Agora Journal Volume 11, 2020
I Can be Anything, Barbie Girl
Jaime Goudreau-Riopel

For generations, girls have had one toy in common that they have played with: Barbie.
When I was little, my mom gave me the Barbies that she played with when she was a kid. Barbie
has been around for a very long time, and Barbie has gone through many changes since she was
first introduced in 1959 (Gerber, 2019) by Ruth Handler through the company she founded with
Harold Matson called Mattel (Encyclopedia.com, 2019). Barbie’s overall popularity has not died
even after being around for generations. She is still loved and adored meanwhile influencing
children around the world today. Within this paper, we are going to go through various studies

and examine how the Barbie doll (a popular icon for decades) affects youth long term when it
comes to possible future occupations, self-image and what Mattel has done to try and combat
these issues. I will also be providing a small personal reflection throughout the paper pulling
from the evidence gathered from these studies and making the evidence come more to life.
When Barbie was first created, she reinforced traditional gender roles by being marketed
as a homemaker, just like the family dynamic that was common at the time. Except, as time went
on, Barbie was suddenly seen within different roles other than just being a homemaker. Since
Barbie was first created, she “has represented more than 200 careers in her lifetime, from a
variety of fields (like Teacher, Scientist, and Beekeeper)” (Gerber, 2019, p. 83). Having Barbie
assume these different roles within the workforce creates a direct effect on the children playing
with them because they can imagine themselves within all these different roles. With this in
mind, Sherman & Zurbriggen used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor that found woman are
“nearly twice as likely as men to be employed in social service occupations, and nearly 3 times
as likely as men to work in personal care, service, educational, or library occupations” (2014,
195). They explain that this could be because of the “impact of gender role socialization”
(Sherman & Zurbriggen, 2014, p. 195); this is the “process through which children learn to abide
by culturally prescribed norms for behaviours that result in the perpetuation of gender
stereotypes” (Sherman & Zurbriggen, 2014, p. 195). As a result in 2014, Sherman and
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Zurbriggen conducted a study that looked at children (boys and girls) who played with a fashion
Barbie, a Doctor Barbie or a Mr. Potato Head to see if childhood experience may relate to
choice of occupation (2014). This is a very interesting study to conduct since Barbie is seen over
the years in so many varying occupations. This brings up the question of whether having Barbie
in these different job’s influences children's choices directly about their desired profession once
they are older. They found at the end of Sherman and Zurbriggen’s study that the girls within

their experiment averaged slightly more towards the female-dominated occupations than the
male-dominated occupations as their future job possibilities (2014). Sherman and Zurbriggen
(2014) also found that across certain conditions and occupation types, girls perceived those
occupations being possibilities for boys rather than were possibilities for themselves (2014). This
is very saddening to read since Barbie’s whole slogan is based around the fact that you can be
anything if you are a Barbie Girl (Mattel.com, 2019). Being as popular as Barbie is, you would
think that she would have a positive connotation for those who play with her. Even when

reflecting on my childhood, I played with the dolls that were similar to my female family
members and rejected the ones that would allow me to be in a more male dominated occupation
because I could not see myself within those roles, which is the exact same results the study by
Sherman and Zurbriggen (2014) demonstrated.
Like many girls across the globe, when I was growing up, I had a large collection of
Barbies. When looking at those who own Barbie dolls, we can see the doll ownership rates
among different countries. It is estimated that in the United States, girls aged 4 to 7 years old,
have an average ownership rate of 59%, and Australian girls aged 6 to 9 years old are estimated
to have over 80% ownership rate. (Ricea, Prichardb, Tiggemanna & Slater, 2016) According to
Dittmar, Halliwell and Ive in 2006, a Barbie doll was sold somewhere around the world every
half-second (p. 283-284). Knowing how popular Barbie is with youth, it is easier to do research
and see how Barbie affects a child’s self-esteem and their self-image. With this in mind, Ricea et
al. sought out to find the answer we are all wondering: does the exposure of the Barbie doll pose
any negative allocations on our youth, specifically when it comes to thin-ideal internalization,
body esteem, and body dissatisfaction? It is interesting to look at children, because this thin ideal
is evident among 5 to 6 year old girls and remains stable throughout childhood into adolescence
and adulthood. This is very interesting since the desirability to be thin in 6 year old girls is not
evident in their male counterparts (Ricea et al., 2016, p. 143). You may be wondering why this is
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the case, and it is important to note that there could be a lot of factors contributing to this
mindset, like the media and peers. However, it is key to look at what is a prevalent factor in
many little girls' lives: dolls that are very thin like Barbie, Bratz and Disney Princesses, which
are marketed to young girls (Ricea et al., 2016, p. 143). Perhaps having these dolls are severely
impacting the overall health of these girls due to unrealistic body standards that are established
because they are simply unattainable. In the study, Ricea et al. found that of those 160 girls (aged

