Barbie book sends girls the wrong message-Lori says no MERGE

[FloraKitty35]

Lori and Ken are a real life Commander Fred and Serena Joy.

[Bluenoser]

Sure. No doubt those choices are as arbitrary as the ones made in the books/illustrations below:

I'm unfamiliar with the context of these books, so I'm not sure if your response is snarky or in agreement.

Firiel - While I may not agree with your opinion, I appreciate you taking the time to write out a long response and I will read it in it's entirety when you get around to posting it.

[jaelh]

I'm unfamiliar with the context of these books, so I'm not sure if your response is snarky or in agreement.

Firiel - While I may not agree with your opinion, I appreciate you taking the time to write out a long response and I will read it in it's entirety when you get around to posting it.

Bluenose - it was a perfectly sincere reply.

They were a random assortment of book covers I found googling "children's book + (Japan/Saudi/India).

The content of the books isn't necessary to the point.

Do you think depicting the mother in a salwar top, in the Indian book, is arbitrary? Probably. But the arbitrariness is the product of the choices available to an Indian (? likely) writing an Indian children's book. See also a hajib on the Saudi girl, and kimonos on the Japanese children.

Every choice we make is within invisible constraints; what seems to be 'normal', 'arbitrary' or 'chance' depends on where we're standing. Those choices are "normal" only within their respective cultures.

If we were to find a children's book, written and published in say.. Canada, depicting a young woman in hajib praying, would you think that image was arbitrary? What about a woman walking down the road wearing a kimono, or salwar; or a book illustrated thus? What if in a piece of US young fiction, an author had the protagonist pray, but Islamic, not Christian prayers?

I imagine we'd not rush to say oh! arbitrary! chance! Rather; , it'd stand out to us. These 'choices' would have had to have been made as part of developing the story. Similarly; the images an ideas in the Barbie book being very normalised from our point of view, the choices are invisible. They're still there.

By the same token: If someone picked this book in say... Saudi Arabia or Eritrea or Turkmenistan or Aceh (Indonesia), would they think the choices were entirely arbitrary? Hell no. A story about a blond amazonian who uses computers and hangs out casually with men? What crazy universe are you depicting?!

Arbitrary is the product of the choices available to us. Culture shapes, defines and limits those choices.

[Bluenoser]

Arbitrary is the product of the choices available to us. Culture shapes, defines and limits those choices.

I agree with this sentiment very much. ^^

I do not subscribe to the ideaology that as a woman living in Canada I am a victim of the iron fist of patriarchy, so I don't tend to view our cultural norms as bad. I guess that's why this book doesn't outrage me.

The Barbie book failed in the way Barbie that supposed to be potrayed as intelligent and savvy and the story made little to no sense. But, it seems like some people are also upset that men helped her fix her computer. I believe the men helping Barbie are an arbitrary choice or they were trying to create contrast between Barbie and the other character in the book. Did you ever see a movie with a single gender cast and the characters were so bland and under developed that you couldn't tell them apart? Barbie is banal and so is her world.

[GolightlyGrrl]

What is so bothersome is Barbie is supposed to be a computer engineer yet is completely dense when it comes to fixing her computer. This is something she should be able to do with her eyes closed.

Now if Barbie and a couple of technie dudes were working on developing a new app I wouldn't get too upset because technical advances are often team efforts.

And I'm sick of Lori using the Bible to justify her stupidity, laziness and all around incompetence.

[jaelh]

I agree with this sentiment very much. ^^

I do not subscribe to the ideaology that as a woman living in Canada I am a victim of the iron fist of patriarchy, so I don't tend to view our cultural norms as bad. I guess that's why this book doesn't outrage me.

The Barbie book failed in the way Barbie that supposed to be potrayed as intelligent and savvy and the story made little to no sense. But, it seems like some people are also upset that men helped her fix her computer. I believe the men helping Barbie are an arbitrary choice or they were trying to create contrast between Barbie and the other character in the book. Did you ever see a movie with a single gender cast and the characters were so bland and under developed that you couldn't tell them apart? Barbie is banal and so is her world.

Actually, I entirely agree with everything you're saying too - but I'd put the cultural argument back on you. The dominance of men in comp sci/the idea of men as more technically minded than women - these are often unspoken assumptions in how we, in the west, do things (forget about how other cultures do things!) The whole "women in tech" movement came about in response to that.

This is a book where girls are told that Barbie, presumably as a 'teach girls about all the options open to them' is a computer engineer. And in that book, Barbie does no engineering and those ^ norms up there somehow work their way into the text.

So it might be entirely arbitrary. But, while purporting to subvert them, perfectly reflects back to us a whole lot of implicit cultural assumptions about women and mens differing ability with technology. (FWIW: I'm seeing the graphic artist/need help as two sides of the same coin)

It's not about being a victim of the iron fist of anything :) Rather, it's acknowledging we live within a system that's full of implicit values and understandings. It's not all bad. It's how we make sense of the world - if we had a construct meaning from every interaction and experience we'd be overloaded with information. But at the same time, the assumptions come at a cost, and men and women bear those costs differently.

