excerpted from Linda Sharp's Don't Get Me Started blog
Girl Power.
It's something I believe in.
And no, I'm not alluding to the recently announced "world tour reunion" of the Spice Girls. (Although I will say that given the fact I am currently raising three daughters, my progeny easily covers the spectrum of Scary, Baby, Sporty, Posh, and Ginger - yes, one of them has slight red highlights in her hair.)
Girl Power.
To me it goes far beyond singing about being in control, having the upper hand in relationship land, or confidently strutting across a stage in platform wedgies and a Union Jack flag.
To me, it's intensely personal.
As a mother of all daughters, power is something I have attempted to instill in them since Day One. Even as evolved as we like to think the world has become, women are still viewed as the "weaker sex", we still bang our heads against a glass ceiling, and still tend to get "little ladied" by the guy who changes the oil on the minivan. (You thought I didn't notice, hey, Thomas?)
So, being a firm believer in the power of the "X" chromosome, I was more than happy to accept Mattel's offer to participate in their 40 Blog Tour promoting their new website dedicated to girls. WeBelieveInGirls.com to be exact.
And while the website clearly aligns itself with their decades old maiden of modernity (Barbie), via the most recent incarnation of the ponytailed logo, WeBelieveInGirls.com is so much deeper than a plastic doll with shiny hair.
Rather, the website is about sharing. It's about discussing. It's about building bridges to tomorrow via the experiences girls are having today.
Yet in thinking about how I wanted to approach this article for them, I found I kept coming back to the most basic component, the most common denominator of so many girls' formative years - Barbie, herself.
You had one, five, ten. I did too. We had clothes - both store bought and those meticulously sewn by grandmothers - we had townhouses, airplanes, carrying cases, grosses of tiny plastic shoes. Some of us had the Corvette, some of us even had Ken.
Ahhh, dreamy, perfectly coifed (hard to have a hair out of place when your rug is as plasticine as Donald Trump's), genitalia-less, benign, inoffensive Ken.
Growing up with Barbie as a play staple, I had no qualms about gifting my oldest daughter with her first and tenth dolls. And with each subsequent daughter, the storage totes only grew with new additions - more dolls, more clothes, more @&*%$ shoes.
Of course, like most of us, I had that one friend who refused to allow their child to become acquainted with the world's most perfectly formed female. No, they did not want their two year old's perception of femininity skewed, distorted. They did not want to perpetuate what they felt was a bad stereotype.
(Quite frankly, if any doll these days offers up a warped view of girlhood, it's the clunky footed, doe eyed, Angelina Jolie-lipped, heavily made-up Bratz dolls. Barbie may indeed have a perfect tan and a size O waist, but Jasmine has two syringes of Restylane and a third of Juvederm in her pout.)
But I digress...
I laughed back then, thinking, "Where's the harm?", but respected the parent's wishes and never had the offensive dolls out during playdates and certainly never gifted their child with one on birthdays.
All the while, however, I kept thinking, "You're wrong. These are not bad toys."
As the years passed, and all three of my daughters grew through Barbie-land and into more grown up girl pursuits, I have come to realize that I do have something to say about Babs.
And I had the opportunity recently when a younger mother-friend of mine was going on the same rant about how her two year old was never going to know anything about "those dolls."
First and foremost - Barbie, like Barney, Teletubbies, Wiggles, Sesame Street, and diapers, is a phase. She doesn't last forever. I haven't seen any high school seniors carrying her in their purses to the football game.
Second - while her influence does exist - it is (or should be) miniscule - microscopic even - compared to the influence of Mom and Dad and how they choose to expose their children to, and encourage them to explore, the outside world.
I offer my own girls as perfect examples:
My oldest, who used to spend hours and hours dressing, redressing, and make believing with the dolls, has not turned out to be a 15 year old with body issues. Sure, she played for years with dolls who more closely resembled a Baywatch Babe than any actual female she knew, but she looks in the mirror and loves who she sees. Her legs are not like pipe cleaners and her breasts don't threaten to tip her over.
Her world is about friends, theater (ok, so all that make-believe did rub off a little), science, history, achievement. I've yet to hear her pining for her own airplane or pink townhouse, but ask her about Darfur or Da Vinci and she will talk for hours.
My middle daughter, a girl for whom Barbie was more than just a plaything - Barbie was REAL. Barbie dominated her bedding, her clothing, her walls, her every waking moment. Her room looked like it was hosed down with Pepto Bismal for a couple years.
She carried the dolls everywhere. She built elaborate stories around them. She lovingly styled their hair, and painstakingly accessorized every outfit they wore.
Nowadays, she is almost 14 years old, lovingly styles her hair and painstakingly accessorizes every outfit she wears, everyday.
OK, ok, so maybe some of it stuck.
But aside from being a fashionista, she is also an athlete, an actress, a scholar, a referee, and a teenager embodied with more integrity than most full grown adults.
Finally, there is daughter number three. Grandfathered in under the Barbie Commandment which reads, If thou enters this world with at least one older sister, thou shalt embrace the plethora of naked dolls and plastic shoes already littering thy house, so as not to drain the finances of thous parental figures by pursuing other toy-type interests.
Carson had no choice. Two sisters, thirty dolls, join the fun.
And so she did.
She played, she dressed them, she brought them to dine at the kitchen table, she strapped them into her carseat to keep them safe on rides. She liked having hair the same color as her "Bobbie" dolls (she is one of those chosen few who struggle with the letter "R" - Murphy's Law that she be named something challenging like CaRson ShaRp).
Today, her hair is still as naturally blond, but her clothing is decidedly tomboy, she is a stellar soccer player, Student Council President, and donates just about every cent she ever receives to some charity or another.
My point is this. To any parent who thinks that allowing your daughter to play with plastic means she will end up plastic, I say, "Think again."
Barbie is often a child's first brush with defining identity. Barbie is an innocent way to act out all those fairy tales they hear from birth. Barbie is a powerful way to transfer emotions they may not even be aware of until Barbie acts them out.
Barbie is a springboard.
Barbie, especially in all of today's forms, encourages a child to dare to think they, too, can be a doctor, a pilot, a business woman, a shop owner, or even a mom.
I would no more erase her contribution to my daughters' young years, than I would her contributions to my own. Barbie takes a girl from make believing to believing she can make it - whatever her "IT" turns out to be.
That being said, I realize Barbie will forever have her detractors - those people for whom a long legged, plastic doll with decidely Cali-girl features will spell anti-feminism, gender bias, and impossible-to-reach standards. But in my home, I have three well rounded, charitable, focused, secure, dynamic, proactive daughters - all of whom have at one time embraced the magic of their Barbies, reveled in the "what ifs" of make believe with her, and have now moved on to the "what will be's" of their very real, very involved, very forward moving lives.
Now, more than ever, Barbie embodies what the new Mattel site is about. Barbie Believes In Girls.
And so do I.
Join us at WeBelieveInGirls.com . Girl Power is waiting there for you.
(But if you find you need more, I hear tickets are still easy to come by for that Spice Girls extravaganza. Scary....)
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