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Does Barbie Really Make Us Dysfunctional?

Does the Lammily doll try to convince us we need to be average?

Barbie, a beautiful doll to millions of girls across the country, has been previously criticized for reflecting an unrealistic physical standard met by very few women. However, what girl in the U.S. has not grown up playing with this pop culture icon? Nickolay Lamm recently went out on a limb by designing a more “realistic” image of the Barbie doll. He
wondered if it would be better for today’s girl to play with a more realistic doll that reflected the true standard female body measurements of today’s woman.

His study in body comparison resulted in a “real” doll line called “Lammily”.
With the slogan, “Average is beautiful”, Lammily showcases dolls that reflect the idea that average is beautiful and cool. Average is okay.
Lamm believes this could prevent young girls from having low self-esteem in the future. The goal of Lammily is to provide a new alternative for young girls and their parents.

Does Barbie really make us dysfunctional?

We took a look at Lammily with a real body image and.well, honestly, we didn’t like the way it looked.

Rather than blaming Barbie for low self-esteem, perhaps we should look beyond mere physical appearance. We believe, that if society focused more on education and making education more affordable for everyone, women would grow up with a greater sense of self-esteem. Confidence and self-esteem are tied to knowledge and knowledge is power.
Low self-esteem is not necessarily tied to the doll women chose to play with when they were 7 years old. I have two close friends who grew up playing with Barbie. One of whom actually had a “Barbie Room” designated in her house that was filled with nothing but Barbies. Both women are now  extremely successful businesswomen.
Both have a great sense of self-esteem.
Both are beautiful, smart and powerful.
Did Barbie make them feel “less than”? I highly doubt it.

Who says we have to be average like Lammily dolls?
Who says we can’t be pretty, powerful and strong?
Perhaps people think there has to be reciprocity to make the world right.
After all, a girl can’t be smart AND pretty, right? Cindy Crawford is a supermodel that also happened to be Valedictorian of her class and majored in chemical engineering at Northwestern. Maybe this type of woman is a threat to your average man in America. After all, one of the most powerful forces in the Universe is a beautiful, smart woman.

So relax, it is okay to have a pretty doll that takes you away to a fantasy world as a young child. After all, isn’t it okay for kids to dream and play? By playing and imagining, children will eventually manifest the life of their dreams. If you take that away, what is left but mediocrity?

Is a man attempting to take charge by trying to suppress the image of women as beautiful, smart and empowered by convincing us we need to be “average”, unattractive and neutral? Are we supposed to be okay with being “average”? Perhaps this is a way to play upon women’s emotions to make millions; one man making a profit by changing the image of Barbie?

What do YOU think?

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