Barbie says "Be Yourself" and I agree with her

The barbie doll I ordered a few days ago for my art coursework has just been delivered to my door. I sit for a while looking at the box and the monster that lies dormant inside it. After I have wrestled her out of her clear plastic coffin and untangled her from her shackles of clear plastic bands that keep her hands strapped to her sides and unwound the thread that stops her hair from being tousled in the box, she lies in my hand like a remote control. She is slighter, lighter, smaller than she seems in my child eye memory. Her face seems crueler. Her hips are narrower. Her legs are skinnier too, I'm sure, and her shoes are higher. Her plastic flesh is less glossy and less sticky than it was. This model is less busty than the previous design but, fret not, she still has those same strange echoes of feet. Her head is still disproportionately large, like a globe balanced on her neck. Her hair is undeniably blonde. She stills wears those weird knickers moulded out of her skin and, while her bum is definitely more defined than it was, she remains utterly vagina-less. She still bears her iconic back tattoo, made in China. This Barbie is kitted out for a night on the town, (her box proclaimed her part of the "fashionista" collection so I trust her style expertise) sporting a hot pink metallic pencil skirt and a t-shirt emblazoned with- I think we can all agree- Barbie's mantra:

Oh, the irony. 

I might be wrong- this mass produced, plastic, perma-smile princess might have a fully formed, complex personality (what a terrifying thought) but I was pretty sure that these dolls weren't famous, or infamous, for encouraging and embracing the diversity and individuality of human beings. Barbie, I suppose, is diverse- you can purchase a barbie with brown hair and she has quite an extensive wardrobe, if you are prepared to pay, including a staggering variety of wedding dresses and bathing suits. bleurgh. 

There is something a little sinister about Barbie proclaiming that girls should be themselves. Not that i don't think the message "be yourself" is sinister, quite the opposite in fact, but I think my discomfort comes from the fact that there is something... oxymoronic about Barbie supporting the cause of individuality. Barbie, after all, as an icon, is the monster that we rally against for indoctrinating young girls with a twisted concept of what a beautiful body is, what a woman's value is derived from and what a rich and full life is- she is the beach blonde, pouty, pinked dictator of what is pretty, girly, fun and fashionable. She is lined up on shelves next to an army of unblinking clones. She is a trend setter, a trend imposer, a trend enforcer. 

While I was scrolling through barbie after barbie online to try and find one within my price range (no, thank you, my art project really does not require a bedecked ball gown barbie for £37.99 plus postage) I met barbie on her way to the spa, barbie in her chelsea club house, barbie waiting for her dinner date, barbie in a wedding dress, barbie being a mermaid, barbie at the stable, barbie at the hairdresser, barbie getting a sushi lunch, and, perhaps more surprisingly to me at least, Barbie playing tennis and football and going kayaking, a girl band of guitar playing barbies and in the "I can be" section, barbie posed in various professional roles. 

This was interesting to me. Perhaps Barbie really was now using her majesty of the market to encourage girls to pursue a wide range of careers... yes! here was Barbie as a babysitter, a zoo doctor and an entrepreneur, a teacher, a vet and a paediatrician! All good, right? Except that in every one of these sets, (except entrepreneur barbie who stands all alone in a pink suit with her smart phone and tablet) Barbie is looking after either a baby animal or a small child. Not that it's not important that someone looks after animals and children, not that all of these careers that Barbie has taken up aren't admirable and essential services, but I simply wonder whether Barbie can ever represent working women without maternalising them or pinking them up or reinforcing the idea that women are really only good at looking after people. Why does barbie have to be a paediatrician? could she not have been a doctor, without a defined specialism so that the child could have imagined what sort of work she might do? Why is it so important to insist that the only doctoring Barbie would do, would be for children? Why is soccer player barbie's kit so tight fitting? surely that's not very ergonomic when it comes to dashing round the pitch? Why must every professional barbie wear tightly fitting clothes and high heels? 

