thedailylearn: OK BUT Y’all know I’m all about...

29th November 2011

Photo reblogged from Non est facilis viream with 145,067 notes

thedailylearn:

OK BUT
Y’all know I’m all about body love and positive portrayals in the media, but Barbie was designed AS A DOLL. Her exaggerated figure is meant to be clothed. Seam allowances are much larger, percentage-wise, on tiny figures than on life-size ones. When clothed, she is not any worse than a fairly slim, tall Caucasian woman. Which is its own battle, but my point is that Barbie is not meant to portray the ideal nude body. So whenever I see people getting all up in arms about Barbie’s naked body, it seems to me like they’re picking a fight, a little bit.

But… people give Barbies to three-year-olds. Little kids are forming a ton of ideas about the world but they’re not thinking terribly deeply about them, and they’re not all that great at distinguishing realism from exaggeration. Even if they keep their Barbies clothed most of the time (and, anecdata: most Barbies in the possession of little kids spend a substantial amount of time naked or half-naked), they’ll still see plenty of Barbie’s body.
And Barbie’s body may be the only nude body they see. Depending on their family, their school, and their level of Internet access, they may not see realistic depictions of naked bodies — let alone, like, actual naked people — for at least another decade. At that point most will have already formed ideas about body size and started to act on them, whether they’re accurate and healthy or not. (“By middle school, thirty to forty percent of American girls say they feel too fat, and twenty to forty percent are dieting-many by the age of ten.”)
It’s easy to look at Barbie and say that it’s only a doll. And if kids had plenty of dolls to play with that showed different kinds of human bodies, this would be a whole different story. But Barbie is one of the only dolls that kids are given that actually look like a “realistic” adult (as opposed to a baby doll, or a humanoid abstraction like Raggedy Ann), and for many kids it’s one of very few available opportunities to learn what a nude adult body is supposed to be. When kids look at Barbie they’re not thinking about seam allowances — they’re thinking, “This is what a grown-up looks like under their clothes”, and there’s little else around to teach them otherwise. That’s the problem.

OK BUT

Y’all know I’m all about body love and positive portrayals in the media, but Barbie was designed AS A DOLL. Her exaggerated figure is meant to be clothed. Seam allowances are much larger, percentage-wise, on tiny figures than on life-size ones. When clothed, she is not any worse than a fairly slim, tall Caucasian woman. Which is its own battle, but my point is that Barbie is not meant to portray the ideal nude body. So whenever I see people getting all up in arms about Barbie’s naked body, it seems to me like they’re picking a fight, a little bit.

But… people give Barbies to three-year-olds. Little kids are forming a ton of ideas about the world but they’re not thinking terribly deeply about them, and they’re not all that great at distinguishing realism from exaggeration. Even if they keep their Barbies clothed most of the time (and, anecdata: most Barbies in the possession of little kids spend a substantial amount of time naked or half-naked), they’ll still see plenty of Barbie’s body.

And Barbie’s body may be the only nude body they see. Depending on their family, their school, and their level of Internet access, they may not see realistic depictions of naked bodies — let alone, like, actual naked people — for at least another decade. At that point most will have already formed ideas about body size and started to act on them, whether they’re accurate and healthy or not. (“By middle school, thirty to forty percent of American girls say they feel too fat, and twenty to forty percent are dieting-many by the age of ten.”)

It’s easy to look at Barbie and say that it’s only a doll. And if kids had plenty of dolls to play with that showed different kinds of human bodies, this would be a whole different story. But Barbie is one of the only dolls that kids are given that actually look like a “realistic” adult (as opposed to a baby doll, or a humanoid abstraction like Raggedy Ann), and for many kids it’s one of very few available opportunities to learn what a nude adult body is supposed to be. When kids look at Barbie they’re not thinking about seam allowances — they’re thinking, “This is what a grown-up looks like under their clothes”, and there’s little else around to teach them otherwise. That’s the problem.

Source: imakenopromises

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