Read my title. Read it again. Good. Now read it again.
When I was little, Barbies were basically my life. My older cousin had a small laundry basket FULL of them and once she outgrew them, they became mine. Of course, I had to add to the collection. Obsessions are fleeting but intense for me. I added more and more to my Barbie collection and played
with them whenever I was bored. Soon after that, I moved on to Polly Pockets and the rest of the kinds of toys that little girls are obsessed with.
Each toy in itself was different. Perhaps the eyes were slanted at another angle, the nose just a little bit sharper, or the skin a little bit darker. But looking back at it now, they all had the same underlying tone: beauty.
Beauty is something that I have struggled with for many years.
Just as I become comfortable in my own skin, something comes along to change my views. I always want my legs to be a little bit longer or my stomach a little bit flatter. I always find something to
dislike about myself. It sounds twisted, but I'm not alone. In fact (as we learned in psych) a study had once shown that 99% of women had something about themselves that they would want to change.
That's disgusting. It's just like in The Bluest Eyes. Toni Morrison says that beauty is "something one could do" (11.) There is no concrete definition for beauty, perhaps because it is different from person to person, but also because it is-in my opinion-unachievable.
Barbie's standards are literally unachievable. She sets this standard for little girls of a kind of beauty that is too hard to meet. She sets children up for failure and low self esteem. Look at this post of the most beautiful women. Most of them look like real life Barbies. Even if we don't carry a picture of a Barbie around as inspiration, the same kind of looks that she embodies show up in the people that we idolize.
That is why Barbie is worse than junior year. Junior year, no offense. but you suck. Barbie suck more. Junior year is something that you need to go through. But me? I could have gone through life fine if I wasn't kind of conditioned by society to strive to be a variation of Barbie.
Barbie is so useless. On top of necessary stress (most of which can even be argued against as unnecessary), she adds stress to the fact that everyone has to strive to become someone else's version of beautiful. This version of someone else has even been so deeply ingrained in everyone that they believe it to be their own sense of beauty.
Where is the Barbie with a layer of fat on her stomach? Where is the Barbie with the hairy arms? Where is the Barbie with her thighs touching? Where is the Barbie that is supposed to make me feel good about myself? Because all I see is something that will only cause me to pick apart myself.
Everyone and everything has beauty in them, but we're all being controlled by a 11.5 inches of cheap plastic.
Lyrics of the week: "I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world" from Barbie Girl by Aqua.
 |
with them whenever I was bored. Soon after that, I moved on to Polly Pockets and the rest of the kinds of toys that little girls are obsessed with.
Each toy in itself was different. Perhaps the eyes were slanted at another angle, the nose just a little bit sharper, or the skin a little bit darker. But looking back at it now, they all had the same underlying tone: beauty.
Beauty is something that I have struggled with for many years.
Just as I become comfortable in my own skin, something comes along to change my views. I always want my legs to be a little bit longer or my stomach a little bit flatter. I always find something to
dislike about myself. It sounds twisted, but I'm not alone. In fact (as we learned in psych) a study had once shown that 99% of women had something about themselves that they would want to change.
 |
| If Barbie were real |
Barbie's standards are literally unachievable. She sets this standard for little girls of a kind of beauty that is too hard to meet. She sets children up for failure and low self esteem. Look at this post of the most beautiful women. Most of them look like real life Barbies. Even if we don't carry a picture of a Barbie around as inspiration, the same kind of looks that she embodies show up in the people that we idolize.
That is why Barbie is worse than junior year. Junior year, no offense. but you suck. Barbie suck more. Junior year is something that you need to go through. But me? I could have gone through life fine if I wasn't kind of conditioned by society to strive to be a variation of Barbie.
Barbie is so useless. On top of necessary stress (most of which can even be argued against as unnecessary), she adds stress to the fact that everyone has to strive to become someone else's version of beautiful. This version of someone else has even been so deeply ingrained in everyone that they believe it to be their own sense of beauty.
 |
| A "Real" Barbie |
Everyone and everything has beauty in them, but we're all being controlled by a 11.5 inches of cheap plastic.
Lyrics of the week: "I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world" from Barbie Girl by Aqua.
This post is 100% relatable; I loved it. In particular, I really enjoy your varying sentence structure and use of various punctuation. It adds a lot to you post!
ReplyDeleteI think that the view of not being good enough goes further than just our physical appearance. Often times, I feel like I'm just not good enough when I compare my achievements to those of others. Hopefully, one day there will be real life Barbies to help give people a more realist view of people.
ReplyDeletewow, i really enjoyed reading this, it went really in deph and was well written
ReplyDelete