Further expanding the idea the children’s toys play a huge role on providing the information that children learn their roles and expectations of gender, it seems that society is shifting to eliminating certain roles assigned to the female gender. Barbie originally was a prime suspect that defied what women can and can’t do. She stood for femininity and the jobs that only women had or could even achieve. The fantastic feminist doll, a non gender specific doll that was created off the the image that Barbie defined, was a way to promote this elimination of assigned roles and gender categorization that was prevalent in the seventies. However, Barbie has evolved, and the doll similar to the fantastic feminist doll is promoting and empowering children that they can be and do what ever they want to do. Barbie created the campaign “You can be anything” which has a main goal to empower little girls to be what ever they want.
For example, there is a “game developer” barbie, a pilot barbie, and “a president and vice president” barbie. I fully agree with this idea and think it is great for children to imagine all the possibilities and jobs that a women can pursue. When looking further into this idea, I came across a page that was linked to the President Barbie, http://www.sheshouldrun.org. This link is empowering little girls to believe that they can run for president and is teaching them that they can do what ever they want if they put their mind to it.
Monday, October 17, 2016