq-3hQQ16-61oLTo-SsR43-7SS1Cq-3hQFJB-oH1MY-6RojjC-Ejwu4-5PSmS1-ae8Lgr-4KUiyX-gJDZz-7pwjx5-nxPg1-5NtP6">ellenm1</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When people attempt to answer these questions, they must first reflect on what it means for humans to have feelings, be Jewish and make art.</p>
<p>Some academics go so far as to argue that humans have always been cyborgs, always a mixture of human biological bodies and technological parts. </p>
<p>As philosophers like <a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/andy-clark">Andy Clark</a> have <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/natural-born-cyborgs-9780195177510?cc=us&lang=en&">argued</a>, “our tools are not just external props and aids, but they are deep and integral parts of the problem-solving systems we now identify as human intelligence.”</p>
<p>Technologies are not in competition with humans. In fact, technology is the divine breath, the animating, ensouling force of Homo sapiens. And, in my view, dolls are vital technological tools that find their way into devotional lives, workplaces and social spaces. </p>
<p>As we create, we are simultaneously being created.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert argues our connection with these figures is longstanding. They are embedded in our myths and help us explore deeper questions about being human.S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate, Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.