In the case of this 'ere book, any one of a number of 'arbitrary' choices could have been made. It's just they made one that doesn't challenge expectations of how women interact with technology; it perpetuates it.

. Did you ever see a movie with a single gender cast and the characters were so bland and under developed that you couldn't tell them apart? Barbie is banal and so is her world.

YES. and this banal world? This is the banal world we're selling to young girls. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

[FloraKitty35]

Barbie of the 80's isn't the Barbie of today. It makes me think of Lisa Simpson and Malibu Stacy.

[Firiel]

Firiel - While I may not agree with your opinion, I appreciate you taking the time to write out a long response and I will read it in it's entirety when you get around to posting it.

Okay, so here’s my opinion.

First, I want to clarify that my opinions that these choices weren’t arbitrary doesn’t, in any way, mean that I think the author of this book was a misogynist or wanted to subversively prove that women need men because women are helpless. But the choices made in this book reflect underlying cultural assumptions and traditions, just like the choices made in any book, movie, etc. I also want to note that at this point, I’m talking about texts being affected by culture, not specifically feminism. I will bring it back there, but not right now. Most of these examples are not meant to be seen as positive or negative.

Your question was whether the choices in the book could be arbitrary, and I really don’t think they can (in general—some might be). I don’t buy the concept of completely arbitrary choices. Completely unconscious choices, yes, but unconscious doesn’t mean arbitrary. I just want to look at a few choices that seem SUPER arbitrary (and in reality, are not that important). In the book, the game is about a puppy that does tricks. Now, why did the author choose to use a puppy? If you are asking why she used a puppy instead of a kitty or a bunny, then, yeah, between those, it’s a pretty arbitrary choice. But widen it out a bit. Why didn’t she use a goat or a snake or a rat? Those animals simply do not have the cultural connotation of “cute and cuddly†that a Barbie book would be going for. Barbie is a fairly stereotypically “feminine†character who is targeted towards girls who like stereotypically “feminine†things. We (as a culture) don’t understand rats to be cute animals (even though some individuals might think they are cute), so they don’t come to mind when you are deciding which animal to use in a fictional, cutesy video game.

For another example, you can look at one of the supporting character’s names. One of the dudes is named Brian, right? Why Brian? Well, if you are choosing between Brian, Andrew, and Keith, that might be pretty arbitrary. But it would seem kind of weird if the guy were named Howard. Or Eldon. Those are both names, but culturally, we in the US associate those named with older gentleman, so those names would not immediately come to mind when naming a high school character.

Now back to the feminism aspect of it. Studies show that female characters are still vastly underrepresented in film. If the gender of the main character were a totally arbitrary decision, there wouldn’t be a discrepancy—the breakdown would be essentially 50/50. There is something in our cultural understanding that makes us more likely to choose (even unconsciously) to make the main character male. I think it’s the fact that the patriarchy (which isn’t an obviously scary, oppressive regime but rather just a collection of cultural assumptions and societal norms) influences us to see the world from a male point of view, where “male†is the default.

It’s similar assumptions (IMO) that led to the unconscious choices in the Barbie book. Is it an arbitrary choice that Barbie isn’t really coding or creating the game in the book ("I'm only creating the design ideas. I'll need Steven's and Brian's help to turn it into a real game!")? I don’t think so. Computer engineering is a male-dominated field, so I think that the cultural assumption that men work on computers led to the unconscious decision that Barbie (who is apparently a computer engineer) doesn’t, you know, write any software and is instead more of a game/graphic designer (there isn’t anything wrong with being a graphic designer, but it is a stereotypically more “feminine†field in our culture). Also, maybe it’s arbitrary that Barbie was helped by two men (I can see the author having Barbie and Skipper and wanting to toss some male characters into the mix for good measure). But generally, in Western culture, the protagonist in a story helps someone or saves the day (not saying it should be that way, but it typically is). What caused the author to depart from that common trope to the opposite, where the protagonist must be rescued because of her mistakes? I think it has a lot to do with the unconscious, embedded cultural understanding that men have more of an inherent ability to be a computer engineer (you hear it all the time—men have more spatial awareness, men are better at math, etc.).

WALL OF TEXT COMPLETE.

[BrownieMomma]

I'm a "retired" military wife. I've done it all because I had to do it. When the hubs was on the other side of the world (literally), its not like he could have rushed home to do something. I have a bumper sticker "Navy Wife...toughest job in the Navy". Trust me, that ain't bullshit.

Way OT, forgive the intrustion...

So often I see and hear servicemen and women applauded for their service. "Thank you for your service to our country." All deserved.

Lately it just has been occurring to me that the wives who stay behind and keep the home fires burning are serving our country as well. I've never seen any accolades for them, it occurs to me they are the unsung heroes.

