WV House Delegate Eldridge wants to ban the sale of Barbie and similar dolls in the state of West Virginia. Here is the exact text of the bill:
"It shall be unlawful in the state to sell "Barbie" dolls and other similar dolls that promote or influence girls to place an undue importance on physical beauty to the detriment of their intellectual and emotional development."
While I appreciate the effort, I'm not for censorship, and I don't think this bill will actually solve any problems. As a West Virginian, I wish my representatives would focus more on WV's domestic violence issues , unfriendly LGBT policies , and poverty issues . Just sayin'.
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Yeesh, that's problematic.
First of all - the law isn't always the best or most proper route to go for fixing problems. Sure, you COULD legislate this, but that doesn't mean you SHOULD.
Second - what a vague description. "Barbie" is precise, but "dolls that promote or influence girls to place an undue importance on physical beauty to the detriment of their intellectual and emotional development"? Who's going to decide which dolls actually qualify? Who's going to decide what all those words actually mean? (not just importance, but undue importance!) How much time and resources will be spent enforcing it? And what about Barbie dolls that are made to resemble fictional characters? I had a set of Wizard of Oz Barbie-ish dolls when I was little that I loved, would those be included, too? Cripes, makes me dizzy just to think about it.
And I should follow that up with:
Third - Would this law even reach the goal it's intending to? It's not like these dolls exist in a vaccuum, and once you get rid of them, the problem's solved. Emphasis on beauty vs. intelligence that's marketed towards young (and old) girls is this huge, systemic problem.
I think it would be more effective to ban Hannah Montana anyways. :P
As a girl who actually HAS an eating disorder, I can tell you with certainty that it wasn't Barbie's fault. I never looked at my barbie dolls and said "wow, I want to be that." I always thought that she was really strangely proportioned, actually. Its the whole culture and just the whole ideology that's EVERYWHERE. Barbie is just a piece of plastic. Just one tiny piece of the whole problem.
Its like if you have a 1000 piece puzzle on the floor and you pull out one piece from the corner. You can still see what it looks like. That's how effective banning barbie would be.
When I saw this today on the news my first thought was "oh great, this is going to make feministst look bad." I mean, yes, Barbie isn't the ideal toy for a girl to play with if she wants to have self-esteem someday, and yes, Barbie presents an incredibly unrealistic beauty ideal.
BUT, in this day and age, I think Barbie is pretty low on the "enemies of feminism" list. Watch MTV for five minutes and you'll get the point. I'm not really a fan of legislators picking these newsworthy but not really impactful things to rail against. As Kala said, there are plenty of other, more damaging problems for women in West Virginia and across the globe. Plus, it's just going to give conservatives ammunition to call feminists out as petty and misguided.
My Barbie dolls had careers. I had one that was a vet, which was what I wanted to be when I grew up, that seems pretty healthy and pro-female-career-empowerment to me. I agree with meganaut - in terms of enemies of feminism and things that fuck up young girls' self-esteem, Barbie is pretty low on the list.
Can they ban Heat magazine instead? It seems to exist purely to publish photos of celebrities with either:
a) no makeup on... *gasp*
b) cellulite!! like, omg.
c) unshaven armpits, like... ewww.. like, there's, like, no excuse for forgetting to shave...
and so on and make out like it's such a terrible thing. Pisses me the hell off. And it's almost always females too. And the sad thing is, it's women that read them, and then they think "shit.. does that mean I'm gross too for having cellulite?"... *sigh*
Yeah! I had dentist barbie, and vet barbie, car crash accident barbie (her head popped off...lol), rock star barbie, etc.
One of my barbies, I gave her a buzz cut and coloured it blue with a marker. :) I didn't just look at her and go ooooh I wanna be that.
I used to cut their hair too :)
...car crash accident barbie?!! good lord.
I had so many Barbies I can't keep track. I remember having a teacher Barbie and a camping Barbie. I mainly remember the latter because of the funny story of how my kitten kept going into the tent.
Anyway, I work at Target as a stocker and I often stock toys. I still see the career Barbies like vet and dentist.
I had a dentist barbie. Then her batteries ran out and she got this really evil voice (like a voice of a devil in a movie or something, really slow and deep haha!)Seriously though, she's just a hunk of plastic. She's what you want her to be. If little girls want to play princess, they're going bedroom furniture to do it whether the box says "executive barbie" or "princess barbie". My barbies were olympic athletes, ninjas, models, hairdressers, dancers, and sometimes they pretended they were mermaids.
I remember hearing this on the radio while working. I lol'd for a good while. I still can't believe it's real.
How about promoting smaller businesses and getting rid of big corporate retail stores? This area... it's just drying up and people that spend all their income on stupid crap at these stores are a big part of the problem.
I'm currently working at Target *ahem* and every day I look around and think about how quickly EVERYTHING on the floor will be in a local landfill... or on the side of the road, etc. because people can't even afford to discard it properly.
Seriously, how long must the stupidity go on before real chaos ensues? That may sound like totally off-the-wall cynical ranting to some/most, but it's nothing new and is bound to happen if people don't start using their heads.
People just seem to *trust* any system that provides them with what they need. This is not a "nation for the people" if the people don't care to even pay attention to what the nation is doing. I know it's cliche to compare it to the Romans with their entertainment-mass-distraction, but we've taken to a WHOLE new level.
It starts with giving a $#!+.