Not emailing Barbie

Laura and I had to have a discussion the other day about why we don’t email Barbie. I’m not sure exactly how she emailed Barbie in the first place, to tell you the truth. After watching her browse around in the girl-cyberworld a while, I did see that many sites allow kids to just type in a comment box and in theory they’re emailing Kim Possible, or whoever. So at least she’s evidently not sending real email; she has an email account, but doesn’t have permission to check it on her own yet, mostly because of spam, because the only mail she gets there is from her Aunt Shari. When I asked Laura if she was ever using her last name or anything that identified her—which of course she has strict orders against—I got the mom disgust look and eye roll, so that was reassuring.

She’s only ten, so I still peer nosily over her shoulder at the computer at pretty regular intervals, and the Barbie question came up last week when I glanced at her screen and read this:

B-mail Question of the Month
Ever wish you could change just one thing about yourself? You’re SOOOO not alone. Hair, weight, teeth, feet, style, age, appearance, attitude, whatever it is, SOMEONE out there feels the same way. So read on, but know this first: YOU’RE AWESOME THE WAY YOU ARE. (Believe it) And if there’s something you REALLY want to change (that can be changed), face it head on, be strong, and find (or create!) the courage to change it. (Good luck!)

I about hit the roof. Like many mothers of girls, my feelings about Barbie are conflicted. Yes, I played with Barbie. I still have my first Barbie in a shoebox in the closet, although I doubt I’ll ever get rich off her, the original plan. But once I became conscious of Barbie’s impossible figure—well, let’s just say that someone who teaches women’s studies classes might have an issue with the Queen of Anorexia and Plastic Surgery. I do have Barbie for President 2000 in my office, which we talk about in class, but I still have my problems with anybody whose feet are perpetually molded into high heels, however sensible.

It’s not that I don’t believe Barbie could change: her resume touts her as a modern superwoman, who’s had “more than 90 careers—from Olympic athlete to astronaut.” Great! So when her B-mail asks my daughter a question about what she’d like to change about herself, you’d think it might have something more than physical features listed there. Oh wait! I left out attitude. Laura could change her attitude. After, of course, her “hair, weight, teeth, feet, style, age, appearance.” Let’s get our priorities right. Surely there’s some more convincing way Barbie can tell a girl she’s “awesome” the way she is.

So poor Laura had to listen to the anorexia lecture about how girls can die from how people expect them to look, and how it’s not all Barbie’s fault, but that we have to be conscious of the cultural messages around us, and blah blah blah. She restrained herself from the eye-rolling this time (she’s a smart girl), but clearly didn’t quite understand why her psycho mother gets so worked up about things. After all, I’ve bought her Barbies before (although her first one was a gift). And I’ve even bought her brother a couple (about which more later). What’s the big deal? It’s not that I’m not used to this attitude—I’ve had hundreds of students over the years rolling their eyes at me too over my insistence that they should think about questions like what messages advertisements send us about our lives. I guess I just hate to see Laura take her first conscious steps into that world—because of course she’s been in that world before she could even walk, when I opened the gift box that contained her first starchy pink dress. At least we were able to fend it off until after she was born—we asked the ultrasound tech not to tell us the sex of our little bean for just these reasons. Little man, sweet girl: it starts soon enough. For now, the end result is a lecture (as short as I could make it) and a prohibition against emailing Barbie. For now, I hope it’s enough.