And Why are all of these career barbie dolls white? In fact, the only black barbie dolls I saw on the barbie website were in two photos advertising the collection but when I scrolled through to see if I could find these dolls, they didn't seem to be available to purchase. I have never seen a barbie doll with an afro. Besides the china barbie in the "Barbie doll of the world" collection (which does not count, it's just barbie in a red, embroidered dress and red lipstick with a panda balanced on her hip and a hair style that apparently "evokes an eastern style", meaning only that it's black, not blonde), I have never seen an east asian Barbie, or, for that matter, pretty much any barbie that would not tick "white british" or "white american" on a form. 

Barbie, as we all know, is a white woman who is perpetually young, dangerously out of proportion and has the emotional range of... well... the mould her plastic face was made in. She does not represent or root for individuality, no matter what her t-shirt might say. She is destined only ever to work in pink clothing and excruciatingly high heels, to work only with things that need her womanly love and affection and to work only for a system that indoctrinates young girls and fosters in them a sense of duty to fit the barbie mould, and if they don't meet her exacting standards, a sense of inadequacy and shame. She is the smiling mascot of capitalism. She is the child friendly champion of patriarchy. She is the embodiment of status quo. 

Oh yes, she wants you to "be yourself" but she wants you to want to be her. She wants you to be tired and miserable and ashamed of being yourself. She wants you to compare yourself to her and find yourself wanting. 

She wants you to be yourself in her shadow, BUT remember that barbie is only 11 and half inches tall so her shadow is easily stepped out of. 

Barbie proclaims "be yourself", but I mean it. Yourself is much better than barbie's self. Barbie's self has been manipulated and rewritten a million times to make her easier to flog to small children, to make her more attractive, to make her seem less threatening. Barbie's self can be bought for £7.99. Barbie's self can be reproduced and mass produced. Barbie's self gets lost and grown out of and thrown away. Barbie's self is disposable and replaceable. Yourself is none of those things. 

The scariest thing about receiving my barbie gargoyle in the post was that I felt that old, childish excitement and enthusiasm about taking her out of her packaging, smoothing out her hair, adjusting her accessories, making her do the splits... I thought too, initially, before I really looked at her, "how pretty she is". I thought how much I'd like to have legs as long and thin as hers, a stomach as flat, arms as slim... And then I snapped myself out of it. I reminded myself that- thank god- i will never be barbie. I must "be myself" and I am glad of that, because I'd rather be me, with all of my idiosyncrasies and flaws and fuck ups, than just another barbie in a plastic prison on a shelf, waiting to be bought by a child who wants to lose themselves for a moment in a game. 

So even if we shouldn't listen to Barbie on any other issue, she might be onto something with this one...

Vida
xx

A Letter Regarding Your Review of My Skirt

To whom it may (or, more often, may not) concern, 

Over the last few days, weeks and months I have been made acutely aware of how oppressive the sight of my thighs, chest and stomach are to a number of the general public. I, for one, had been oblivious to the horror that is my human flesh until these impromptu reviews, recommendations and critiques and complaints started pouring in. For this, I apologise. May I never insult your retinas with my limbs again. I accept total responsibility for your distaste and discomfort with my body. 

Of course, it is only appropriate to censure and chastise me about the way I dress before I enter an exam hall. It is, indeed, more than simply appropriate- it is absolutely paramount. It is your duty. Your role is to make it known to me that you are not happy with the outfit that I chose- that it offends you and therefore that it is offensive. Objectively. 

Your displeasure at the sight of my clothes on my body is also, of course, completely rational and fair. Your assessment that my body would prove a distraction to men is completely substantiated and it falls to me to try and amend and prevent this by covering myself up (or indeed, it seems, perhaps just changing my clothing style to fit more conservative tastes... or, even better, if possible, change my body shape so that it fits with your concept of the virginal ideal of femininity) because my body is, first and foremost, a sexual object that must be tamed. This is not a case of predator and prey, your raised eyebrows confirms to me, this is more slab of meat and slobbering dog. 