Feministxtian, thank you. I feel you deserve it as much as your hubs does.

[BrownieMomma]

Back to topic...

I played with Barbie as a child. I loved loved loved my Barbies. I had cases, I loved their silly shoes, I had the most beautiful fancy wedding dress, I had cars... never got the dreamhouse, a major childhood disappointment. I had Ken, Skipper, Tracy and who all else.

I don't have any residual attachment. I don't get all warm and fuzzy inside upon seeing Barbie stuff. Once I got out of childhood, I was just kinda over dolls.

There were plenty of things that warped me but I honestly do not believe Barbie had anything to do with it. Barbie was a tool for my imagination - I owned her, she did not direct me or drive me. I have never felt I needed to look like Barbie - and I do feel that Barbie might reflect the culture but it is driven from other sources.

It was far more damaging to me to be constantly inundated with models. All those beautiful pictures that I could never compete with, even though I was pretty enough in high school to get nominated for Most Beautiful every year, I never won.

For some reason I did not identify with people around me. I identified more with people like celebrities. I did not like the redneck culture, in my high school the biggest org by far was FFA, Future Farmers of America. I did not fit in with my prissy city girl ways. I had also come from a large white community near Atlanta where there was exactly one black girl at my school. It was a huge culture shock to move to a community that was 50% black/50% white country folks. So I guess I took up the habit of looking elsewhere for people to identify with.

I'm getting off the subject here... yeah I'm disappointed Barbie the Computer Tech had to get some boys to help her with hard stuff. I guess she gets boys to help her with math too. /sigh She probably makes great sandwiches!

I wouldn't let my daughter have Bratz but in retrospect I probably gave it too much credence. If I feel inadequate as a woman, it is not because of the dolls I played with as a child.

Edited for stray sentence fragment

[Rescinded and Mended]

Barbie never really influenced me as a kid, either. I never wanted to look like her or be her in any way. I did think she had some really cool stuff, like the clothes and the dream house, and wanted a lot of that as a kid.

But mainly, I was more interested in marrying Barbie off to Optimus Prime. Megatron was always the maid of honor, and I usually had Starscream or one of the other Autobots walk her down the aisle.

I was a weird kid. :lol:

[sparkles]

I'm only creating the design ideas. I'll need Steven's and Brian's help to turn it into a real game!

Those two sentences alone speak volumes. Barbie marginalizes and denigrates her contributions, first with the "only" then by hinting that it's the guys who will turn it into something "real". How about: "I'm working on the front end, designing the interface and graphics, then Steven and Brian will be working on the back end coding my design. It takes a great team to bring a new game to fruition!"

I had a boatload of Barbies as a kid––the whole shebang (remember Midge)? She was certainly never something I aspired to be but the Barbie crew made good support troops when we played combat games in the empty lot round the corner. So did my Madame Alexanders, much to my grandmother's horror.

[Firiel]

Those two sentences alone speak volumes. Barbie marginalizes and denigrates her contributions, first with the "only" then by hinting that it's the guys who will turn it into something "real". How about: "I'm working on the front end, designing the interface and graphics, then Steven and Brian will be working on the back end coding my design. It takes a great team to bring a new game to fruition!"

I had a boatload of Barbies as a kid––the whole shebang (remember Midge)? She was certainly never something I aspired to be but the Barbie crew made good support troops when we played combat games in the empty lot round the corner. So did my Madame Alexanders, much to my grandmother's horror.

Great point. I hadn't even thought of that-- your analysis is spot on.

[thoughtful]

If the book was called "Barbie, I can be a graphic designer" (or artist, or, for that matter, beekeeper, deep sea diver or kindergarten teacher) it might not have been as much of a problem.

But to have the premise be that she is a computer engineer, after which we find out that the men need to do the actual programming, not to mention fixing what she screwed up when just trying to use her computer, is bizarre.

It's like the title of the book didn't even make it register that Barbie would be able to do those things, because vagina (well, flat plastic place where a vagina would be :D ).

[feministxtian]

Way OT, forgive the intrustion...

So often I see and hear servicemen and women applauded for their service. "Thank you for your service to our country." All deserved.

Lately it just has been occurring to me that the wives who stay behind and keep the home fires burning are serving our country as well. I've never seen any accolades for them, it occurs to me they are the unsung heroes.

Feministxtian, thank you. I feel you deserve it as much as your hubs does.

Thank You!!!!!!

At my husband's retirement ceremony...I was also presented with a letter from the CO of the ship, our local legislators and the president thanking me for MY service...I was shocked to say the least!

Being a military spouse is HARD...long hours, lousy pay and not a job for a weenie, whiny, delicate flower. I met a few of those over the years..either there was a divorce or the spouse ended up leaving the service. Us tough old battle axes stayed the course.

Kenori...I'd LOVE to see you survive ONE, just ONE Westpac 9 month deployment (and there ain't no mid-tour leave in those).