Kendra Cobb
English 101
Individual Summary
October 6, 2016
English 101
Individual Summary
October 6, 2016
A Barbie for Everybody
Even though Barbie has changed and been made to accommodate the different body types, little girls still feel the need to look like Barbie. Almost every girl has played with a Barbie at some point in her life. Even though Mattel, the creators of Barbie, did not intend for Barbie to set a standard that little girls think they have to meet; Barbie did. According to Dockterman, “A handful of studies, however, suggest that Barbie does have at least some influence on what girls see as the ideal body. The most compelling, a 2006 study published in the journal Developmental Psychology, found that girls exposed to Barbie at a young age expressed greater concern with being thin, compared with those exposed to other dolls” (Dockterman par. 12). Therefore, Mattel then tried to create Barbie with different body types to put aside the standards it had set. While creating the new dolls, Mattel had trouble coming up with names that wouldn’t offend the people. By doing this, Mattel tried to remove the standard it had set with the original Barbie. Once Mattel had made the new Barbies, Mattel thought that the controversy was over, but it wasn't. Now, little girls were being ridiculed if they didn't have the original Barbie. The standard was still there. Unfortunately little girls still feel the need to look like Barbie. Through the years, Barbies have changed but continue to cause more controversy than enjoyment to the young children.
Works Cited
Dockterman, Eliana. “A Barbie For Every Body.” Time, 6 Feb. 2016, pp. 46–50.