This is a new spin on Barbie Dolls. Throughout her existence, Barbie has been an iconic, although often damaging, figure to little girls. This new image may actually help the audience it is designed to target: kids who have cancer or have lost their hair for medical reasons. It is the hope that Bald Barbie will make female baldness more acceptable.
Kudos to Mattel Toy Company who decided to make this doll after a campaign by Jane Bingham, a survivor of non-hodgkins lymphoma, started a Facebook group called "Beautiful and Bald Barbie". She was inspired to start the campaign after she lost her own hair during chemotherapy last year. She felt she was able to handle it as an adult but that children would have a harder time. Ms. Bingham wanted to reduce the stigma for women and children who have sustained hair loss to be able to go out in public without having to wear a wig or scarf to cover their heads. She wanted them to know that "Their beauty and their self-worth is not dependent upon their hair."
Rose Weitz explains In What We Do for Love, how our hair does affect our feelings of self-worth, and, beginning with Rapunzel, how hair plays a central role in romantic relationships. And, in addition, we read how having long, flippable hair is one of the standards of The Beauty Ideal.
How wonderful it would be if Mattel would come full circle and start working on A Realistic Body Type Barbie Doll collection.
Kudos to Mattel Toy Company who decided to make this doll after a campaign by Jane Bingham, a survivor of non-hodgkins lymphoma, started a Facebook group called "Beautiful and Bald Barbie". She was inspired to start the campaign after she lost her own hair during chemotherapy last year. She felt she was able to handle it as an adult but that children would have a harder time. Ms. Bingham wanted to reduce the stigma for women and children who have sustained hair loss to be able to go out in public without having to wear a wig or scarf to cover their heads. She wanted them to know that "Their beauty and their self-worth is not dependent upon their hair."
Rose Weitz explains In What We Do for Love, how our hair does affect our feelings of self-worth, and, beginning with Rapunzel, how hair plays a central role in romantic relationships. And, in addition, we read how having long, flippable hair is one of the standards of The Beauty Ideal.
How wonderful it would be if Mattel would come full circle and start working on A Realistic Body Type Barbie Doll collection.
Love this, though it's hard for me not to comment on how these dolls (as you do) otherwise fit the beauty ideal in so many ways (full lips, long legs, gorgeous eyes), but if kids with cancer can see themselves in these dolls, it's a great help.
ReplyDelete