I am indebted to you for confirming my preexisting insecurities, for corroborating stranger's comments and for continuing a trend within society that pins the blame for sexual harassment and assault on the victim. I am glad that my body is being appreciated for what it really is- not anything to do with a human being, but rather an artefact to be scrutinised, criticised and hidden in a cupboard when you think it looks out of place. I am so thankful for all your hard work making my morning just a little bit harder. 

Every time I try on an outfit before leaving the house now, I will think of your words and your eyes rolling over my body. I will abstain from wearing the clothes that make me feel empowered, comfortable, happy, confident, strong, proud and- goddamn it!- sexy. I will feel ashamed. I will look at other women in shorter skirts and lower cut tops that have walked past you uncensored and I will feel angry with them, and angry with myself for feeling angry with them. 

Perhaps instead I should be feeling angry with you? Angry with you for sexualising my body, for your slut shaming,  for your victim blaming, for your insensitivity. I should be fuming. I shouldn't care what you think about how I look and I shouldn't lose a single tear over what you have said. I shouldn't think twice about what i wear in light of your ("constructive") criticism. I should stalk past you wearing whatever i want because the only thing that clothes should do, is make me feel good about myself. The only thing i should feel towards my body is love. The only thing i should feel for myself is pride. And what i should feel for you? Anger. 

But i don't. I am not angry; I am sad. I am not empowered; I am ashamed. I am not saying "fuck you"; I am staying silent. 

You are the men on the street, the men on the platform, the man in the lorry, the teacher in reception, the exam officer, the woman at the bus stop, the girls on the bus... You are everywhere. You are the sound of footsteps behind a woman as she walks home that makes her take out her keys. You are the hot breath on the back of a woman's neck on a tube. You are the lawyers that think it is valid to make a comment on what a woman was wearing. You are the cackle of a punch line in a sordid joke. You are eyes ogling bar staff. You are double standards. You are an invasion of personal space. You are the "grey area". You are a dress code. 

And this week, you are the straw that broke the camel's back.

I will spend the rest of my life, in all likelihood, trying to evade your stare. Perhaps the worst bit of all is that I won't succeed. That no one will succeed. That it is almost impossible to saunter through life, never having your body or your clothes judged without a fleeting thought given to your person. We shouldn't ask someone else when we get dressed "Do you think this looks good?" or question whether something is "appropriate", whether something might make us look "too slutty", we should just get dressed in clothes that we like, that we feel comfortable in, that make us happy. 

Just remember that when you pass judgement on someone's outfit or try to find out what sort of person they are by how they dress or comment on someone's body (even if you think it's a compliment), unless your comment was invited, you are imposing your ideas and your criteria for perfection and attractiveness on someone else against their will. You are, in effect, assimilating your prejudice and their personality. And it is wrong. 

It is more than wrong, in fact. It is disgusting. It is pervasive, putrid sexism. It is sickening, it is superficial, it is cruel. It demeans and dehumanises. We have a culture that encourages people to rank one another out of ten, to swipe left or right, to damn someone as hot or not but we all know that humans are not binary- they cannot be reduced to a single figure, a single word and to do so is in fact to say that the whole of society can be summed up just as simply...

Oh wait.

It can be. 

"shit."

yours, 

Vida Adamczewski

How Revealing!

As I walked up to the gates of my school this morning, my face was set into my usual I-woke-up-before-the-birds-did frown but today it was a little more stern because I had been reading Laura Bates' book "Everyday Sexism" on the bus and was feeling even more acutely aware of the crushing force of the patriarchy and how much still needs to be done. The book itself was held tightly to my chest as I trudged along the pavement.

"Give us a smile, love!" came the chipper call of a man in van that had paused chivalrously next to me. Having caught me quite unawares, I turned my head to look at him (usually I would have flicked my finger at him and stormed off) and he laughs, winks and then the van drives off. I look at the book in my arms and, no thanks to Mr Spontaneous 8am Life Coach, I smile. I smile because in my head I am warning my new charming best friend that his days of flippant, casual, uncensored cat calling are numbered. I think about all the things are happening to start to eliminate behaviour like his and I begin to feel hopeful that the patriarchy's power is waning, that people everywhere are opening their eyes and standing up and fighting back.