5-8) from Adelaide, South Australia, who participated (2016, p. 142) had higher thin-ideal
internalization. So, the next question that comes up is, what does this all mean? Perhaps the next
step for parents and teachers is to educate the youth on healthy eating habits, the importance of
self-love and acceptance of oneself. The answer is simply not to just eliminate the doll because
Barbie will never truly go away since she is such an icon in many of our parents and their
parents' childhoods. Parents will want to share their experience with their children and that could
simply be through a doll; however, Mattel could try by rebranding Barbie as we know it into a

doll with a body positive manner. It would cost Mattel a lot of money and would be a risk, but it
would help the generation of tomorrow, and that is more important than money.
When looking at the original Barbie, she does not look like any female figure in my life
because her body is not at all life-like. She is lean, extremely tall and has a picture-perfect
essence to her. According to Nesbitt et al. (2019), “there are well-documented negative body
image effects related to exposure to Barbie, including reduced body esteem and body
satisfaction, higher body size discrepancy, thin-ideal internalization and desire for thinness, and
restrictive eating behaviour” (Nesbitt et al., 2019, p. 1-2). These negative implications are not
newly evident either. In 2006, Dittmar et al. quoted a study from 1996 that found that this overall
thin desire not only increased with age within girls, but is not as present in young boys. This
study that Dittmar et al. found that 40% of girls from age 8 to age 9 wanted to be thinner,
compared with 79% of girls from age 11 to age 12 (p. 284). As for specific behaviours Dittmar et
al. observed within the young girls they studied found that they had a lower body esteem, actualideal body size discrepancy and actual-adult body size discrepancy (2006, p. 286). Now what
does this mean to us reading this data? This means that “both lowered body esteem and wanting
a thinner body are indicators of body dissatisfaction, which can lead to serious consequences
such as depressed affect and unhealthy eating behaviors, particularly dieting, which, in turn, is a
precursor of eating disorders” (Dittmar et al., 2006, p. 290). To address these issues, “Mattel
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recently introduced three new Barbie dolls with varying body types: ‘tall’, ‘curvy’, and ‘petite’”
(Nesbitt et al., 2019, p. 2). When I first heard about these new dolls that were launched, I was
beyond excited since I myself am not lean and tall like the original barbie, so I felt like I could
not relate to her even if I wanted to. Within this article they did a study to see if they were to
show 38 children/adolescents these three new Barbies and get them to perceive and evaluate the
new Barbie body types on Attractiveness, Pleasantness and Desirability. Nesbitt et al. (2019)

study found the following:
The curvy Barbie was perceived as the most pleasant (or “likeable”) body type, but also as
the least desirable and the least attractive. In contrast, the original and tall Barbie
representations were both rated low for pleasantness, but high for desirability and
attractiveness. The petite Barbie, however, was revealed as the most preferred body type
overall. (p. 9)

I think that this is very interesting since the petite body probably resembled the girls in question
since they were all children/adolescents. Now when we look at the traditional Barbie, Sherman
and Zurbriggen’s 2014 study stated all the negative health effects of her image because of the
way she was created and Nesbitt et al.’s 2019 study clearly demonstrates the desire for a
different type of body for Barbie by young girls/adolescence. This desire even extends to the
everyday person like myself, demonstrated by the excitement I had when I heard the news. When
looking at both studies, they demonstrate results that change is necessary. As for the new dolls, I

wonder if this is a step in a new direction for Barbie or if this is just a way for Mattel to try and
maintain their popularity with young girls by getting on the good side of those who are buying
their products. When playing the devil's advocate, it could be a way to boost sales and get on the
good side of consumers; however, Mattel could generally be trying to do something good to help
the generation of tomorrow.
Barbie has been around for 61 years, and it does not look like she is going away anytime
soon. When looking at the data presented to us, Barbie poses many issues for the youth that play
with her. These issues include lack in self competence when it comes to future possibilities, selfesteem issues that extend to very serious issues regarding self-image and a desire, even after
Mattel introduced new dolls, for the original design that reinforces a desire for thinness.
Ultimately this leads to a higher body size discrepancy, and potentially unhealthy eating habits
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that can severely harm youth. As for Barbie and her popularity, I do not see her going away
anytime soon especially since new dolls are introduced every year. As for now, all I can say is to
those who are reading this essay, that you can be anything you want to be, without being a
Barbie Girl.

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References
Dittmar, H., Hallwell, E., & Ive, S. (2006). Does Barbie make girls want to be thin? The effect of
experimental exposure to images of dolls on the body image of 5- to 8-year old girls.
American Psychological Association, 42(2), 283-292. Doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.42.2.283
Encyclopia.com. (2019). Ruth Handler. In Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved from

https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/ruthhandler
Gerber, R. (2019). Barbie Forever: Her Inspiration, History, and Legacy. Booklist, 116(8), 83.
Mattel.com. (2019). Barbie. In Mattel.com. Retrieved on May 22, 2020, from
https://barbie.mattel.com/en-us/about/you-can-be-anything.html
Nesbitt, A., Sabiston, C., DeJonge, M., Solomon-Krakus, S., & Welsh, T. (2019). Barbie's new
look: Exploring cognitive body representation among female children and adolescents.
Plos One, 14(6), 1-18. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218315
Ricea, K., Prichard, I., Tiggemann, M., & Slater, A. (2016). Exposure to Barbie: Effects on thinideal internalization, body esteem, and body dissatisfaction among young girls. Body
Image: An International Journal of Research, 19, 142-149.
Zurbriggen, E., & Sherman, A. (2014). 'Boys Can Be Anything': Effect of Barbie Play on Girls'

Career Cognitions. Sex Roles, 70(5-6), 195-208.

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