Barbie World

I can still recall myself running through the house singing “I’m a Barbie Girl” at the top of my lungs,  not realizing the innuendos  of “You can touch, you can play,” “Hit the town, fool around,” and “Come on Barbie let’s go party, oooh, oooh, oooh.” Ah, the innocence of youth.
The doll parodied in this song has been around since 1959, and throughout her life Barbie has pursued 124 different careers. This year, Barbie decided to spice things up and ask her loyal consumers which career they would like her to pursue next. The winning career choice was: Computer Engineer Barbie.
Now, being in the computer science profession myself, I thought I would be pleased by Barbie’s transformation into “geekdom.”

I was willing to give  Barbie a chance to prove to me she could actually have some self-worth. However upon seeing Barbie dressed in her pink and blue binary t-shirt with huge square pink glasses, pink laptop with a matching accessory bag, and Bluetooth headset in her ear, was enough to make anyone cringe.

The Barbie franchise itself has been often criticized of marketing an unobtainable body image to young girls. Barbie’s incredibly bizarre proportions, when modeled by an actual human, would make her seven foot tall with an 18 inch waist and a bust of 38/40. With these awkward dimensions it would be nearly impossible for her to remain standing.

However, her manufactures assure us that Barbie’s new career choice is branching out into traditionally male occupied careers and will encourage young girls to pursue whatever interests them. This is a principle that I am 100 percent behind. What upsets me even more than her girly outfit is that Barbie’s male counterpart, Ken, is denied this same license.

Barbie is only furthering the detrimental ideal that females are suppose to “rise” above their gender and take on roles that are typically reserved for males. They are encouraged to become scientists, mathematicians, and doctors. However, Ken is not encouraged to do the same. He is deprived the ability to pursue careers that are considered to be “beneath” his male gender. Thus there has never been a Ken nurse or a Ken teacher.

I find it frustrating that companies continue to proliferate these archaic ideas to the generations of the future. The Barbies of the real world can do anything the Kens can, and vice versa.

Stereotypical gender roles prohibit individuals’ freedom to pursue whatever careers interest them without the any negative connotations associated.

Yes, Barbie and Ken are only dolls, but the issues illustrated by them are real. Males can strive to become nurses. They should not be pressured to “advance” onto a doctor or shamed to be “only” a nurse. They should be accepted for what they choose to do.
“Choose” is the key word here. Your career is a choice that only you can make, and through these passionate choices we can overcome negative stereotypes and allow future generators to pave their own path towards a life of fulfillment.