Barbie is a well known toy around the world. Barbie is fantasized by children and they look up to her. Barbie is an object that children look up to be and fantasize in play. Some children want to be a doctor a firefighter, a vet, a teacher; Barbie comes in all these careers. Barbie provides the child with problem solving skills by allowing that child to learn how to resolve problems in situations that happen in their play. She provides a multitude of aesthetic careers that women can obtain, but Barbie also has a misconception about how women look in society. Barbie's image which is idolized is degrading on how women are in society. Although Barbie has had some positive aspects when she was first created, what she has become is drastically different from her original purpose.  

At first, Barbie Millicent Roberts was made to allow, a multitude of little girls and adolescents access to the forbidden world of grownups, imitating their habits and attitudes courtesy of the imaginative metamorphosis that occurs in children's play (Tosa 7).  Many parents were questioning if their child should be exposed to playing with a toy that had the body of a woman. Some parents initially did not want boys playing with Barbie not because it was a "girl toy" but because they did not want them to explore what Barbie had underneath her clothing. Lord explains that with Barbie's creation the need for a male doll was not needed because they were not making enough profit like Barbie had (11). The role of Barbie not having a husband made women appear independent. Barbie projected an anomalous message: at best she was a sort of feminist pioneer (11). Barbie had a boyfriend, but he was a mere accessory. Soon enough consumers pushed for a boyfriend doll that Mattel finally released, Ken, in 1961. Barbie taught girls what was expected of women, and a woman in the fifties would have been a failure without a male companion (11).  Unfortunately the view of Barbie changed from a positive to a negative connotation. 

Barbie reflected the sexual revolution that characterized female nudes, particularly from the Renaissance until the nineteenth century (Lord 12). By 1971, America began to accept that a woman could be both sexual and unashamed; Barbie was allowed to have that body and look straight ahead in her "Malibu incarnation" (Lord 12) . Also Mattel claims Barbie's hair is long because of children's fascination with "hair play". But ever since Milton's portrait of Eve in Paradiso Lost, with her "golden tresses" falling "in wanton ringlets" to her waist, long hair has been part of the arsenal of seduction (Lord 211). In today's fashion culture long-haired models and messy-haired models are always more popular with audiences. If men want submissive women, they prefer them to be blond and if they want dominant women, they want them to be dark-haired but in general they want lots and lots of hair (Lord 12). Barbie has a sexual appeal to her and that is the reason many want to be her. To a child she is just a toy but as one grows up many wish to become her. 

Children know that Barbie is skinny but recently there is a move to create a diversity of body types for Barbie. Barbie has become the global symbol of a certain kind of American beauty of generations. The mothers who buy dolls for children want to be able to buy a Barbie that resembles their child. In a testing room at Mattel's headquarters a group of children where asked which doll is Barbie and they typically pointed to the blonde hair "skinny" Barbie. One child in particular was asked if she sees a difference in between the new doll's bodies and she said that the doll was "chubbier" (Dockterman 50). The other girls similarly said that Barbie was fat. Children at an early age are taught by society how fat and skinny look like by the media. The mothers preferably like Barbie's makeover because now they can buy their child a Barbie that looks like them. The company hopes that the new dolls, with their diverse body types, along with the new skin tones and hair textures introduced last year, will be more closely reflect their young owner' world. Barbie does not purposefully give women a perceived appearance that has to be followed but society blames a toy for how society has chosen what a woman should look like. 

When Target announced on August 7 that its stores would be retiring signage that directed boys to buy certain toys which included trucks, action figures and girls to buy dolls, or frilly costumes, many people began to fill its website with complaints (Steinmetz 25).  Nobody should force a child to play with a certain toy just because it is gender appropriate. Many psychologists supported that children will be better off if they are not gender boxed (Steinmetz 25). It's natural for children to experiment and explore with their identities. By the '80s, companies like Mattel and Hasbro had figured out they could make more money by creating two separate toy markets (Steinmetz 26). The era of "blue for boys, pink for girls" exploded; along with it came a host of new stereotypes about what children should like and how children should be. Children should not be forced to play with a ball just because they are boys or a girl does not have to play with a doll. At a young age children are forced to play with accurate gender toys. With this came a transgender movement that examined how we divide and limit the sexes. One specifically says that they would have liked to go to a box of toys and pick out which ever toy they wanted without the gender label (Steinmetz 26). 

Barbie represents everything that can be represented simply because she exists as a vehicle for a child's own fertile imagination (Tosa 114). Imagination was used during Barbie's play time.  Barbie came with many accessories but children still made furniture by using things they had around. Barbie does not lead into temptation; she is not the adult vehicle of consumerism, the devil in a blond wig (Tosa 114). She is only what the child wants her to be and risk of being resigned to the garbage by a new toy that appears on the television.  All Barbie does is put the child at a scene in the pre-existing adult world- along with all the manias and conventions that have become a part of their daily lives (Tosa 116). In 1965 Mattel put out the "Miss Astronaut" which helped move women into careers where they were not accepted in. Based on these outfits the social role of women experienced another push toward the notions of freedom and equality. Many American women began to live alone by choice in their quest for independence, supporting themselves with their own jobs before getting married, convinced that they would thereby achieve that equivalence with men and begin to break down the rituals of dependency (Tosa 117). Mattel pushed for a series that dressed Barbie and Ken in the traditional costumes of various countries which renewed corporate interest in this market. Ruth Handler's original concept was that Barbie was to serve above all as a mirror image onto which the child at play could transfer and then compare her fantasies with other realities (Tosa 141).  Barbie is a toy where a child could be her and they could be whatever they want to be in their imagination. The child decides if they want Barbie to be a teacher, a doctor, a mom, or an astronaut. 

In all, Barbie is a gateway where children could see into the grown-up life. They could experiment with Barbie being a doctor, an astronaut, in reality anything they wanted to be. At first many questioned how Barbie appeared sexually because she would have the same appearance as a real woman underneath her clothing. Many speculated that boys should not play with Barbie because she had a different body underneath and that she was reminiscent in pink which was a color related only for "girls". Barbie had a lot of sexual factors play into her appearance that many do not think of. Her long hair being appealing to men which many would not even think could play into her appearance. Barbie tried to step away from the stereotype of being blond but many still remotely know Barbie as being the "blond" one. Barbie's face when she was first made has changed drastically to where her eyes would look straight ahead because America began to accept the idea that a women could be both sexual and unashamed (Lord 12). Recently there has been a progression of diversity in Barbie's appearance. There are more culturally diverse Barbie dolls and specifically those related to Disney princesses. Mulan and Tiana hit the market and surprisingly there was a demand for them. Barbie's popularity came from her television series and video games that children wanted.  In 2014 there was a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Barbie which created more controversy surrounding how women are viewed in society. Barbie is viewed as a role model for young girls so parents did not sit well with the idea of their daughters wanting to be like a swim suit model as this put emphasis on physical appearance and the pressures of body image once again. A little girl should want to see her idol accomplishing big things not being an entertainment for male audiences. The market campaign for Barbie is degrading women's role but Barbie herself is also great in emphasizing that a woman can have any career. 

