Barbie and Rape Culture

A friend of mine has a seven year-old daughter.  She is bright, beautiful, cherubic, and kind.  Between the attributes she’s been blessed with and the fine guidance of her parents, she’s in a perfect position to capitalize on the hard-won victories of her female predecessors.  She truly can be whatever she wants to be, and that is a blessing.Kate loves animals- she’s interested in observing them, caring for them and discovering names for them.  What’s interesting, though, is that unlike many kids her age, her attention hasn’t shifted since she was a toddler.  Animals are her passion, and assuming that doesn’t change, a career in veterinary medicine might be the perfect path for her.  Of the things that could encourage her to think seriously about being a vet, I hope this isn't one of them:This is "Pet Vet" Barbie from Mattel's "I Can Be" series, apparently depicting the kinds of professionals little girls can be if they emulate Barbie.  I encountered this gift (the image reflects the exact same doll and packaging) when another friend of mine’s four year-old daughter asked me for help in opening it this Christmas.  Initially I didn't see what the doll was supposed to be dressed as.  Not just at first glance, but frankly after a few seconds, I concluded the doll was in a waitress outfit- and not a particularly conservative one.  How else to explain the perilously short pink skirt and hose with some flowery fringe, a name tag, that sash thing, and the equivalent of  four-inch platform shoes?   Josie handed me the plastic box and I saw the "I Can Be" logo on it someplace.  I remember thinking, "there's nothing wrong with being a waitress; it's an honest job.  I waited tables for years.  But it doesn't seem like the kind of thing they'd ask girls to aspire to for a career.""She's a waitress, right?" I asked out loud, mostly to myself although Josie was right there.  She is both adorable and precocious.  She wrinkled her nose and looked at me like I was an idiot."No," she said, "she a vet doctor and makes animals better."Oh.Barbie, in this box, doesn't look like a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.  I dated one once in New York, actually a brilliant eye-surgeon for dogs who makes a fantastic living at a respected clinic.  She's very beautiful, but she doesn't wear hot-pink platform shoes and a mini-skirt to work.  She wears comfortable, rubber-soled shoes and loose-fitting scrubs to work, usually covered by a white lab coat depending on what she's doing.  In fact, I've never seen any medical professional dressed the way this doll was.  Are there vets who wear heels at work?  A guy I grew up with is a physician and farmer in rural Wisconsin- my guess is the female vets he encounters don't, but I could be wrong.  A short skirt and four inch heels could be a plus when walking from the truck to the barn to assist in the birth of a calf during a snowstorm.I'm hardly the first person to criticize the Barbie phenomenon, a uniquely American craze that's been in existence for 50 years.  Ever since high school and a disturbing but spot-on poem entitled "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy, I have been aware of the unrealistic and cruel standard that Barbie dolls set for the girls who love them.  That's an issue, and a legitimate one.  I suppose an argument could be made that focusing on what girls can grow to be, through a Barbie fantasy, can be healthy and encouraging despite her cartoonish dimensions and features that almost no girls can hope to "achieve."  Fine.  There is a place for pretty dolls, I guess, and if those dolls are also portrayed as smart, learned professionals, it can be a good thing.  But is it necessary to showcase the "I Can Be" Barbie in clothes that, while sexy and fashionable, are completely inappropriate for the practice of the career being described?  To be fair, there are other Barbie outfits for this and similar professional jobs that are much more appropriate.  So why is this one marketed at all?  Veterinarians don't wear this- they just don't.  If anyone pictures a veterinarian this way, he's probably a basement-dwelling weirdo with deeper issues.So what does Barbie have to do with rape or rape culture?  Rape culture is described more eloquently by others, including my friend and colleague Jaclyn Friedman here.  Basically, it's a societal acceptance and even encouragement of sexualized violence based on norms, attitudes and practices within a culture.  Our culture objectifies women sexually in so many ways it's silly to offer a single example.  That is what it is.  I'm not against sex appeal and I'm not about to categorize women generally as helpless victims, unable to control or use their own sexuality to whatever aims they choose.But in the hands of a child, something especially damaging occurs- something devaluing, objectifying and wrong- when the focus of a grown-up doll (otherwise portrayed as an educated, accomplished professional) remains her sexuality.  When the doll portrayed as the vet, pediatrician, engineer, lawyer, etc, is also shoe-horned into the trappings of rank sexuality, then it's really not the degree she holds or the skills she's developed that count.  It's what she has to offer for the physical gratification of men that counts.  That way, she's more of an object- an object with a degree, maybe, but an object nonetheless.  And objects are there to use, not interact with, negotiate with, get to know and value, the way fellow human beings are.  I use a screwdriver; I don't seek to get to know it and pursue an equitable, give-and-take relationship with it for mutual goals.  Teach me from childhood that a woman is a similar tool and at least I'll regard her as something for my amusement.  At worst I'll regard her as something I can push around and enjoy despite what she wants.  Teach girls, in clear and unsubtle ways, that what really matters (no matter what professional goal they achieve) is how they present in some impractical, fetishized version of the dress of that profession, and at least they'll value themselves less than they should.  At worst, they'll come to expect and accept being pushed around, used, and even raped.I know there are millions of women who played with Barbies as little girls and are healthy, happy adults despite her fictional standards.  That's fine.  But if Mattel is interested in maturing and professionalizing Barbie in certain circumstances, they'd do better to mark a clear line between dress-up Barbie and career Barbie.   The more the lines are blurred, the less the woman matters as a person.  That's rape culture.